The Ming Dynasty was the last Chinese dynasty to be ruled by a Han Chinese Imperial line. The dynasty began with the 1368 overthrow of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty by Han Chinese rebels, and ended with the fall of Beijing to Manchu invaders in 1644, marking the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, China's last imperial dynasty.
The Ming is known for numerous prominent cultural developments, including the voyages of Zheng He, the development of kunqu drama, and the rise of literati painting (and concordant decline in appreciation for court painting), and the reconstruction of the Great Wall and Forbidden City. Much of the Ming elements of the Great Wall and Forbidden City survive today.
The Ming Dynasty was also the first to establish tribute relations with Japan (briefly, under the Ashikaga shogunate), and with the Ryûkyû Kingdom. Though the Ming, at times, implemented strict policies of maritime restrictions, in other ways, or at other times, it was also a high point of trade and foreign relations.
Foreign Relations
Having overthrown the Mongols, the first foreign (barbarian) group to conquer all of China, and who ruled for nearly a hundred years, the Ming have been described as perpetually paranoid about the Mongols. The Ming Court rebuilt and expanded the Great Wall of China, and in the 1410s-20s launched five military expeditions deep into Mongolia. The Dynasty remained at war with various Mongol groups on and off for two hundred years, with one Emperor being captured by the Mongols in 1449, and a Mongol army at one point in the mid-16th century making its way to the very walls of Beijing. It was not until 1571 that the Ming managed to establish an official peace with the Mongols; and, only a few decades later, a separate group, the Manchus, came knocking on China's door.
The Yongle Emperor also launched military expeditions into Annam, but withdrew after twenty years of fighting, with no significant gains.
Formal tribute/tally trade relations were established with Japan for the first time in 1401-1402, under the Jianwen Emperor, and then continued briefly under the Yongle Emperor before being severed by Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimochi; relations were later restored.
The famous voyages of Zheng He were undertaken in the early Ming, as well. Zheng journeyed across the Indian Ocean on a series of trips from 1405-1433, ostensibly spreading awareness of the power and virtue of the Chinese Emperor, seeking nominal pledges of submission and tribute, and bringing back numerous luxuries, including exotic animals.
The Fall of the Ming
The Ming suffered their first defeat to the Manchus in 1619, and lost Beijing in 1644. Ming loyalists remained active in southern China and Taiwan into the 1680s, however, and the Ming continued to live on in the popular imagination throughout the region. Japanese popular publications continued to associate the Ming with the true Chinese rulers, or the true Chinese culture, down into the 19th century, and the royal courts & aristocracies of Korea and Ryûkyû considered themselves, in certain respects, the successors to the Ming tradition - the inheritors of the true Chinese civilization, as China proper had fallen to the "barbarians" (the Manchus).
| Preceded by: Yuan Dynasty |
Ming Dynasty 1368-1644 |
Succeeded by: Qing Dynasty |
References
- Valerie Hansen, The Open Empire, New York: W.W. Norton & Company (2000), 369-407.