Ming Dynasty

明朝 (Míng Cháo)

1368-1644 CECapital: Nanjing (1368-1421), Beijing (1421-1644)

Founded by Zhu Yuanzhang, the Hongwu Emperor (明太祖 Míng Tàizǔ)

The Ming dynasty (1368-1644 CE) was the imperial dynasty founded by the peasant rebel Zhu Yuanzhang after the expulsion of the Mongol Yuan, and the last to be ruled by ethnic Han Chinese. Governing from Nanjing and, after 1421, from Beijing, it built the Forbidden City and the brick Great Wall, sent Zheng He's fleets across the Indian Ocean, and presided over a population of over 150 million before falling to peasant rebellion and Manchu conquest in 1644.

Overview & Significance

The Ming gave China much of the physical and cultural inheritance that visitors still encounter: the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Ming Tombs, the brick Great Wall and the layout of old Beijing all date from the dynasty. It was an age of vernacular literature, and the four great novels of the Ming and early Qing remain the most read works of Chinese fiction. Ming porcelain became the first Chinese product to reach a global market, and the silver that paid for it tied China into the first world economy through Manila and Macau. The dynasty's administrative code, examination system and provincial structure passed to the Qing almost unchanged, and its autocratic concentration of power in the emperor, with grand secretaries and eunuchs as intermediaries, set the pattern of late imperial politics. Zheng He's voyages showed a capacity for maritime power that the state then chose not to use, a decision that has been debated ever since. The Ming also fixed China's northern border along the Wall and its identity as a Han Chinese state, and its name became a rallying cry for anti-Manchu movements down to the revolution of 1911.

Key Emperors

Hongwu Emperor (Zhu Yuanzhang)

Reign: 1368-1398 CE

Orphaned peasant and former Buddhist novice who rose through the Red Turban rebellion to found the Ming at Nanjing
Abolished the office of chancellor in 1380 after the Hu Weiyong case and ruled directly through the Six Ministries
Compiled the Great Ming Code and registered the population and land in the Yellow Registers and Fish-Scale Registers
Established hereditary military colonies (weisuo) intended to make the army self-supporting
Purges of 1380 and 1393 executed tens of thousands of officials and their families

Yongle Emperor (Zhu Di)

Reign: 1402-1424 CE

Seized the throne from his nephew the Jianwen Emperor in the Jingnan civil war of 1399-1402
Moved the capital to Beijing and built the Forbidden City between 1406 and 1420
Dispatched Zheng He's seven treasure fleets to Southeast Asia, India, Arabia and East Africa from 1405
Led five campaigns into Mongolia in person and occupied Vietnam from 1407 to 1427
Commissioned the Yongle Encyclopaedia (1408), the largest book compilation of the pre-modern world

Xuande Emperor (Zhu Zhanji)

Reign: 1425-1435 CE

Withdrew from Vietnam in 1427 and sent Zheng He's final voyage in 1431-1433
Governed with the 'Three Yangs' of the Grand Secretariat, the model of cooperative rule between emperor and scholar-officials
Accomplished painter whose reign name marks the peak of early Ming blue-and-white porcelain and bronze
Formalised the role of palace eunuchs in reviewing memorials, with lasting consequences

Wanli Emperor (Zhu Yijun)

Reign: 1572-1620 CE

Longest reign of the Ming; the first decade under Grand Secretary Zhang Juzheng saw fiscal reform and full granaries
Sent armies to Korea that, with the Koreans, expelled the Japanese invasion of 1592-1598
Withdrew from court audiences for decades after 1589 in a dispute over the succession, leaving posts unfilled
Received the Jesuit Matteo Ricci at Beijing in 1601, beginning direct scientific exchange with Europe

Chongzhen Emperor (Zhu Youjian)

Reign: 1627-1644 CE

Removed the eunuch dictator Wei Zhongxian on his accession in 1627
Faced simultaneous famine in the north-west, peasant armies under Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, and Manchu raids across the Wall
Executed the general Yuan Chonghuan in 1630 on suspicion of treason, weakening the northern defence
Hanged himself on Coal Hill behind the Forbidden City on 25 April 1644 as Li Zicheng entered Beijing

Timeline

Zhu Yuanzhang proclaims the Ming at Nanjing; Dadu falls in September

23 January 1368

Chinese rule restored after the Mongol Yuan

Impact: A native dynasty founded by a peasant, the second after the Han

Chancellor Hu Weiyong executed for alleged treason; the chancellorship abolished

1380 CE

The emperor took personal charge of the Six Ministries

Impact: Concentrated power in the throne and later in grand secretaries and eunuchs

Jingnan campaign: the Prince of Yan overthrows his nephew the Jianwen Emperor

1399-1402 CE

A civil war within the imperial family; Jianwen's fate is unknown

Impact: Zhu Di became the Yongle Emperor and moved the political centre north

Seven voyages of Zheng He

1405-1433 CE

Fleets of up to 300 ships reached Calicut, Hormuz, Aden and the Swahili coast

Impact: Asserted Ming prestige across the Indian Ocean; the voyages were discontinued and the ships allowed to decay

Construction of the Forbidden City and transfer of the capital to Beijing

1406-1421 CE

Beijing became the permanent capital of the Ming and Qing

Impact: The Grand Canal was dredged and expanded to supply the northern capital

Tumu Crisis: the Zhengtong Emperor captured by the Oirat Mongols

1449 CE

A Ming army of some 500,000 was destroyed near the Wall

Impact: The Ming turned to defensive wall-building rather than steppe campaigns

Altan Khan raids to the walls of Beijing

1550 CE

Showed the failure of the northern defence and of the trade embargo on the Mongols

Impact: Peace and border markets were agreed with Altan Khan in 1571

Zhang Juzheng governs as senior grand secretary

1572-1582 CE

Nationwide land survey and the Single Whip tax reform commuted labour and grain dues to silver

Impact: Treasury surpluses; the reforms lapsed after his death and posthumous disgrace

Imjin War: Ming armies help Korea repel Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasions

1592-1598 CE

Largest East Asian war of the century

Impact: Drained the treasury and weakened the garrisons of Liaodong facing the Jurchens

Matteo Ricci arrives in Beijing

1601 CE

Jesuit scholars gained a place at court through mathematics, astronomy and cartography

Impact: Translation of Euclid (1607) and the calendar reform of the 1630s

Nurhaci founds the Later Jin and destroys four Ming armies at Sarhu

1616-1619 CE

The Jurchen (later Manchu) state became the main threat to the Ming

Impact: Liaodong was lost by 1622; the Manchus took Shenyang as their capital in 1625

Famine and peasant rebellion in Shaanxi spread across north China under Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong

1627-1644 CE

Drought, plague and tax arrears during the Little Ice Age broke the northern provinces

Impact: Li Zicheng proclaimed the Shun dynasty at Xi'an in early 1644

Li Zicheng takes Beijing; the Chongzhen Emperor hangs himself

25 April 1644

End of Ming rule in Beijing

Impact: General Wu Sangui opened the Shanhai Pass to the Manchus, who entered Beijing on 6 June 1644

Southern Ming courts at Nanjing, Fuzhou, Guangzhou and in Yunnan resist the Qing

1644-1662 CE

Ming princes maintained the dynasty's claim; the Yongli Emperor was executed in 1662

Impact: Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) held Taiwan in the Ming name until his descendants surrendered in 1683

Achievements

political

Restored Chinese rule after a century of Mongol government and revived Tang and Song institutions
Concentrated power in the emperor by abolishing the chancellorship; the Grand Secretariat and the eunuch Directorate of Ceremonial filled the gap
Civil service examinations in the eight-legged essay form reached their fullest development, with provincial, metropolitan and palace levels
The Great Ming Code of 1397 remained in force, with Qing revisions, until 1912
Fifteen provinces with a system of surveillance and censorate that checked officials at every level

cultural

The vernacular novels Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Journey to the West (1592) and Plum in the Golden Vase were written or printed in Ming times
Wang Yangming (1472-1529) reshaped Neo-Confucianism around innate moral knowledge and the unity of knowledge and action
Kunqu opera emerged in the sixteenth century; Tang Xianzu's Peony Pavilion appeared in 1598
Painting of the Wu school (Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming) and Dong Qichang's theory of literati art
Commercial printing made illustrated books, encyclopaedias and examination aids widely available

technological

Song Yingxing's Tiangong Kaiwu (1637) documented Chinese agricultural and industrial technology
Li Shizhen's Bencao Gangmu (printed 1596) classified 1,892 drugs and remains a standard reference
Zheng He's treasure ships, the largest wooden vessels of their age, sailed to Africa with fleets of over 27,000 men
Xu Guangqi and Matteo Ricci translated Euclid's Elements into Chinese in 1607; Xu's Nongzheng Quanshu (1639) covered agriculture and water control
Brick and stone construction of the Great Wall, including Badaling and Mutianyu, mostly dates from the sixteenth century

military

Drove the Yuan out of China and campaigned in Mongolia; the border fortifications of the Nine Garrisons defined the northern frontier
Defeated the Japanese invasion of Korea (1592-1598) in alliance with the Joseon court
Qi Jiguang's disciplined infantry suppressed the coastal wokou pirates in the 1550s and 1560s
Adopted Portuguese cannon and matchlock muskets in the sixteenth century and cast Western-style guns with Jesuit help in the 1620s
Defeated at Tumu in 1449, when the Zhengtong Emperor was captured by the Oirat leader Esen

economic

Population grew from about 60 million in 1393 to perhaps 150-200 million by 1600
Silver from Japan and Spanish America flowed in through Manila and Macau; the Single Whip reform of the 1570s consolidated taxes into silver payments
Jingdezhen porcelain, Suzhou silk and Songjiang cotton supplied domestic and export markets
New World crops, maize, sweet potato and peanut, arrived in the sixteenth century
Maritime trade was banned by law for much of the dynasty but relaxed in 1567 at Yuegang in Fujian

religious

Tibetan Buddhism was patronised at court while Chan and Pure Land Buddhism revived under monks such as Zhuhong
Daoism enjoyed favour under the Jiajing Emperor, who devoted himself to alchemy and immortality rites
Jesuit missionaries from 1583 introduced Catholicism and European astronomy; Xu Guangqi and Li Zhizao converted
Popular sects such as the White Lotus were suppressed as subversive

Artifacts & Archaeological Evidence

Forbidden City (紫禁城), Beijing

Imperial palace complex of 72 hectares and some 980 buildings, constructed 1406-1420 and used by 24 Ming and Qing emperors

Significance: The largest surviving palace complex in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Yongle Encyclopaedia (永乐大典)

Compilation of 22,877 chapters in 11,095 volumes completed in 1408; about 400 volumes of the 1560s copy survive

Significance: The largest general encyclopaedia in history until Wikipedia; a record of many otherwise lost texts

Xuande blue-and-white porcelain (宣德青花)

Jingdezhen imperial wares of 1426-1435 painted in imported cobalt with dragons, floral scrolls and Islamic-inspired shapes, bearing the reign mark

Significance: Regarded as the classic period of blue-and-white and the model for later imitation

Ming Tombs (明十三陵), Changping

Necropolis of thirteen emperors from Yongle onwards; the Dingling tomb of the Wanli Emperor was excavated in 1956-1958

Significance: Illustrates Ming imperial ritual, architecture and burial goods including the emperor's gold crown

Bencao Gangmu (本草纲目)

Li Shizhen's compendium of materia medica in 52 chapters, completed in 1578 and printed in 1596, describing 1,892 substances and over 11,000 prescriptions

Significance: The most influential work of traditional Chinese pharmacology, inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2011

Fall of the Dynasty

The Ming fell to a combination of fiscal exhaustion, climate, rebellion and a rising power on the north-eastern frontier. The Wanli Emperor's withdrawal from government after 1589 left offices vacant and factions, above all the Donglin movement and the eunuch party of Wei Zhongxian, fighting for control. The Korean war of the 1590s and the campaigns against Nurhaci after 1618 required new taxes on a countryside already stressed by the cold, dry decades of the Little Ice Age; harvests failed in Shaanxi from 1627, and epidemic disease spread in the 1630s and 1640s. Peasant armies under Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong grew from bands of deserters into forces that took Luoyang in 1641 and Xi'an in 1643. Meanwhile the Manchus under Hong Taiji raided through the Wall five times between 1629 and 1642 and stripped the Ming of Liaodong. Li Zicheng entered Beijing on 25 April 1644 and the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself. The Ming commander at Shanhai Pass, Wu Sangui, chose to admit the Manchu regent Dorgon rather than submit to Li, and the Qing army occupied Beijing in June. Southern Ming princes held out for another eighteen years, the last being executed in Yunnan in 1662.