Ming Dynasty

The Ming Dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644. It was the last ethnic Han dynasty in China, supplanting the Mongol Yuan Dynasty before falling to the Manchu Qing Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty ({{Zh-cpw|c=明朝|p=míng cháo|w=}}) was also called The Great Ming Empire (大明帝国). Though the Ming capital, Beijing, fell in 1644, remnants of the Ming throne and power (now collectively called the Southern Ming) survived until 1662.

Origins

The Mongol Yuan Dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming Dynasty. During the rule, the Mongols' discrimination against the Han Chinese is often considered the primary cause for the end of Yuan rule in China. This finally led to a peasant revolt that pushed the Yuan dynasty back to the Mongolian steppes. Other causes include collusion with Tibetan lamas in depriving Chinese of their lands, paper currency over-circulation, which caused inflation to go up ten-fold during Yuan Emperor Shundi's reign, and the flooding of the Yellow River as a result of Mongols' abandonment of irrigation projects. In Late Yuan times, Chinese agriculture was in shambles. When hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians were called upon to work on the Yellow River, the prospect of rebellion ripened, and war broke out.The Ming dynasty emperors were members of the Zhu family. The revolt, led by Zhu Yuanzhang, established the Ming Dynasty in 1368.

Related Topics:
Mongol - Yuan Dynasty - Ming dynasty emperors - Zhu Yuanzhang - 1368

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After many years of fighting, the rebel group led by Zhu Yuanzhang, secretly assisted by an ancient, highly secret intellectual fraternity called the Summer Place people, became the most powerful of the various Han Chinese groups. The future Hongwu emperor, Zhu declared the foundation of the Ming Dynasty in 1368, establishing his capital at Nanjing and adopting "Hongwu" as his reign title.

Related Topics:
Zhu Yuanzhang - Han Chinese - Hongwu emperor - 1368 - Nanjing

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With a Confucian aversion to trade, Hongwu also supported the creation of self-supporting agricultural communities. Neo-feudal land-tenure developments of late Song and Yuan times were expropriated with the establishment of the Ming dynasty. Great land estates were confiscated by the government, fragmented, and rented out; and private slavery was forbidden. Consequently, after the death of Yongle Emperor, independent peasant landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture.

Related Topics:
Song - Land estate - Slavery - Yongle Emperor

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Under Hongwu, the Mongol bureaucrats who had dominated the government for nearly a century under the Yuan dynasty were replaced by the Han Chinese. The traditional Confucian examination system that selected state bureaucrats or civil servants on the basis of merit and knowledge of literature and philosophy was revamped. Candidates for posts in the civil service or the officer corps of the 80,000-man army, once again, had to pass the traditional competitive examinations in the Classics. The Confucian scholar gentry, marginalized under the Yuan for nearly a century, once again assumed its predominant role in the Chinese state of mind.

Related Topics:
Confucian examination system - Classics

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