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Ming Dynasty

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Great Ming

大明
1368–1644
Ming Cheenae at its greatest extent unner the reign o the Yongle Emperor
Ming Cheenae at its greatest extent unner the reign o the Yongle Emperor
CaipitalNanjing (Yingtian prefectur)
(1368–1644)[1]
Beijing (Shuntian prefectur)
(1403–1644)[2][3]
Common leidsOffeecial language:
Guanhua Cheenese
Other Cheenese dialects:
Wu, Yue, Min, Xiang, Hakka, Gan
Ether leids:
Turki (Modern Uyghur), Tibetan, Mongolian, Jurchen, ethers
Releegion
Heaven worship, Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Cheenese folk releegion, Islam
GovrenmentAbsolute monarchy
Emperor (皇帝) 
• 1368–1398
The Hongwu Emperor
• 1627–1644
The Chongzhen Emperor
Senior Grand Secretary 
• 1402–1407
Xie Jin
• 1644
Wei Zaode
History 
• Established in Nanjing
Januar 23 1368
Aprile 25 1644
• End o the Soothren Ming
Januar 22, 1662
Aurie
1415[4]6,500,000 km2 (2,500,000 sq mi)
Population
• 1393
65,000,000
• 1403
66,598,337¹
• 1500
125,000,000²
• 1600
160,000,000³
CurrencyBimetallic:
copper cashes (, wén) in strings o coin an paper
Siller taels (, liǎng) in sycees an bi weicht
Precedit bi
Succeedit bi
Yuan Dynasty
Soothren Ming Dynasty
Shun Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
Remnants o the Ming Dynasty ruled soothren Cheenae till 1662, a dynastic period which is kent as the Soothren Ming.
¹The nummers are based on estimates made bi CJ Peers in Late Imperial Chinese Armies: 1520–1840
²Accordin tae A. G. Frank, ReOrient: global economy in the Asian Age, 1998, p. 109
³According tae A. Maddison, The World Economy Volume 1: A Millennial Perspective Volume 2, 2007, p. 238
Ming Dynasty
Cheenese明朝
Empire of the Great Ming
Traditional Chinese大明帝國
Simplified Chinese大明帝国

The Ming Deenasty, kent as the Empire o the Great Ming an aw, wis the rulin dynasty o Cheenae for 276 years (1368–1644) followin the collapse o the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, describit bi some as "ane o the greatest eras o orderly govrenment an social stability in human history",[5] wis the last dynasty in Cheenae ruled bi ethnic Han Cheenese. Awtho the primary caipital o Beijing fell in 1644 tae a rebellion led bi Li Zicheng (who established the Shun Dynasty, suin replaced bi the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty), regimes lyal tae the Ming throne – collectively cried the Soothren Ming – survived till 1662.

The Hongwu Emperor (ruled 1368–98) attemptit tae creaut a society o self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile seestem that wad guarantee an support a permanent cless o soldiers for his dynasty:[6] the empire's staundin airmy exceedit ane million troops an the navy's dockyards in Nanjing wur the lairgest in the warld.[7] He an aa teuk great care breakin the pouer o the coort eunuchs[8] an unrelatit magnates, enfeoffing his mony sons throughoot Cheenae an attemptin tae guide thir princes throu published dynastic instructions. This failed spectacularly whan his teen-aged successor attemptit tae curtail his uncles' pouer, promptin the uprisin that placed the Prince o Yan upon the throne as the Yongle Emperor in 1402. The Yongle Emperor established Yan as a seicontar caipital an renamed it Beijing, constructit the Forbidden Ceety, an restored the Grand Canal an the primacy o the imperial examinations in offeecial appointments. He rewardit his eunuch supporters an employed them as a coonterweicht against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. Ane, Zheng He, led seiven enormous voyages o exploration intae the Indian Ocean as far as Arabie an the coast o Africae.

The rise o new emperors an new factions diminished sic extravagances; the capture o the Zhengtong Emperor durin the 1449 Tumu Crisis endit them completely. The imperial navy wis allowed tae faw intae disrepair while forced labor constructit the Liaodong palisade an connectit an fortified the Great Waw o Cheenae intae its modren form. Wide-rangin censuses o the entire empire wur conductit decennially, but the desire tae avoid labor an taxes an the difficulty o storin an reviewin the enormous archives at Nanjing hampered accurate figures.[6] Estimates for the late-Ming population vary frae 160 tae 200 million,[9] but necessar revenues wur squeezed oot o smawer an smawer nummers o fairmers as mair disappeared frae the offeecial records or "donatit" thair launds tae tax-exempt eunuchs or temples.[6] Haijin laws intendit tae pertect the coasts frae "Japanese" pirates instead turned mony intae smugglers an pirates themselves.

Bi the 16t century, houiver, the expansion o European tred – albeit restrictit tae islands near Guangzhou lik Macao – spreid the Columbian Exchange o crops, plants, an ainimals intae Cheenae, introducin chili peppers tae Sichuan cuisine an heichly-productive corn an tatties, which diminished faimins an spurred population growthe. The growthe o Portuguese, Spaingie, an Dutch trade creatit new demand for Cheenese products an produced a massive influx o Japanese an American siller. This abundance o specie allowed the Ming tae finally avoid uisin paper money, which haed sparked hyperinflation durin the 1450s. While tradeetional Confucians opposed sic a prominent role for commerce an the newly rich it creatit, the heterodoxy introducit bi Wang Yangming permittit a mair accommodatin attitude. Zhang Juzheng's initially successfu reforms proved devastatin whan a slowdoun in agriculture produced bi the Little Ice Age wis met wi Japanese an Spaingie policies that quickly cut aff the supply o siller nou necessar for fairmers tae be able tae pey thair taxes. Combined wit crop failure, floods, an epidemic, the dynasty wis considered tae hae lost the Mandate o Heaven an collapsed afore the rebel leader Li Zicheng an a Manchurian invasion.

References

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  1. Primary capital after 1403; secondary capital after 1421.
  2. Secondary capital until 1421; primary capital afterwards.
  3. The capitals-in-exile of the Southern Ming were Nanjing (1644), Fuzhou (1645–6), Guangzhou (1646–7), Zhaoqing (1646–52).
  4. Turchin, Peter; Adams, Jonathan M.; Hall, Thomas D (December 2006). "East-West Orientation of Historical Empires" (PDF). Journal of world-systems research. 12 (2): 219–229. ISSN 1076–156x Check |issn= value (help). Archived frae the original (PDF) on 22 Februar 2007. Retrieved 12 August 2010.
  5. Edwin Oldfather Reischauer, John King Fairbank, Albert M. Craig (1960) A history of East Asian civilization, Volume 1. East Asia: The Great Tradition, George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
  6. a b c Zhang Wenxian. "The Yellow Register Archives of Imperial Ming China". Libraries & the Cultural Record, Vol. 43, No. 2 (2008), pp. 148-175. Univ. of Texas Press. Accessed 9 Oct 2012.
  7. Ebrey (2006), 271.
  8. Crawford, Robert. "Eunuch Power in the Ming Dynasty". T'oung Pao, Second Series, Vol. 49, Livr. 3 (1961), pp. 115-148. Accessed 14 Oct 2012.
  9. For the lower population estimate, see (Fairbank & Goldman 2006:128); for the higher, see (Ebrey 1999:197).