Irbis wrote:PainRack wrote:The surviving quotes about how the fleet was ended had the new Emperor quoting the founding consitution, which was to cut down excessive spending, which includes the hints of Confucian/Taoist principles of extravagance costs. Given that it directly quoted the huge costs of maintaining the tribute system on both sides, its..... incomplete to claim that it was a Confucianist political plot to win politically that shut down the treasure fleet.
But the problem is - that one decision
beheaded the fleet. When European monarchs had financial problems, fleet also suffered but there was always the cadre of domestic and foreign ship captains that could be enlisted as navy or privateers in the moment of need. Often, the very merchants banded together to deploy often vast fleets against pirates or unruly nations (Hansa or Italian merchant republics). When these were eclipsed, it was by growth in strength by powerful national navies. In China, national navy died, and the trade bans and tributary systems ensured private ships (except for unregulated pirates) never really took off on the scale they easily could, IMHO.
Evidence? We have evidence against the argument that private ships simply melted away. But first of all, let's clarify the issue. The dismantling of the treasure fleet is a seperate political decision from the naval ban. While they are related in the form of austerity, there are additional reasons for the naval ban related to China control of customs, piracy and smuggling,partially separate from the costs of maintaining an expensive tributary system that was by Yongle time negative in economic return.(And note, the tributary system wasn't wholly dismantled, rather, it was a deliberate decision by the Ming not to go casting for tributary states in SEA.Korea and etc still remained under China sphere of political and economic influence.)
1. The naval ban was officially instated in 1550,repealed in 1567, in response to the poor customs control China required as well as to control the trading/piracy of Japan, an enemy at this time.
That's a hundred years between the end of Zheng He and the naval ban.
If you wish to argue that the Ming navy melted away, which Ming navy defeated the Portugeuse then? Which Ming navy sent a fleet into the South China Seas to hunt pirates, making contact with the Spanish at Manila?
2. We do know that the private merchant navies were powerful. The 2nd wave of wukou pirates were joined by Chinese merchants, of which the most powerful required the combination of two Ming naval commanders squadrons to hunt down and destroy. This even though China had restricted the construction of twin masted ships for years.
3. Which leads us to the last point. The lack of China to actually halt private construction, suggested by the fact that the twin masted ships proclaimation was issued at least 3 times in the next few decades. Not conclusive sure, but the existence of Chinese wukou pirates tell us that private navies certainly did exist, large enough to challenge the central naval power.
And the central naval power can't possibly have been too small, because they were able to repulse a Portugeuse naval squadron.
They already did, despite being on the other end of the world. No one claims China needed 'age of exploration', they failed to use the resources they already explored anyway.
To give one example for big the Chinese failure in domestic south Asian trade was, from what I remember, Spanish currency usage eclipsed Chinese one in 17th and 18th centuries, to the point that in 19th century Chinese Yuan was equated to Mexican peso. It's like today Cuban currency was more widely used in North America than US dollar and Obama was openly talking about pegging dollars to peso for convenience - how is that not a big failure?
And that's 3 entire centuries away? During the Qing dynasty and not the Ming?
Let's talk about how the Chinese DID exploit their resources shall we? From the space of 1567 to 1640 when the Ming dynasty fell, they sucked in Spanish silver, dictating the creation of a Peru-Manila silver galleon route. We know that this trade was important enough that 37 junks and more visited Manila to conduct trade with Spain, acquiring their silver.
The influx of silver was so vast that it stabilised China inflationary currency, allowing them to transit to a silver backed coin.
This was combined with Portugeuese trade of course, based in Macao. The reintroduction of mechanical clockworks, itnroduction of Portueguese cannons, matchlock muskets, spices, tiger penises, ivory... all ranged around this trade. Just how was this a failure?
And let's DO talk about the Spanish dollar. The Spanish dollar, because of its use in the Americas, Far East and Europe became the world first currency by the 18th century. What happened to the Qing in this time?
The Taiping rebellion, a war which killed more people than the American Civil War. And others, such as the White Lotus Rebellion.
Before that, plagues, famines and the resulting weakening of the Qing central power.
You might as well ask why Europe became a weaker power compared to the USA after WW1.
On the contrary. In the other thread, there were claims China had 'successes' by barely driving off Japanese pirates (same technological level, but far weaker nation) or by driving out small Dutch expedition off Taiwan. It's about as big "success" as if today full mobilization of US Navy was needed to drive North Korean expedition off Puerto Rico. The very fact tiny nation from opposite end of the world was free to occupy Chinese island despite barely any technological advantage says volumes how dumb the decision to disarm navy and abandon trade was (again, IMHO). Colonizing Tibet is cute, but it's empty mountain wilderness - country the size of China should easily be able to influence both politically and economically all of its neighbours, turning them into de-facto client states, instead they chose empty, token tributary system and closed borders.
Dude. The Chinese didn't have ANY territorial claim to Taiwan. Just what are you smoking, in insuinating that the Chinese were invaded by the Dutch in Taiwan?
Oh. And it wasn't the mobilisation of the whole navy. Remember, Zheng was a warlord who mobilised the remnants of the Ming forces who escaped the Chinese mainland to conquer Taiwan. If the USN after being devastated by a nuclear war conquered England.....
As for colonising tibet, you missed the point. If the argument was that the dismantling of the treasure fleet= no age of Imperialism for China, counterparts have to argue WHY the Ming and Qing successfully conquered or colonised other areas. A much better example for why there was no colonisation is that unlike the Spanish, the Chinese didn't have the luck to capture a wealthy kingdom by devastating their population with disease, while having a technological advantage in terms of guns and cannons. As we saw from their defeat in Anman, the Vietnamese, the Japanese all had access to superior gun technology than the Ming, requiring a catchup that only stabilised their tech advantage.
Resources wise, the Chinese devoted more resources to their north than to the south.
There simply wasn't any rewards to be gained from an age of Imperialism for China, unlike the Europeans.
Also, from what I remember of Chinese history, replacing 'feudal system of taxes to a mercantile system of trade' might not always be a good idea, if done badly. One example is Qing Chinese currency reform - instead of feudal corvée service obligations, one Emperor decreed a fixed tax in silver would be paid. Sounds good by today standards, right? Wrong. The decision initially caused crash in food production (as many peasants switched to growing cash crops and silk production to ensure they had silver to pay taxes to not lose land), flooded China with foreign silver (which merchants needed to pay taxes, too) and caused rampant inflation which both caused gold flow out of country and crippled Chinese budget as the tax in silver was fixed in value that no longer was worth anywhere near as much. Oh, and at the same time, merchants were tightly regulated and if a mine or trade licence brought too much profit, they were told to change or abandon it. Hardly a recipe for successful economic competition.
And which era was this?
We can of course point to 1580, when the silver tax was FIRST put in place and the resulting economic growth and specialisation this resulted in for Ming China as a counter-argument. You know, the ACTUAL extant period.