3.6: Change in China

The Fall of the Ming Empire

Beginning in the 1500s, it looked like European trade and more silver would strengthen not weaken the Ming. Silver in China made borrowing and lending easier. There was a cotton boom and the production cotton cloth became one of China’s biggest industries. In fact, more silver went to China than anywhere else. It received about one-third of all silver mined in the Americas. China prospered during the Ming period, but this led to a weakening of the empire. As a land-based empire, the Ming government focused on agriculture and not trade. Therefore, a lot of the silver strengthened local elites not the Ming government. There was also increased economic instability. Too much silver increase prices and inflation. With too little silver, peasants had trouble paying taxes. The silver supply from the Americas was inconsistent and not steady.

As the Ming economy grew, so too did its population. Crops from the Americas such as sweet potatoes and maize were adopted by many peasants, especially those who lived in hilly, dry regions like Sichuan. These crops grew well and provided abundant calories for farm families. However, population growth was also not accompanied by an increase in cultivated land sufficient to support the added numbers of people, and in many regions, farmers found themselves tilling smaller fields as the generations passed.

The days of the Ming were numbered. In the early seventeenth century, the onset of one of the intervals of the Little Ice Age, a period of cooling in the northern hemisphere, brought low temperatures and droughts in many parts of the country, leading to famine in some areas. Floods devastated other regions. Throughout the 1600s there were periodic shortages of silver and growing government debts. Farmers whose crops had failed or who had inherited plots of land too small to support their families were unable to pay their taxes or their rents. Even those who could pay had difficulty finding the silver with which the law said taxes must be paid. This led to rebellions. A major rebellion in 1644 toppled the Ming dynasty.

The Qing Empire

The Manchus, who took over China, were not ethnically Chinese and originally lived northeast of the Great Wall in southern Manchuria. Despite what many Chinese had feared, the early Qing emperors proved good rulers. They strove to preserve their identity as Manchus, but they also embraced Chinese culture.The first Qing emperor, Kangxi, toured China to acquaint himself with his new domain. He adopted the Chinese bureaucratic apparatus and ordered that each of the government’s six major ministries be led by Manchu and Han Chinese co-administrators. Kangxi governed according to Confucian principles and maintained the system of imperial examinations for government jobs. The Manchu were careful to maintain their superior positions, however, and demanded loyalty from the Chinese. For example, local positions in government were usually given to Han Chinese bureaucrats, but supervisory positions were given to Manchus. Figure 3.6.1 displays Kangxi seated with an open book in front. This emperor embraced the works of Confucius and his disciples.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Seated Statute of Kangxi in His Study, Author Unknown, National Museum of China, in the Public Domain

The Qing, however, continued the Ming policy limiting interactions with foreigners. European demand for Chinese products did not cease, but non-Chinese could only conduct trade only through the port of Guangzhou (Canton) and trade only with the official Chinese merchant guild. While in the city on business, they had to stay in a special quarter for Europeans. When they had finished their transactions, they had to depart. In the eyes of the Chinese, Europe was inferior and possessed nothing of interest. Although European scientific knowledge was impressive to some, most Chinese merchants and officials maintained a disdainful attitude toward the West.

Primary Sources: The Qing Education System

During the 1700s, Jesuits in were China recording what they saw and providing their own opinions of Qing society.

Discussion Questions

• What is the opinion of the Qing education system?
• How did it differ from the changes in the education system in western Europe?

The great and only road to riches, honor, and employment is the study of jing (the classical cannon). History, the laws, and morality, and to learn what they call wenshang, that is to write in a polite manner, in terms well-chosen and suitable t the subject. By this means they become doctors (jinshi), having passed the third level of the examinations; soon after they are sure to have a government post. Even those who return to their provinces to wait for posts are in great consideration with the mandarins of the place; they protect their families against all vexations and enjoy a great many privileges. But as nothing like this is to be hoped for those who apply themselves to the speculative sciences, and as the study of them is not the road to honors and riches, it is no wonder that these sorts of abstract sciences should be neglected by the Chinese.

Jean Baptiste du Halde, A Description of the Empire of China (1738), Volume 2, in the Public Domain

The Qing, like the Ming, cared much more about agriculture than trade. As long as China’s farmers paid taxes, the government was content to demand taxes from merchants on an irregular basis. By the mid 1700s, it still appeared to many that Europe needed China more than the other way around. For the vast majority of Chinese, no superior model of belief, politics, or society was conceivable.

Review Questions

• How did silver create instability in China?
• How was there continuity under the Qing?