©2006 WC Tan
China is today the world's oldest continuous civilization. The skull of the Peking Man was excavated which dates back to a million years ago. (But this Peking Man skull was lost during the Second World War.) Actually a Canadian archaeologist was credited with the excavation of the Peking Man skull. The history of the Neolithic China of ten thousand years ago has been increasingly accepted by archeological evidence. For example, flutes of nine thousand years old have been excavated, and the amazing thing was that they were still playable. Agriculture was known to have come into existence already, with plows and the use of manure. Due seasons were observed and family units had been established. The Yang Shao Painted Pottery and Longshan Black Pottery, dating back to three and five thousand years BC, have been attributed with having improved the health of the people. The discovery of fire for cooking the food in the pottery furthered the good health into longevity.
We now have the legendary emperor of Fu Xi (2825 BC). C.P. Fitzgerald, the British historian, says that Chinese civilization started with sage emperors, meaning "Saintliness within and kingliness without." Legend had it that Fu Xi ascended to the mount of the suspended cliff outside the city of Tiensui in Gansu Province. There he was inspired to invent the eight trigrams which are called the Ba Gua.
According to Chinese philosopher Mencius, Chinese history begins with heaven. Heaven begets sons and daughters. Heaven appoints the Son of Heaven to rule the Kingdom of Heaven with the Mandate of Heaven to govern the citizens of heaven.
The next legendary emperor of China is Shen-nong (2737 BC). Literally it means 'the deity of agriculture'. A statue has been erected to honor Shen-nong outside the city of Xian. Emperor Shen-nong is credited with having invented agriculture. In the search for herbs to heal diseases, Shen-nong is said to have discovered different types of grains, such as soy beans and millet. The Shen-nong pharmacopoeia is still in print today. In it Shen-nong listed many types of food, such as grains, beans, vegetables and herbs. For him, good health comes from good food. We may call him the founder of preventative medicine.
Another legendary emperor is the Huang-Ti (2697 BC). He is credited with having written two volumes entitled 'Canon of Internal Medicine': Shu Wen, meaning 'simple questions', and Ling Chu, meaning 'spiritual axis'. Shu Wen begins with one simple question: how can a person live to be 100 and still produce children. The simple answer is that he has lived in accordance with the eternal Tao. These two texts are studied by all the students in all the colleges of traditional Chinese Medicine throughout the world to this day.
The recorded history of China can be found in the classics of Shu Ching, translated by Professor James Legge, first chair of China Studies at Oxford University. 'Shu Ching' means 'the book of history'. This period is known as Meritorious Monarchy, which we may call 'the Benevolent Dictatorship'. Each emperor succeeded the other by merits popularly acknowledged and accepted by the reigning emperor. In this period we have the Yao Emperor 2357-2256 BC. During this time China was suffering from floods. In Yao's old age, upon recommendation he selected Shun to succeed him. Shun came to the throne on the ethical merits of filial piety, in that he loved his mean step-mother who mistreated him, yet he loved her like his own mother. Shun's father was a blind peasant. Yao shared the throne with Shun before he died, and again Shun shared his throne with the man who would succeed him before he died, so the government was continuous. We may describe this system as meritorious monarchy with apprenticeship. Shun appointed two men to help him rule China. One is the future ancestor of the Zhou dynasty. He was given the task of developing agriculture. The other was Yu, to control the floods. Yu succeeded in controlling the floods, and became the Emperor of China. Emperor Yu reigned from 2205 to 2198 BC. In thirteen years of taming the floods, Yu was home only once. After the flood, he introduced private ownership of land. He passed his throne to his son. Yu was the founding emperor of Xia Dynasty. Thus began the system of dynasties in China, which lasted until 1911.
It is said that it was during the Xia dynasty that scapulimancy was introduced. This is the system of oracle bones mentioned previously in the chapter on language. Oracle bones became a tradition of people at all levels to seek the will of God in the activities of their lives. The last emperor of the Yu Dynasty named Jie was a tyrant. He lost his mandate of heaven. The Xia dynasty collapsed and a new emperor took over for another dynasty. Xia dynasty lasted for 450 years with 14 generations and 17 kings.
Now began the Shang dynasty of 1750-1040 BC. This dynasty is known for the popularity of oracle bones, poetry, feudal system, agriculture and medicine. The last king of the Shang dynasty again was a tyrant and again he lost the mandate of heaven, so the dynasty lasted 17 generations, 30 kings and over 700 years.
The mandate of heaven was transferred to the Zhou dynasty, which lasted from 1027 to 221 BC, 806 years. However, this dynasty has been divided into two periods known as the Spring and Autumn period 770 to 476 BC and the Warring States from 475 to 221 BC. The Zhou dynasty is the most important period in Chinese history in which Chinese philosophy was fully developed, laying a foundation for future schools of thought and literary accomplishment. Scholars to this day have regarded the Spring and Autumn Period together with the Warring States Period as the most pure and uncontaminated period of Chinese thinking. It is said that this is a period where one hundred schools of thought flourished like flowers and a forest of birds contend with their music. Han dynasty historians described this period as 100 schools of thought contributing to the crystallization of philosophy without confusion. Although they seemed at times to contradict each other, they were in fact complementing each other.
This was period of 'Contraria sunt complementa', meaning 'opposite yet complementary', which is the quintessence of Chinese civilization for perfect harmony as it is demonstrated in the exercise of Tai Chi. We will illustrate this period in the following chapters of classics and philosophy. Scholar still study to this day this period of 'contraria sunt complementa' as a period as yet unattained by the world of learning. The most recent effort to try to attempt such a period was in the recent Cultural Revolution, conducted by Chairman Mao Zedong. He tried to encourage '100 flowers blossom and let 100 birds sing' yet the campaign ended in intolerance and failed.
The Zhou dynasty established seventy-one feudal lords to develop China in the regions of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, but gradually such a feudal system evolved into the Warring States where the states war against one another until one state, the state of Qin became so powerful that it overcame all other states and unified China into one country. However, this Qin dynasty lasted only from 221 to 206 BC, a mere fifteen years. It lost its mandate of heaven because of peasants uprising. The Qin dynasty buried alive 415 Confucian scholars and burned their books. Because of his utter oppressiveness and atrocities where all the metallic weapons were confiscated by the state, the peasants rose up without weapons, but their sheer anger toppled the dynasty. We may say that the Qin dynasty practiced a combination of fascism and nazi-ism. However, in a mere fifteen years, Qin dynasty constructed the Great Wall, the great canals linking the north and south of China, unified the written language, introduced the standardization systems and a common currency. With centralization of authority it introduced a criminal code system. Some people would say that the Qin dynasty has done more in China than many subsequent dynasties in Chinese history. History moves on. We shall discuss the great Han dynasties next.
The period of the great Han dynasties is comparable to the Roman Empire. Actually the dynasty consisted of the Western Han Dynasty with its capital in the present day Xian and the Eastern Han Dynasty with its capital in Luoyang. Together, both dynasties lasted from 206 BC to 220 AD, 426 years. The founding emperor of the Han dynasty ordered a historian scholar to study the causes of the Qin empire falling in just fifteen years. The scholar, Lu Jia, wrote twelve chapters in which he pointed out that the Qin penal code exceeded the limit of tai chi, thereupon he advocated a policy of wu wei in order to give the people periods of rest. The wu wei policy should be practiced with moderation. Essentially this is based upon the philosophy of Lao Zi, in which agriculture is the foundation of the empire.
A conference was held to allow all of the Mandarin bureaucrats complete freedom of speech to express their views on the utilization of iron. Because of the invention of the double piston bellows, increased input of oxygen allowed the invention of steel foundries, about two thousand years ahead of Europe. Opinions were divided, but mainly either to use the steel for agricultural implements or to use the steel for the production of weapons and sell theses steel weapons in the manner of global trade to increase the country's income. In the end, the agricultural opinions won the day and steel therefore was used to produce different types of plowshares of different type for oxen and for horses, and other agricultural implements.
Irrigation systems became popular and inter-tillage and crop rotation were adopted. Every acre was designated for a period of fallow and rotation. A very famous agricultural manual was produced, Fan Shen Nung Zhu, which means Fan Shen's Agricultural Manual.
At this point it is estimated that in the year 109 BC, the population was sixty million. Other inventions were the copper mirror, lacquer ware, silk and textile products, but he most important event impacting on world history was the opening of the Silk Road from Xian to Damascus between 138 and 119 BC. As a result of the opening of the Silk Road, spices and better horses and the two-string musical instrument (er hu) were introduced into China. Imperial examinations were held annually to select accomplished scholars to become Mandarin bureaucrats to rule the country. The system of feudal lords was gradually reduced from one hundred forty to five and the centralization of authority was promoted. A self-filing income tax system was adopted and the property taxes were decreed to be six percent of its worth.
In 140 BC the Prime Minister Dong Zhong Shu ordered the adoption of the Confucian school of philosophy as the political ideology. He designated the five great classical canons as the main subjects for the annual imperial examinations. These five classics are: I Ching (Canon of Changes), Shu Ching (Canon of History), Shi Ching (Canon of Poetry), Li Ching (Canon of Liturgy), Chung Chiu (Spring and Autumn). On the surface Minister Dong Zhong Shu used these five canons to promote benevolence and righteousness, but in practice, he adopted the penal code of the preceding Qin dynasty to complement the Confucian teaching. So the combination of Confucian and legal system became the political thought of the Han Dynasty, and it has been used in China to this present day.
In 5 BC which is the second year of the Han emperor (Emperor Ai), an explosion of the constellation Aquila which in the Chinese language is known as the Ox Herd, the brightness of which lasted many years. At about sunrise Xian time it was visible which led some scholars to embark upon a journey upon the Silk Road to come to Bethlehem in Judea to worship a child, Jesus. This was reported by Professor Colin J. Humphreys of Cambridge University in the quarterly journal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1991.
In 15 AD there was a peasant uprising a Han general put it down and the capital was moved to Luoyang in 25 AD, beginning the Eastern Han dynasty which lasted 195 years. Several important events took place during this period. The making of paper was perfected, and Japan started having exchanges with China. By this time, Buddhism had entered China through the Silk Road and the famous classical treatises on Traditional Chinese Medicine were published by Zhang Zhong Jing. Two unusual astronomical phenomena were recorded in 32 AD. I will not rule out an association with the crucifixion and resurrection in Jerusalem.
After the Han dynasties, Chinese history entered into an interim period of division, reunion and divisions. This is a period known as The Three Kingdoms, then two dynasties and North South divisions. I would just like to indicate the length of each period. The Eastern Han dynasty ended in 220, and in 220 to 265 we have the three kingdoms, after which we have the Western Jin dynasty from 265 to 316 AD, the Eastern Jin dynasty from 316 to 420 AD, the northern division from 386 to 556, and the southern division from 420 to 589 AD. In terms of history, we regard these as chaotic periods, but in fact each period enjoyed some fifty to over one hundred years in duration. Compared with the western experience of governmental reigns by democratic elections, these periods can be considered as lengthy reigns by western standards. During this time, China underwent constant migrations and mixing of tribes. Development of paper making became a very popular trade, and shipbuilding was very successful. Trading with Rome and other parts of the world became very prosperous. At the level of culture and medicine, the famous Chinese doctor Hua Tuo performed surgery with anaesthesia. Acupuncture and moxibustion results were well documented. In mathematics, China obtained very accurate results from the division of the circumference of the circle by the diameter of the circle. Pi =3.1415926 and the length of the year is equal to 365.24281481 days and the differential gear for the present day automobile universal was invented. In agriculture, the irrigation wheel was mentioned in the agriculture manual. We must remember that the beginning of the dark ages was from the fifth to thirteenth century AD. In China during this period, different tribes invaded as near as the capital.
Before the arrival of the great Tang Dynasty, there was another short interim dynasty, the Sui dynasty, from 581 to 618, with four emperors. I mention this short dynasty because it is in this period that two million farmers were employed to build a canal system linking north and south China with a total length of 4 000 km. The king of Tibet invaded the capital from Qinghai and Sichuan provinces, and the emperor married his daughter to the invading king of Tibet to appease the Tibetans. This resulted in a retreat of the invading forces.
The Great Tang Dynasty lasted from 618 to 907 with a total of twenty emperors. Again the founder of the Tang Dynasty studied the causes of the collapse of the previous dynasties. He came up with the conclusion that "The sovereign is the boat, the people are the water. Water can float the boat, but water can also capsize the boat." In this has been repeatedly shown that it is the peasants' revolution that leads to the collapse of the dynasty. So, the first emperor of the Tang Dynasty underwent an agricultural reform in 624 AD. He strengthened the centralization of the ruling bureaucracy. He further developed imperial examinations to select the bureaucrats. He practiced the distribution of farmland to the peasants, about 100 acres per family. He reduced taxes on farmers. During the Tang Dynasty, China was prosperous in the production and trade of silk, porcelains, metallurgy, and paper-making with all the countries in the west. In its monetary policy, Tang forbade outflow of gold and silver. Tang also married one of their princesses to the king of Tibet. Thus in diplomacy subduing the king of Tibet to be the son-in-law, putting the Tang Dynasty in the status of Father. As we mentioned before, the Tang princess with her retinue brought many things from China into Tibet, but the most important of all was the religion of Buddhism. Perhaps in terms of global economy, one thing should be mentioned here that it is during this time that paper currency was first introduced into the world. After the great Tang Dynasty, China entered into another period of chaos, of divisions and subdivisions; however, in the area of philosophy and literature and arts, Tang produced great figures which we will mention in subsequent chapters.
Tang influences spread into Korea, such as bureaucracy, land distribution, taxation system, civil service examinations, ritual and ceremony, the legal system, classics and Tang poetry. Among the foreign students studying in China, Korea sent the most. Some of these even passed the examinations and held positions in the government.
Japan sent several missions to China each time consisting of about five hundred people, so Japan pretty well adopted the whole Tang system. Japan has used Chinese characters for writing ever since. Buddhists monks from the Tang Empire went to Japan six times bringing Buddhist sutras and arts with them.
After AD 751, Islam began to arrive in Tang Dynasty China. Warfare took place between China and Arabia in the western part of China. Many Chinese soldiers were captured as prisoners of war and sent to Arabia. Accompanying these Chinese prisoners into Arabia were the arts of making gunpowder and paper. In the thirteenth century, gunpowder was introduced into Europe from Arabia. From Persia, or present day Iran, religions arrived in China along the Silk Road. The Nestorian Eastern Orthodox Church was established in China between the seventh and tenth centuries. A stone tablet was erected to commemorate this event.
The Tibetans were at this time a pastoral people, practicing a system of slavery, with the capital in Lhasa. Five times between 634 and 640 AD, the king of Tibet proposed to the Tang emperor to marry one of his daughters. Finally, in AD 641, Tang emperor Tai Zhong allowed him to marry princess Wencheng. During the Tang Dynasty, the marriage of Tibetan king Songtsan Gambo and Princess Wencheng drew the political, economic and cultural ties of the Han and Tibetans even closer. Thus, China and Tibet became nephew and uncle, a relationship as acknowledged by Tibet. When Princess Wencheng entered Tibet, she brought with her vegetable seeds, Chinese medicine, the art of printing, and bookbinding, and tea. After that Tibet sent many young people to study the classics in China. The king of Tibet then invited translators from Nepal and China to translate the Buddhist scriptures from Sansrkit and Chinese into Tibetan. This was the introduction of Mahayana Buddhism into Tibet. At that time, ancient Tibet annexed two tribes and founded the Tufan Kingdom. The close political alliance laid the foundation for a future unified dynasty under the Mongolians.
The king of Tibet thus promoted Buddhism as the religion of his land. In AD 670, the Tibetans attacked and conquered Xinjiang, but in 692 the Tang emperor regained Xinjiang. In 763, the Tibetans attacked the central part of China, and occupied the capital of Changan, as well as Gansu and Sichuan provinces. At about the same time the Tang emperor married another daughter to the king of Tibet. Princess Jincheng brought with her more Chinese classics. In AD 832, many treaties were signed between China and Tibet, but the Tibetan expansion was brought to an end in AD 849.
After the great Tang Dynasty, China was again in a state of chaos with five dynasties of short duration, altogether lasting from AD 907 to 950. The first of these five was the Song Dynasty.
This dynasty consisted of the Northern Song Dynasty with its capital in Kaifeng lasting from 960 to 1127 and the Southern Song Dynasty with its capital in Hangzhou lasting from 1127 to 1279. These two dynasties could be considered great in that many outstanding personalities emerged in science and in letters. This is the period of philosophy known as Neo-Confucianism, resulting from the influence of Buddhism on Chinese classics became evident. There had been reinterpretation of classics from the period, after the Han dynasty. We also have the great reform of nationalization of finance and agriculture. For instance, interest on private shark loans to the peasants was as high as 200% at that time when the crown rates were only 20%. Naturally the rich in high places brought down the reformer, Wang An Shih, who introduced the crown rates. His reforms did not last long. The great philosopher Zhu Xi emerged in this period as well. He wrote commentaries on practically all Chinese classics, which are still in use today. The location of acupuncture points and the pictures of the twelve channels were complete and numerous famous practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine appeared during this time. A comprehensive rewritten history of China was completed by the great historian Shi Ma Guang. John F. Fairbank of Harvard called such great volumes, "a comprehensive mirror for aid in government."
It was also during this period that a very enlightened law was introduced in that land owned by religious organizations was tax exempt. It is said that the Song period saw great achievements in mathematics, such as the use of the abacus, and in printing, metallic type setting was used. Rockets were constructed, which were employed later by the Mongols in Europe. At this time, shipbuilding in China was first in the world, but because of paper money, the country suffered from deficit and inflation. The society was in chaos. There were peasant uprisings everywhere. All these led to the emergence of another external invasion by the Mongolians from the north. It later became the Mongolian empire of China, with a government known as the Yuan Dynasty.
The Mongolian Yuan Dynasty existed from 1206 to 1368 for a total of 168 years. This empire began with Ghengis Khan, whose real name was Temujin. He titled himself as the King of Kings by the Mandate of Heaven. At birth, shamans interpreted a blood clot in Temujin's hand as a sign that he would one day rule the world. Temujin's father was poisoned, his wife was kidnapped, and his home destroyed so he allied all his friends for revenge and thus succeeded in defeating the strongest tribes of Mongolia. In 1206, a council was held on the grassland of Mongolia to proclaim Temujin as Ghengis Khan. At that point a shaman declared, "You shall be the global chief, the King of Kings, according to God's will, with the title of Ghengis Khan."
He created a pastoral feudalism, conscripting all men between the ages of 15 and 70 into military service. This was a system of pastoral militarism. He formed a personal bodyguard of ten thousand soldiers. He then attacked the present day Ningxia region of China, and in 1207, Ningxia collapsed. In 1233, Mongols attacked another Jin regime of northern China and that regime also collapsed. He then invaded the Yunnan province of southern China which collapsed in 1252. Then he attacked Tibet, which became part of the empire also in 1252, and in 1253 Vietnam surrendered. The Mongols attacked the Southern Song Dynasty in 1257, but it was his grandson who in 1279 destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty, incorporating Yunnan province, Taiwan and Tibet into his territories. Between 1272 and 1281, the Yuan-Mongolian fleets of thousands of ships invaded Japan but were destroyed by a Divine Wind from Japan, known as the Kamikazi. After the death of Ghengis Khan, there were disputes among the Khans. Eventually, in 1264, the grandson of Ghengis Khan, Kublai Khan, became the leader.
In 1264, Kublai Khan established the Yuan Dynasty with its capital in Beijing. The Yuan Dynasty practiced an open door policy. Yuan set examinations and quotas on the number of people to pass exams. Yuan classified the northern Chinese and the southern Chinese together as the Han majority Chinese. Arabs, the Muslim religion and Persian cobalt came into China. Most of the foreign trade was in Arab hands. Europeans were welcomed into China's civil service. For example, Marco Polo was in China's civil service for seventeen years before he returned to Venice, Italy. Emperor Kublai Khan preserved agriculture and promoted religious tolerance. From Rome, the Franciscans came to China. Carpini offered the Emperor baptism and explained to the Emperor that the Church from the west was One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. By 'catholic' he meant 'universal'. Kublai Khan replied that the Church could not be universal without China. The Mongols remained Buddhist, which included shamanism. China became bigger in size under the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty. It comprised more territories, including Outer Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan and Taiwan. Such territorial sovereignty has been passed down to subsequent dynasties and the republics since AD1264. The Mongolians conducted three expeditions westward between 1218 and 1259. All three went westward to Russia, Persia and Europe.
Once the Mongols were in power, they became decadent and corrupt, and corruption spread to the armed forces. They were unable to control the economy. The government deficit exploded and inflation went out of control. In 1324, their loss of the Mandate of Heaven began with frequent natural disasters, consisting of floods, drought, locusts, earthquakes, and the collapse of flood control in the Yellow River. Between 1341 and 1347, there were five hundred peasant uprisings. Finally in 1368, a Buddhist monk by the name of Zhu Yuan Zhang, who entered the monastery at the age of seventeen, led the peasants to topple the last Yuan emperor and establish the capital in Nanjing. Thereupon, he had the Mandate of Heaven, established himself as the emperor, and declared a new era, the Ming Dynasty. Thus the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty ended its rule of about 168 years. The Mongolian people and their territory became part of China and remain so to this day.
The Yuan Dynasty was the first foreign dynasty to rule China. It was a time of unprecedented cultural cross-fertilization. Kublai Khan employed many officials from all over the world. Many members of Mongol families, including the queen of Ghengis Khan, the mother of Ogadai Khan, were members of the Nestorian Orthodox Church. According to Garrody and Gay of Columbia University, the first forensic medicine book in the world was written during this time. According to Professor Bai Shou-yi of Yunnan University, a Chinese Muslim, Kublai Khan distinguished himself from all previous emperors by his recognition of the economic and political importance of agriculture. The Mongol conquest of China ended China's isolation from the outside world. It is in China that the Mongols adopted Tibetan Buddhism. According to Professor John King Fairbank of Harvard University, the Mongol occupation of agricultural China reduced Mongol fighting capacity because farming is more peaceful than other pursuits. Although generally the Mongols were more warlike, they did have something that the Chinese did not; the Mongol council elections were more democratic than the Chinese hierarchy.
Today, the Mongolian Republic has a population of about two million, but according to the Chinese claim, the majority of Mongols, numbering about four million, live in Inner Mongolia, China. Both Mongolia and China claim to be the birthplace of Ghengis Khan.
The Ming Dynasty began in 1368 and ended in 1644, lasting 276 years with 16 emperors. To put things in perspective, we must mention that the Magna Carta was written in England in 1215, and the Guttenberg Bible was produced in 1450. Christopher Columbus reached the Americas in 1492, and the Reformation in Germany started in 1517 with the posting of Martin Luther's 95 theses. The Ming Dynasty was also a watershed era in China when China faced the choice of remaining feudalistic or entering into capitalism. Up to this point, the social structure of China was, in descending order:
Emperor Zhu, founder of the Ming Dynasty, emphasized education and agriculture. In 1393, China established the largest university in the world with 8 100 students. In agriculture, China increased its arable land four times with improved irrigation systems. In medicine, the greatest Materia Medica was compiled by Li Shi-Zhen (1518-1593). The best brain in Europe, a Jesuit priest named Fr. Mateo Ricci, arrived in China, sent by the Pope as Europe's best. Father Ricci was a staunch Roman Catholic missionary, a scholar, theologian, astronomer, mathematician and scientist. He was a combination of Europe's best in one person. His arrival in China in 1582 constituted a cultural clash between the East and the West, in other words, logic versus the Dao. In architecture, the Forbidden Palace in Beijing was constructed. In ship building, Ming China was the foremost in the world with the invention of the rudder and multiple masts.
Admiral Zheng conducted seven expeditions to the west of China, reaching as far as Zanzibar in eastern Africa. In terms of navigation and foreign trade, the admiral was very successful. On each expedition, he brought back a lot of Arab merchants to a seaport in southern Fujian Province called Chuanzhou, and after the seventh expedition, Chuanzhou was acknowledged as the largest seaport for foreign trade in the world. Ships from all over the world dropped anchor in the harbour. It was precisely at that moment that China became frightened that if this were allowed to continue, trade-merchants as a class would supersede agriculture, upsetting the traditional social structure of China. The traditional Chinese social structure is more than a structure alone. It also represents a value in the civilization.
Agriculture consists of land, farming, nature and family unity, together with work ethics and moral integrity, which are the mainstays of China's civilization. This is why to this day China remains the world's oldest continuous civilization. The trade and the merchant classes derive their profit at the expense of moral integrity which leads to conflicts between people, classes and nations. A civilization based on trade will lead to self-destruction, and that is why most non-agricultural trading empires have not lasted. Therefore, the emperor and the ruling class of China decided to scuttle the trading expeditions once and for all, nipping the seeds of self-destruction in the bud. After the last expedition of the Admiral, the trading fleet was set on fire and sunk in the South China Sea. China preserved its social structure from the Mandarin scholar bureaucracy at the top, to farmers, labourers, merchants, and finally soldiers and has to this day. Professor Joseph Needham put great emphasis on this point, and said that this was the reason China refused to embark upon the road of industrial revolution towards a modern world trade power. It was not until the time of the Opium War that China pursued this path, and at that time, China did so because she was forced to by Britain.
Also during the Ming Dynasty, conflicts between China and Japan developed along China's coast. Japanese pirates constantly raided along Hangzhou and Nanjing, and armed conflicts occurred in Korea between China and Japan. In 1517, China allowed the Portuguese to conduct limited foreign trade, but only from a small tip of land in southern China called Macao. The Portuguese gradually transformed Macao into a colony which existed for over three hundred years. In 1602, the Dutch-East Indies Company was established. In 1624, the Dutch attacked and occupied Taiwan. In 1644, the Ming Dynasty collapsed, to be succeeded by the Manchurian Qing Dynasty.
Again, to put these events in perspective, in 1558, Elizabeth I came to the throne in England. In 1588, England defeated the Spanish Armada. In 1620, settlers from England landed in North America. In 1662, Charles II returned from exile to England to initiate a period known as the Restoration. The Book of Common Prayer was revised and reprinted in 1662, which is in use in most Anglican Churches to this day.
Causes for the collapse of the Ming Dynasty are as follows. The founding emperor, Zhu, was a man full of suspicions. He trusted neither his ministers nor the ministers of the Cabinet, but he succeeded in eradicating corruption in the government by setting up a spy network known as the Watchdog System. This system is like our present day ombudsman system in the West. In 1382, he established the clandestine institutions like the CIA and KGB, and put military personnel, spies and agents to practice white terrors on the bureaucrats similar to the McCarthy investigations in the USA in the 1950's. Many innocent people died as a result. It is alleged that over thirty thousand loyal officials and bureaucrats died. He also conducted censorship to eradicate literary materials considered to be disloyal. Toward the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Manchurian tribes of eight colours unified Manchuria. The Ming Dynasty lost the mandate of heaven toward the end of the dynasty. Natural disasters multiplied. Peasant uprisings spread. Ming generals opened the gate on the border and invited the Manchurian troops to enter and stabilize China. In 1644, the Manchurians succeeded the Mandate of Heaven and established a new dynasty, known as the Qing Dynasty.
The third emperor of the Manchu Qing dynasty, Song Zi (1644 - 1661), moved the capital of China from Manchuria to Beijing to succeed the empire of the Ming dynasty. During this period, the people were required to grow potatoes as a sign of loyalty to Manchu rule. The Manchus were a minority race in China. Now they had to rule the entire nation. It is estimated that there were only one million Manchus who ruled the whole of China. At that time the population of China was estimated to be twenty-five million. By the time of the Opium War in 1840, it was estimated to be four hundred million.
To succeed the Mandate of Heaven, the forth emperor of the Qing dynasty (1662 - 1722), conducted the official liturgy of ancestral worship, openly demonstrating to the whole Chinese nation his obedience to the ancient Chinese tradition of filial piety. The Qing Dynasty upheld and promoted the imperial exams, increased the quota of passing candidates and decreed the classical commentaries of the great Song dynasty philosopher Zhu Xi to be the official text. The Qing dynasty increased control over the border regions such as Xinjiang, Mongolia and Tibet. In 1652, the fifth Dalai Lama paid a visit to Beijing to receive the golden seal as a symbol of his authority to rule Tibet as an autonomous region. In 1713, the Panchen Lama's title was reconfirmed and the Qing dynasty stationed two Governors General in Lhasa. The Qing also instituted a system to draw on names of candidates from Manchu, Han Chinese and Tibetans for the status of the reincarnate Buddha. In 1724, the Qing dynasty completely abolished the head tax, but adopted the revenue income based on the acreage of farmlands.
The sixth emperor, Chien Lung, ruled from 1736 to 1795, a total of 59 years. During his reign, he visited southern China six times incognito. By the time of the eighth emperor, Tao Kuang (1821 - 1850), China was in a state of corruption, exploitation and oppression, whereby the feudal lords and landlords bought up the poor peasants' land and imposed unreasonable rents, crop sharing, interest rates and taxation. There was widespread formation of secret societies. The Qing restored both the head tax and the land tax, and there were peasant uprisings everywhere. Chinese historians have attributed these to the failure of the Opium War against Britain. The Manchu Qing followed the policy of self-sufficiency and isolation. They forbade foreign trade and confined trade to certain areas. In fact there was only one outlet for foreign trade, Canton (today's Guangzhou) in southern China. To deal with foreign trade, designated middle men were used, known as the 'Compradore System' (a Portuguese term). By this time the number of Manchus ruling China was about two million.