In 1368, Ming Taizu established the vast Ming Empire with the present-day city of Nanjing as its capital. In the early Ming Dynasty, due to years of war, almost all local economies were nearly devastated. In order to resume production as soon as possible, Ming Taizu began to implement a series of reform measures.
With the passage of time, the national strength of the Ming Empire began to improve day by day, and the living standards of the people also improved significantly. However, by the middle of the Ming Dynasty, there was a serious social crisis within the empire, accompanied by a clear trend of decline. So what social crises are at work? And what effects did it have on the Empire?
Map of the territory of the early Ming Dynasty
Land annexation became more and more serious, and the contradictions between the landlord class and the peasants became more and more intense
From the late Hongwu Dynasty onwards, there was an increasing concentration of land within the Ming Empire, and the clans, the Gongchen clique, and foreign relatives all occupied a lot of land by playing the "edge ball" of the "Great Ming Law". However, because the economy of the early Ming Dynasty was still relatively sluggish, the process of land annexation in the early Ming Dynasty was very slow, and it was not until the middle of the Ming Dynasty that there was a significant acceleration.
The Supreme Code of the Ming Dynasty, the Law of Daming
It should be noted in particular that in the fierce land annexation movement in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial family did not play a role in curbing the expansion of the landlord class and alleviating the contradictions between the landlord class and the peasants, but also joined the landlord class and fought for land with the peasants. In fact, this situation has existed as early as the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, dating back to the Yongle Dynasty. Not only that, but the participation of the royal family has also made foreign relatives become active, and they have also joined in the activities of land competition. In this regard, there was a relevant record in the Ming Shi Liechuan Li Sen:
(Lee) Sen Shu Chen Ten Things. Soon, with guixing, he plundered the people's property and led the people to give words: "... Foreign relative Jinyi commanded Zhou Yuqiu Wuqiang and Wuyitian for more than 600 hectares... Edicts are granted... The anointing inside the ki is limited, and the small people's food and clothing are all out of this, once they are taken, how can they live. And in the past hundred years of this dynasty, the hukou has grown day by day, and there are still idle fields in Ande that do not cultivate or cultivate? It's called Song Qiu, and it's just a big deal. "The emperor is good at what he says, but the giver still does not ask.
The "emperor" mentioned in the text refers to Xianzong
From the above content, it can be found that the Ming Emperor has a "turn a blind eye" attitude towards the issue of land annexation, especially the participation of the royal family and foreign relatives in this activity. The "emperor is good at what he says, but the giver still does not ask" mentioned in the text is obviously a negative attitude.
Land annexation has been common to all feudal dynasties, but most of the emperors will introduce some highly targeted policies to curb land annexation. However, the Emperors of the Ming Dynasty not only scorned this attitude, but also resisted the reform of the phenomenon of land annexation. In this way, the large landlord class no longer has any shackles from the imperial power on its body, and can annex land at will, how can such a serious social crisis not occur in the middle of the Ming Dynasty?
Land annexation led to the destruction of the military canton system and the deterioration of finances
The immediate consequence of the increasingly violent land annexation and the central government's blindness to it was the fatal destruction of the System of Guarding Posts and Tuntian, which had been in force since the Hongwu Dynasty. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang established guard houses throughout the country, and while being responsible for the safety of the garrison side, he implemented the military tun system, that is, the non-commissioned officers had to carry out agricultural production while garrisoning the localities, and part of the grain obtained was offset by military expenses and partially handed over to the state treasury. Over time, the Ming army has been basically able to achieve self-sufficiency.
Ming Taizu, who founded the System of Sanitary Stations Tun Tian
However, with the increasing phenomenon of land annexation, land in many border areas has also been divided into their own "pockets" by the clan or foreign class. These clans and foreign relatives relied on their own privileges to make the soldiers of Shubian their own "sharecroppers". In this way, the System of Guarding Posts and Tuntian, which had been implemented since the Hongwu Dynasty and had achieved considerable results, was fatally damaged.
At this point, the issue of land annexation has given rise to a new crisis, namely the financial crisis. As early as the Hongwu years, the Ming army was already able to achieve "self-sufficiency", and this has always been the pride of Ming Taizu's life. However, with the destruction of the Weishou Tuntian system, the Ming army, when it was no longer able to achieve self-sufficiency, still needed to rely on the military funds allocated by the central imperial court to maintain daily training and equipment change.
So what is the main source of revenue for the treasury? It's Tian Fu. So who is the subject of the land endowment? It's the farmers. Now this logical relationship is very clear: the system of guarding the tun tian has been destroyed, and the negative impact has finally fallen on the peasant class, and the class contradictions within the empire have become more and more profound.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there were health centers throughout the country
The quality of the army has declined and border security is threatened
The destruction of the guardhouse system further triggered a new crisis, that is, the defensive power of the border began to decline, and the homeland security of the empire was threatened.
Under the circumstance that the problem of land annexation is becoming more and more serious without restraint, the functions of border guards have changed, that is, from the original status of garrisoning the border and supplementing agricultural production to agricultural production as the mainstay, supplemented by town guards. Since then, many border soldiers only know how to farm, but do not know how to fight, and how can the border security of the empire be guaranteed?
On this issue, the Ming Court still attaches great importance to it, after all, homeland security is much more important than economic interests. But the Ming court's proposed response was too conservative, that is, to ease relations with the ethnic minorities in the north, as a way to reduce the chance of attacks on the border areas.
Although Ming's approach helped reduce the risk of attack on the border areas, it was not a good way to secure the empire's borders. This policy and attitude of "covering the ears and stealing bells" still did not alleviate the problem of weak defenses in the border areas, and indirectly shortened the national left of the empire.
The destruction of the guardhouse tun tian system directly led to the decline of border defense forces
It is not difficult to find that there is actually a joint relationship between the various social crises that occurred in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. Everything stems from the land annexation movement. In fact, not only the Ming Dynasty, but many feudal dynasties before the Ming Dynasty were in crisis due to land annexation. In this regard, the common practice of the feudal monarchs was to suppress the power of the large landlord class in order to alleviate the class contradictions within the empire.
However, judging from the methods taken by the Ming court after the emergence of the social crisis in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming court did not intend to strike hard at the big landlord class. The reasons behind this are manifold, such as the Ming Dynasty's desire to trigger drastic social change: as long as taxes can be increased, some social crises and internal contradictions can be selectively ignored.
Soon, the Ming court paid the price for its actions. By the late Ming Dynasty, social contradictions within the empire had intensified to the point of being unmanageable. However, even in this case, the Ming court continued to inflict heavy burdens on the people, such as the "Three Allowances and Sects" during the Chongzhen period. Under the combined action of many factors, the Ming Empire inevitably went to extinction.