The topic of how big the territory of the Ming Dynasty was has always attracted the attention of many Ming Dynasty history enthusiasts, and the description of the territory of the Ming Dynasty at that time in the Ming History chengzu Benji is "the vastness of the ming dynasty, far away from the Han and Tang dynasties", so is this statement in line with objective facts?
To answer this question, you can first take a look at the ming map above. As we can see from the figure, the Ming Dynasty's territory encompassed the Waixing'an Mountains in the northeast, reached the Indochina Peninsula in present-day Southeast Asia in the southwest, advanced to the west to the Onion Ridge (present-day Pamir Plateau), and to the east close to the sea. According to the algorithm of later generations, the ming dynasty's territory reached 9.97 million square kilometers during the Yongle period, which is even larger than the territory of China today. However, the night reading history books here solemnly point out that the information in the map above is not true.
First, the territory claimed by the ancient Chinese dynasties is not the same thing as our modern understanding of territorial sovereignty. The territory claimed by the ancient dynasty actually consisted of two parts, one was the homeland of the Central Plains, and the other was the area controlled by the Qiang. The concept of the homeland of the Central Plains is relatively easy to understand, that is, the area where the Han people have settled for a long time and is highly Sinicized, which is known to many people as the "Thirteen Provinces of Han China" during the Ming Dynasty. And what about the areas controlled by the bondage? In fact, the so-called bondage is a policy of the ancient Central Plains Dynasty to control Yi with Yi, the Central Plains Dynasty gave the Yi people leaders official positions, and the Yi people leaders accepted the title and nominally belonged to the Central Plains Dynasty. In return, the Central Plains Dynasty gave the Yiren leaders trade privileges, which was roughly equivalent to the goods you paid me 100 yuan in tribute, and I doubled the goods for you as a reward. The Central Plains Dynasty gained face, yiren gained lizi, and both sides took what they needed. A large part of the so-called 9.97 million square kilometers of territory of the Ming Dynasty was actually such a restrictive area, and the imperial court could not recruit soldiers or collect taxes in these places.
However, the same is the control of restraint, in fact, there are still great differences. For example, there are two main areas claimed by the Ming Dynasty, one is today's Tibet and its surrounding areas, and the other is today's northeast and outer Xing'anLing, Sakhalin Island and other areas. The Ming Dynasty set up the Wusizang Dusi and Duogandusi in the former; in the latter, the Nuer Gandusi was established. Many people think that the Ming Dynasty exercised effective rule in these two regions, but this is actually a misunderstanding.
Tibet during the Ming Dynasty had split into many monastic sects, none of which dominated. The Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang sent emissaries to Tibet, granted some Tibetan leaders official positions in the Ming Dynasty, and announced the establishment of the Wusi Tibetan Dusi and Duogan Dusi. But these Tibetan leaders did not have the right to rule in Tibet at that time, not even the mainstream forces. The Wusi Zangdu Division and the DuoganDu Division only existed in name, and the Ming Dynasty neither stationed troops in these places nor sent officials to these places. The Hongwu Emperor planned several administrative districts on the map and declared that this was the territory of Daming, but the mainstream forces in Tibet did not know and did not recognize this matter.
Compared with Tibet, the Ming Dynasty's control of the northeast is much more real. In the ninth year of Yongle (1411), Ming Chengzu Zhu Di sent a famous eunuch from Haixi Jurchen to lead an expedition to the mouth of the Heilongjiang River to recruit the Savage Jurchen. After arriving in the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River, the team was warmly welcomed by the Savage Woman, and the two sides exchanged gifts. After some exchanges, the Savage Jurchen chieftain agreed to the Ming Dynasty's establishment of the Capital Command and Envoy Division in Nuergan (present-day Nikolayevsk, Russia) in the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River, which is the origin of the establishment of the Nuer Gandu Division.
After the establishment of the Nuer Gandu Division, the Ming Dynasty stationed officials and garrisons from the interior here. Although the affairs of the Jurchen tribes in the northeast were still decided by the Jurchen chiefs, from the perspective of the control of the Jurchens, the establishment of the Nuer Gandusi could indeed mark the nominal inclusion of this region in the territory of the Ming Dynasty, which was fundamentally different from the unilateral declaration of Tibet. However, it is worth mentioning that the areas farther north of Nuer Gandusi were uninhabited areas that were not suitable for human habitation at that time, and many people in later generations also classified these places into the territory of Daming.
In summary, the 9.97 million square kilometers of territory calculated by later generations for the Ming Dynasty are actually a bit exaggerated, and the territory that really belongs to the Ming Dynasty is far less vast. There is still a certain gap between the statement that "the scope is wide, far away from the Han and Tang Dynasties" and the objective facts.