Reporter | Chen Jiajing
Edit | Yellow Moon
In the early wave of globalization, the Ming Dynasty left two completely different faces: on the one hand, it maintained its long-term economic leadership and cultural glory in the world; on the other hand, it showed a huge traditional inertia and was not shaken by new ideas. At the beginning of the modern history of the world, the Ming Dynasty adopted an "introverted" orientation in its territorial policy and established the traditional "Chinese Asian order" with the Central Plains Dynasty as the core. At the same time, Western Europe ushered in the "Renaissance" and the opening of new shipping routes thereafter; Arab civilization expanded its power in Eurasia, acting as an intermediary between Trade and Culture between the East and the West; and the Principality of Moscow, on the basis of the mongol Empire, integrated the Rus' tribes and established Russian civilization.
Looking at the world in the 14th century, why did the Ming Dynasty make a choice different from other civilizations? What were the factors that determined the direction of the historical development of the Ming Dynasty? At the recent sharing meeting of the new book "The Ming Dynasty at the Crossroads", Zhao Xianhai, the author of the book and an expert in the study of Ming history of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Ma Yong, an expert in modern history of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, discussed the above issues. The biggest feature of "Ming Dynasty at the Crossroads" compared with previous Ming history works is that the author adopts a global perspective, which not only analyzes the historical context and historical figures of the Ming Dynasty, but also tells what happened in other parts of the world in the Ming Dynasty's contemporaries, especially the contrast between the East and the West.
On the surface, the Ming Dynasty missed a rare historical opportunity and provided historical space for the expansion of the other three civilizations. But in history, we will find that the choice of the Ming Dynasty has inherent rationality, which is the result of a synthesis of geopolitics, civilizational traditions, and dynastic character. At the event site, Zhao Xianhai said that he wrote this book out of consideration for the present. As the Italian historian Croce said, "All history is contemporary history", although history has passed and the historical truth has gone with the wind, but groups of contemporary people can continue to explore history and look for problems of interest to themselves and the times.
<h3>We cannot simply criticize the Ming Dynasty from the perspective of modern people</h3>
In the process of studying the history of the Ming Dynasty, Zhao Xianhai found that many small things that people have been ignoring can reflect the differences between the East and the West during the Ming Dynasty. The contrast between Wang Yangming and Martin Luther is a typical example. Usually, the course teaching is to tell Wang Yangming as a figure in ancient Chinese history and Martin Luther as a figure in the modern history of the world, but if you calculate their age, you will find that the two actually lived in the same era, and Wang Yangming was only nine years older than Martin Luther. What is more interesting is that the two people's ideological views are very similar, both advocate the use of personal subjectivity to think, challenging the traditional scholastic philosophy, but the influence and promotion of the two people on history are completely different. After its prosperity, Yangmingxin was abandoned by the government and the academic community, and eventually became only a specialized academic field, and Martin Luther's Reformation promoted the change of the entire course of European history and the expansion of capitalism around the world.
It can be said that at least from the middle of the Ming Dynasty, global integration has been formed in the East and the West. However, when Ming Dynasty China missed the historical opportunity under the favorable environment of having the most powerful military and economic power in the world, Western Europe took the opportunity to set off the process of capitalism and surpassed China in a relatively backward situation. This is also the reason why many historical researchers have a relatively negative evaluation of the Ming Dynasty. But Zhao Xianhai believes that we also need to see another kind of thinking, that is, although China has lost the opportunity to enter capitalist society first, China has maintained the unity of the country; in contrast to Europe, Martin Luther's Religious Reformation has promoted the development of capitalism and brought religious wars and social unrest, fundamentally destroying the already crumbling European Community order. To this day, Europe is still divided and has entered a period of relative decline, while China's position in the world is rising.
It can be seen that there is a huge energy hidden under many appearances of history, which is also the part that historical researchers should focus on exploring. "The Ming Dynasty at the Crossroads" contains the above two ways of thinking, Zhao Xianhai reminds readers not to simply criticize the Ming Dynasty from the perspective of modern people, but to consider the reasons behind it, "Does this contain some reasonable factors?" How do they relate to dynastic character, geopolitics, and civilizational values? Objectively speaking, the Ming Dynasty has gained and lost, and has always influenced the history of China for more than 200 years, and even affected the historical process of the entire modern history of the world. Only with a kind of "sympathetic understanding, understanding sympathy" can we truly feel the culture of the Ming Dynasty, understand us as descendants of the Ming Dynasty and today's China.
As a predecessor in the field of modern Chinese history research, Ma Yong noticed that in the past four decades, the understanding of the Ming Dynasty by historical researchers has changed greatly. When he was studying in the 1970s and 1980s, the older generation of scholars mostly praised the Ming Dynasty, because the Ming Dynasty was considered a true "Han Dynasty" and "expelled the Tartars" before and after. Some frustrated figures are also willing to study the history of the Ming Dynasty, and feel that they can find a positive side of the Han people from it. When he entered the field of professional research, scholars' narratives of the Ming Dynasty began to be enriched. From the perspective of the modernization narrative, the Ming Dynasty marks the embryonic of capitalism and the emergence of modern society; from the background of global history, the Ming Dynasty is also at a crossroads, "During the Han and Tang Dynasties, generous tolerance, with Xia Huayi, you have nothing impossible to accommodate, but we see that after the Ming Dynasty, this kind of inclusive things are less and less, but the original early Confucianism emphasized the Huayi problem more and more serious." "The Ming Dynasty did not continue the outward-looking open model of the Han and Tang Dynasties, but embarked on an introverted path, which set the tone for the historical positioning of the Ming Dynasty."
<h3>The Ming Dynasty was introverted and globally integrated</h3>
Among the many figures who influenced the historical trend of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, was one of the figures who played a decisive role, and the viciousness and cruelty in his personality also left a deep impression on people. Zhu Yuanzhang's attitude toward the regime was not to develop, but to firmly grasp it in his own hands, so he not only eradicated all the founding heroes, but also stopped the development of the territory and did not use his strong military strength to start global expansion.
Zhao Xianhai believes that Zhu Yuanzhang's thinking of opening the country and governing the country is largely related to his personal growth experience. From his youth, he lived a life of displacement and precariousness, experiencing extreme poverty and witnessing the deaths of those around him in floods or plagues. In order to survive, he "traveled around" and later joined the "Red Turban Army", witnessing the complex struggles and rebellions within the revolution. It can be said that before the founding of the People's Republic of China at the age of 40, Zhu Yuanzhang experienced all the dark side of the world, which also created his insecure character in the depths of his heart. His foresight and caution were reflected in his national policy, the most typical of which was the abolition of the chancellor and the resurrection of the long-existing system of sub-feudalism. Fearing that his regime would not be well inherited by his descendants, he also used ancestral training to keep his descendants from making major changes while inheriting. From this point of view, Zhu Yuanzhang not only influenced one era, but also the entire dynasty.
In fact, the Ming Dynasty had already entered the process of global integration at the founding of the Ming Dynasty, but the era that really directly affected the Ming Dynasty was after wanli. Zhao Xianhai pointed out, "During the Wanli period, with the help of European firearms, Vietnam, Burma, Japan and other countries took the lead in arming themselves, realized the unification of the country, and launched a war against China's southwest frontier, so in that period, we can see that the storm of global integration has begun to invade China's mainland." "From then on until the Sino-Japanese War in the Qing Dynasty and the later Japanese invasion of China, we can see that after the Wanli Calendar, the situation in East Asia as a whole took a fundamental turn, and this turning point was actually the result of global integration.
During the Wanli Dynasty, the strength of the Ming Dynasty in East Asia was no longer shaken, but after the transition to the Chongzhen Emperor, the Ming Dynasty fell into decline in just 17 years, which pointed to a reflection on the internal affairs of the Ming Dynasty. In Ma Yong's view, the biggest mistake in the internal affairs of the Ming Dynasty was to treat the Manchus as a kind of nation. In fact, the Manchus are the descendants of the Jin people, very early originated in the northeast region, when the Ming Dynasty was founded, the Manchus were already under the rule of the Ming Dynasty, could have naturally integrated into the Han civilization, but the Ming rulers advocated the distinction between Huayi and further separated the two. On the other hand, there were also problems in the Ming Dynasty's handling of the peasant problem. During the Chongzhen period, large-scale domestic and foreign affairs were not handled well, which increased the burden on the peasants, so it triggered peasant uprisings such as the Li Zicheng Uprising and the Zhang Xianzhong Uprising, which accelerated the demise of the Ming Dynasty.
Zhao Xianhai believes that the most fundamental factor in the demise of all dynasties is that it established a dynastic state, not a nation-state. In order to maintain national peace and maintain the balance and stability of different regions, the ancient dynasties could only adopt a relatively extensive way of organizing, pursuing not development and outward expansion, but maintaining political power. Even the frontiers opened up during the Han and Tang dynasties were a family community centered on China, which was still a relatively introverted civilized character in essence. Such a regime is difficult to fully mobilize the country, and after the vitality slowly fades, it is doomed to extinction. Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, it has adopted an introverted policy, which has aggravated the internal consumption of resources and faced the impact of global integration, including the challenges of Japan, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Nowadays, it is difficult for us to imagine whether the Ming Dynasty would have had the opportunity to change its destiny if it continued to follow the open route of the Han and Tang dynasties. However, in both Chinese and global history, the Ming Dynasty was a key watershed, shaping the development path of Chinese and even world history.