MING-DYNASTY ECONOMY, AGRICULTURE AND FOREIGN TRADE

MING-DYNASTY-ERA ECONOMY

British trade ships

According to Columbia University’s Asia for Educators: “At the end of the Ming dynasty, just before the Manchus overthrew the Ming and established the Qing dynasty, China's economy was in a period of expansion. New markets were being founded, and merchants were extending their businesses across provincial lines and even into the South China Sea. “The economic growth so evident under the Ming dynasty continued under the Qing dynasty, up until the time of the Opium War in the 1840s. During this time China’s domestic economy was a dynamic, commercializing economy, and in some small ways, even an industrializing economy. [Source: Asia for Educators, Columbia University, Madeleine Zelin, Consultant learn.columbia.edu/nanxuntu ]

Tea was used as a form of tax with the emperor collecting the tribute, as had been done in previous periods. In 1391, though, the emperor abolished the customary form of tea tribute, which was tea in caked form. This stimulated the production of leaf teas sent to the palace. The practice of steeping leaves in a pot became popular. Caked tea, however, continued in use among the more conservative elite.[Source: Fowler Museum at UCLA]

Chinese merchants were already active in Southeast Asia during this time, and, in fact, one of the arguments then made regarding the cessation of China's state-sponsored maritime expeditions to various places in the southern seas (such as the famed "Ming Voyages") was that these expeditions were no longer necessary. Chinese merchants themselves were going out to the South China Sea and were trading with these areas themselves, so there was no longer a need to have a tributary relationship with other states or city-states in this area. In certain instances the Qing state did balk at the movement of people into overseas commerce and tried to limit rice and metallic currency from moving out of the country, but the state simply did not have the capacity to stop trade completely. The circulation of goods went on with or without state approval.

In 2013, Archaeology magazine reported: A 600-year-old Chinese coin found on the island of Manda, Kenya illustrates the reach of Chinese explorers — including the legendary Admiral Zheng He — before the European age of exploration. The recently unearthed Ming Dynasty coin is called a “Yongle Tongbao,” for Zhu Di, the Yongle Emperor, who also started construction of Beijing’s Forbidden City. The great age of Chinese seafaring ended with the emperor’s death in 1424, as succeeding Chinese leaders shut down international trade and exploration. [Source: Samir S. Patel, Archaeology magazine, July-August 2013]

Website on the Ming Dynasty Ming Studies mingstudies.arts.ubc.ca; Wikipedia Wikipedia ; Ming Tombs Wikipedia Wikipedia : UNESCO World Heritage Site: UNESCO World Heritage Site Map ; Zheng He and Early Chinese Exploration : Wikipedia Chinese Exploration Wikipedia ; Le Monde Diplomatique mondediplo.com ; Zheng He Wikipedia Wikipedia ; Gavin Menzies’s 1421 1421.tv ; Chinese History: Chinese Text Project ctext.org ; 3) Visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilization depts.washington.edu

Agricultural Developments in the Ming Era

Wolfram Eberhard wrote in “A History of China”: “Although the history of Chinese agriculture is as yet only partially known, a number of changes in this field, which began to show up from Song time on, seem to have produced an "agricultural revolution" in Ming time. We have already mentioned the Song attempts to increase production near the big cities by deep-lying fields, cultivation on and in lakes. At the same time, there was an increase in cultivation of mountain slopes by terracing and by distributing water over the terraces in balanced systems. New irrigation machines, especially the so-called Persian wheel, were introduced in the Ming time. Perhaps the most important innovation, however, was the introduction of rice from Indo-China's kingdom Champa in 1012 into Fujian from where it soon spread. This rice had three advantages over ordinary Chinese rice: it was drought-resistant and could, therefore, be planted in areas with poor or even no irrigation. It had a great productivity, and it could be sown very early in the year. At first it had the disadvantage that it had a vegetation period of a hundred days. But soon, the Chinese developed a quick-growing Champa rice, and the speediest varieties took only sixty days from transplantation into the fields to the harvest. This made it possible to grow two rice harvests instead of only one and more than doubled the production. Rice varieties which grew again after being cut and produced a second, but very much smaller harvest, disappeared from now on. Furthermore, fish were kept in the ricefields and produced not only food for the farmers but also fertilized the fields, so that continuous cultivation of ricefields without any decrease in fertility became possible. Incidentally, fish control the malaria mosquitoes; although the Chinese did not know this fact, large areas in South China which had formerly been avoided by Chinese because of malaria, gradually became inhabitable. [Source: “A History of China” by Wolfram Eberhard, 1951, University of California, Berkeley]

“The importance of alternating crops was also discovered and from now on, the old system of fallow cultivation was given up and continuous cultivation with, in some areas, even more than one harvest per field per year, was introduced even in wheat-growing areas. Considering that under the fallow system from one half to one third of all fields remained uncultivated each year, the increase in production under the new system must have been tremendous. We believe that the population revolution which in China started about 1550, was the result of this earlier agrarian revolution. From the eighteenth century on we get reports on depletion of fields due to wrong application of the new system.

“Another plant deeply affected Chinese agriculture: cotton. It is often forgotten that, from very early times, the Chinese in the south had used kapok and similar fibres, and that the cocoons of different kinds of worms had been used for silk. Real cotton probably came from Bengal over South-East Asia first to the coastal provinces of China and spread quickly into Fujian and Guangdong in Song time.

“On the other side, cotton reached China through Central Asia, and already in the thirteenth century we find it in Shaanxi in north-western China. Farmers in the north could in many places grow cotton in summer and wheat in winter, and cotton was a high-priced product. They ginned the cotton with iron rods; a mechanical cotton gin was introduced not until later. The raw cotton was sold to merchants who transported it into the industrial centre of the time, the Yangtze valley, and who re-exported cotton cloth to the north. Raw cotton, loosened by the string of the bow (a method which was known since Song), could now in the north also be used for quilts and padded winter garments.

Business and Commerce During the Ming Era

Wolfram Eberhard wrote in “A History of China”: “Intensivation and modernization of agriculture led to strong population increases especially in the Yangtze valley from Song time on. Thus, in this area commerce and industry also developed most quickly. Urbanization was greatest here. Nanking, the new Ming capital, grew tremendously because of the presence of the court and administration, and even when later the capital was moved, Nanking continued to remain the cultural capital of China. The urban population needed textiles and food. From Ming time on, fashions changed quickly as soon as government regulations which determined colour and material of the dress of each social class were relaxed or as soon as they could be circumvented by bribery or ingenious devices. Now, only factories could produce the amounts which the consumers wanted. We hear of many men who started out with one loom and later ended up with over forty looms, employing many weavers. Shanghai began to emerge as a centre of cotton cloth production. A system of middle-men developed who bought raw cotton and raw silk from the producers and sold it to factories. [Source: “A History of China” by Wolfram Eberhard, 1951, University of California, Berkeley]

“Consumption in the Yangtze cities raised the value of the land around the cities. The small farmers who were squeezed out, migrated to the south. Absentee landlords in cities relied partly on migratory, seasonal labour supplied by small farmers from Zhejiang who came to the Yangtze area after they had finished their own harvest. More and more, vegetables and mulberries or cotton were planted in the vicinity of the cities. As rice prices went up quickly a large organization of rice merchants grew up. They ran large ships up to Hankow where they bought rice which was brought down from Hunan in river boats by smaller merchants. The small merchants again made contracts with the local gentry who bought as much rice from the producers as they could and sold it to these grain merchants. Thus, local grain prices went up and we hear of cases where the local population attacked the grain boats in order to prevent the depletion of local markets.

“Next to these grain merchants, the above-mentioned salt merchants have to be mentioned again. Their centre soon became the city of Hsin-an, a city on the border of Zhejiang and Anhui, or in more general terms, the cities in the district of Hui-chou. When the grain transportation to the frontiers came to an end in early Ming time, the Hsin-an merchants specialized first in silver trade. Later in Ming time, they spread their activities all over China and often monopolized the salt, silver, rice, cotton, silk or tea businesses. In the sixteenth century they had well-established contacts with smugglers on the Fujian coast and brought foreign goods into the interior. Their home was also close to the main centres of porcelain production in Jiangxi which was exported to overseas and to the urban centres. The demand for porcelain had increased so much that state factories could not fulfill it.

“The development of business changed the face of cities. From Song time on, the division of cities into wards with gates which were closed during the night, began to break down. Ming cities had no more wards. Business was no more restricted to official markets but grew up in all parts of the cities. The individual trades were no more necessarily all in one street. Shops did not have to close at sunset. The guilds developed and in some cases were able to exercise locally some influence upon the officials.

Growth of the Small Nobility in the Ming Era

Wolfram Eberhard wrote in “A History of China”: “With the spread of book printing, all kinds of books became easily accessible, including reprints of examination papers. Even businessmen and farmers increasingly learned to read and to write, and many people now could prepare themselves for the examinations. Attendance, however, at the examinations cost a good deal. The candidate had to travel to the local or provincial capital, and for the higher examinations to the capital of the country; he had to live there for several months and, as a rule, had to bribe the examiners or at least to gain the favour of influential people. There were many cases of candidates becoming destitute. [Source: “A History of China” by Wolfram Eberhard, 1951, University of California, Berkeley]

Most of them were heavily in debt when at last they gained a position. They naturally set to work at once to pay their debts out of their salary, and to accumulate fresh capital to meet future emergencies. The salaries of officials were, however, so small that it was impossible to make ends meet; and at the same time every official was liable with his own capital for the receipt in full of the taxes for the collection of which he was responsible. Consequently every official began at once to collect more taxes than were really due, so as to be able to cover any deficits, and also to cover his own cost of living—including not only the repayment of his debts but the acquisition of capital or land so as to rise in the social scale. The old gentry had been rich landowners, and had no need to exploit the peasants on such a scale.

“The Chinese empire was greater than it had been before the Mongol epoch, and the population was also greater, so that more officials were needed. Thus in the Ming epoch there began a certain democratization, larger sections of the population having the opportunity of gaining government positions; but this democratization brought no benefit to the general population but resulted in further exploitation of the peasants.[Source: “A History of China” by Wolfram Eberhard, 1951, University of California, Berkeley]

“The new "small gentry" did not consist of great families like the original gentry. When, therefore, people of that class wanted to play a political part in the central government, or to gain a position there, they had either to get into close touch with one of the families of the gentry, or to try to approach the emperor directly. In the immediate entourage of the emperor, however, were the eunuchs. A good many members of the new class had themselves castrated after they had passed their state examination.

Growth of the Small Nobility in the Ming Era

Shexian and Yixian (Yi) counties in southern Anhui (near Huangshan and accessible from Hangzhou by bus and by planes that land at Tunxi airport) are the home of a number charming Ming- and Qing-era villages, the most famous of which are Hongcun and Xidi, which have been designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Hongcun and other nearby towns were home to wealthy salt barons as far back as the 14th century. Mostly during the 16th and 17th centuries they built lavish white-walled mansions with delightful courtyards and richly-carved interiors. Shexian is famous for its decorated arches. In Tangmo check out the bonsai trees, pavilions and inscribed tablets in Tanganyuan gardens. Around the town are tea plantations, farms, rice fields and more normal style villages

Industry During the Ming Era

Wolfram Eberhard wrote in “A History of China”: The demand for porcelain had increased so much that state factories could not fulfil it. The state factories seem often to have suffered from a lack of labour: indented artisans were imported from other provinces and later sent back on state expenses or were taken away from other state industries. Thus, private porcelain factories began to develop, and in connection with quickly changing fashions a great diversification of porcelain occurred. [Source: “A History of China” by Wolfram Eberhard, 1951, University of California, Berkeley]

“One other industry should also be mentioned. With the development of printing, which will be discussed below, the paper industry was greatly stimulated. The state also needed special types of paper for the paper currency. Printing and book selling became a profitable business, and with the application of block print to textiles (probably first used in Song time) another new field of commercial activity was opened.

“As already mentioned, silver in form of bars had been increasingly used as currency in Song time. The yearly government production of silver was c. 10,000 kg. Mongol currency was actually based upon silver. The Ming, however, reverted to copper as basic unit, in addition to the use of paper money. This encouraged the use of silver for speculative purposes.

Archaeology magazine reported: “In central China’s Hunan Province, archaeologists have uncovered evidence of a zinc production site dating to the late Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). The finds include large smelting furnaces as well as zinc slag, the by-product of the conversion of zinc ores to pure zinc. Along with India, China was one of the major production centers for zinc between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries, after which the material began to be produced on a larger scale in Europe.” [Source: Jarrett A. Lobell, Archaeology magazine, March-April 2017]

Importance of the Grand Canal in the Ming and Qing Eras

According to Columbia University’s Asia for Educators: “The Grand Canal was a major conduit for grain, salt, and other important commodities. Any taxes that were paid in kind were paid in grain, which was shipped along the Grand Canal. Thus, control of the Grand Canal was of critical importance to the Qing government. To a certain extent, the Qing state itself facilitated the movement of goods to market by locating Beijing, its capital, far to the north, away from the rich and prosperous rice growing areas of Southern China. This resulted in a natural market for the demand of goods in the North, if for no other reason than to feed the imperial household and court. This was one of the reasons why it was so important to keep the Grand Canal working. [Source: Asia for Educators, Columbia University, Madeleine Zelin, Consultant learn.columbia.edu/nanxuntu]

The Grand Canal is largest ancient artificial waterway in the world and an engineering marvel on the scale of the Great Wall of China. Begun in 540 B.C. and completed in A.D. 1327, it is 1,107 miles long and has largely been dug by hand by a work force described as a "million people with teaspoons." At its peak the Grand Canal extended from Tianjin in the north to Hangzhou in the south. It connected Beijing and Xian in the north with Shanghai in the south, and linked four great rivers—the Yellow, the Yangtze, Huai and Qiantang. Water levels have traditionally been maintained using a system of stone gates which channel water in and out of the canals. When it has been necessary to prevent flooding gates are opened so that water can be diverted into lakes. The world's longest modern canal, the Belomorsko-Baltiyskiy Canal in Russia, is 1,410 miles long.

According to UNESCO “The Grand Canal bears witness to the unique cultural tradition of canal management via the Caoyun system.... It consisted of an imperial monopoly of the transport and storage of grain, salt and iron, and a taxation system. It contributed to the fundamental link between the peasant economy, the imperial court and the supply of food to the population and troops. It was a factor of stability for the Chinese Empire down the ages. The economic and urban development along the course of the Grand Canal bears witness to the functioning core of a great agricultural civilisation, and to the decisive role played in this respect by the development of waterway networks.” ==

In 2007, David Lague wrote in the New York Times: “The Duke of Wu began work on what became the Grand Canal in 486 B.C., but it was not until the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan moved the capital to Beijing and straightened the canal that it became a direct north-south waterway. The canal’s main purpose was moving rice to the empire’s wheat-growing north, but it has carried far more colorful cargo over the years. The wood used in building the Ming tombs on the outskirts of Beijing was transported down the Yangtze River from Yunnan and Sichuan provinces and then up the Grand Canal to the capital. During the Ming dynasty, the bricks used to build the Forbidden City in Beijing were hauled up the canal from Jiangsu and Shandong Provinces. Even the craftsmen and artisans recruited from Jiangsu to build the sprawling complex that became the seat of power for the Ming and Qing dynasties arrived in the capital on the canal. [Source: David Lague, New York Times July 24, 2007 |^|]

“In 1790, during the reign of Emperor Qianlong, opera troupes from Anhui Province were ferried up the canal to perform in the capital. The troupes stayed on, and their melodies and performances, combined with other influences, eventually became Beijing Opera. But by the beginning of the 19th century, the canal was in decline as a weakened Qing dynasty neglected maintenance and dredging. A major flood on the Yellow River in 1855 damaged the waterway and blocked it for more than a decade at a time when increasing amounts of cargo were being carried by sea and then rail.” |^|

Paper Money, Silver and Opium in Ming- and Qing-Era Economies

Ken Pomeranz and Bin Wong wrote: “For more or less coincidental geological reasons, China simply has very little in the way of precious metals: not much gold, virtually no silver, reasonable amounts of copper but not massive amounts. However, the huge Chinese population, something on the order of a quarter of humanity for most of the time since we've had decent records, developed an unusually dynamic, commercially sophisticated economy, which needed a medium of exchange: money. And that posed an enormous problem, which the Chinese solved in the Song dynasty by inventing the world's first paper money. Paper money cost very little, but it required a certain technological sophistication, such as good printing. And again, it required social institutions: paper money is only as good as people's willingness to trust it. [Source: Asia for Educators, Columbia University afe.easia.columbia.edu ]

“For a couple hundred years, China had a paper currency that worked quite well, centuries before anybody else had it. This didn't last, however, because when later dynasties, the Yuan and then especially the early Ming, got into fiscal crises, they did what many governments in many moments have done: they tried to solve the problem by printing money, and they undermined confidence in it. And once burned, people are shy for a long time. It will be centuries before they trust paper money again. It meant that this huge commercial economy had to be supplied with something else, with coinage. And what China turns to, for a whole series of reasons that are imperfectly understood, is silver.

“During this period when silver was flowing to China, the Mexican peso became the standard coin throughout much of the world. In some ways, it was the first global product with a brand name—"Mexican pesos," not "silver," was the preferred term for currency among many peoples. Silver coin from Mexico with bust of Carlos IV, minted 1798 Silver coin from Mexico with bust of Carlos IV, minted 1798 asiannumismatic.com Pesos were so familiar in China that they had cute little names for them. One of the kings of Spain, whose image was on the peso during his reign, looked to the Chinese like Buddha, so they referred to this as the "Fat Buddha" coin or the "Buddha Head" coin. And they were so used to this that, in fact, they drove world demand for this particular coin. Long after this particular Spanish king was dead, other people discovered that the Chinese wanted coins with this particular image on them, so the price of the coins rose.

“As a result, people such as the Dutch were making coins with the face of a particular long-dead Spanish king on them because the Chinese wanted them. (Much as people today make fake Prada handbags to satisfy consumer demand.) The Chinese market for coins, essentially, set the global standard. These coins were also so common in China that land contracts normally had a price in copper or some local medium, and then in a little handwritten note on the side next to the standard price, they told you how much that was in Spanish or Mexican pesos. It was just a part of life there.

“Eventually the Europeans, for reasons of their own, became reluctant to continue shipping so much silver to East Asia. This is largely because they preferred to hoard the silver so that they could use it to pay mercenaries in their ongoing wars. They started looking for something else to export to China and found that they were in a real bind because there were very few things that they produce more efficiently than the Chinese could. The thing that eventually filled the gap left when the Europeans tried to cut back on their silver shipments was opium. Opium served a whole series of functions for the British in particular. It helped make their new colony in India profitable by providing a very ready revenue source. It saved on the silver that they no longer wanted to ship and, of course, the story of the opium trade to China then gets us into a whole different period of world history and different kinds of links between China and the outside world.

Ming-Qing Era Porcelain Exports

The porcelain trade was so lucrative that the porcelain making processes were closely guarded secrets and Jingdezhen was officially off limits to visitors to keep spies from uncovering these secrets. Over three million pieces were exported to Europe between 1604 and 1657 alone. This was around that the same time that the word "china" began being used in England to describe porcelains because the two were so closely associated with each other.

According to Columbia University’s Asia for Educators: “Porcelain Production in China The manufacture of porcelain in China evolved over time into a highly specialized set of related crafts that together formed an entire industry. There were those who specialized in mining kaolin clay, others whose specialty was to mix the raw clay with other materials to create the particular mixture used for porcelain, and still others who actually shaped the objects, others who fired them, and still others whose specialty it was to paint and decorate the final pieces. As demand continued to increase, porcelain production in China began to resemble a highly specialized, mass-production-style industry. A common view of the industrial revolution as it occurred in England in the 1750s is that the burgeoning textile industry was a key contributor to the complex interaction of various socioeconomic developments that led to that phenomenon; mentioned less often is the possibility that the porcelain industry, as it evolved in China, may have also contributed to this development. [Source: Asia for Educators, Columbia University, Maxwell K. Hearn, Consultant learn.columbia.edu/nanxuntu ]

Efforts by Europeans to Learn the Secret of Chinese Porcelain

Pere d’Entrecolles, a Jesuit missionary from France, secretly entered Jingdezhen and described porcelain making in the city in letters that made their way to Europe in the early 1700s. He described a city with a million people and 3,000 kilns that were fired up day and night and filled the night sky with an orange glow. He learned the process but confused the clays.

Around he same time that d’Entrecolles was describing porcelain-making in Jingdezhen, Germans working independently in their homeland discovered the secret to making porcelain Large scale porcelain production began in the West in 1710 in Meissen, Germany.

Chinese porcelain dominated the world until European manufacturers such as those in Messen, Germany and Wedgewood, England began producing products of equal quality but at a cheaper price. After that the Chinese porcelain industry collapsed as many industries have done today when underpriced by cheap Chinese imports.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Robert Eno, Indiana University /+/ ; Asia for Educators, Columbia University afe.easia.columbia.edu ; University of Washington’s Visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilization, depts.washington.edu/chinaciv /=\; National Palace Museum, Taipei \=/ Library of Congress; New York Times; Washington Post; Los Angeles Times; China National Tourist Office (CNTO); Xinhua; China.org; China Daily; Japan News; Times of London; National Geographic; The New Yorker; Time; Newsweek; Reuters; Associated Press; Lonely Planet Guides; Compton’s Encyclopedia; Smithsonian magazine; The Guardian; Yomiuri Shimbun; AFP; Wikipedia; BBC. Many sources are cited at the end of the facts for which they are used.

Last updated August 2021