This year is a dull year. Although there was little rain in spring in Henan, Shandong, Shanxi and other places, they quickly got relief from the official warehouse. Guizhou and Guangxi, two "barbarians", were easily put down by officers and men in May and June. The Central Committee sent people to Nuergandu in the mouth of Heilongjiang Province to rebuild the monument of Yongning Temple and re-establish the boundary. In order to improve the ruling efficiency, in August, the imperial court laid off 77 redundant Beijing officials in one fell swoop, and inspected the university students, the first two subjects and some provincial officials to select outstanding candidates. "In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the government tried to send a governor to the local government and made clear its responsibilities in this year. The court retried and pardoned more than 5000 prisoners. Liu Bei watched Bao Tong start casting. The emperor ordered the maintenance of the 50-meter-high white stupa in Beijing. After cutting the lamp, I copied it for a long time, and I made the first lettering that year. This collection of short stories describing secular love and marriage between people and ghosts has influenced a number of popular novels, including Liaozhai, and can best reflect the folk culture of the Ming Dynasty.
All these show the prosperity and vitality of the Chinese empire. This year, the imperial court gave Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Factory more than 400,000 pieces of firing tasks at one time. Porcelain is mostly blue and white porcelain. Adopt pigments such as "Su Qing" and "Boni" imported from Nanyang to make it greener. They represented the most exquisite craftsmanship in the world at that time and were also the most sought-after commodities in the maritime trade market.
Yes, the ocean-if the year 1433 is considered in a longer time and space background, some things related to the ocean have given the prosperous Ming Dynasty another face, such as the death of Zheng He.
set out on a voyage
On March 9, 433, the Ming Dynasty sent eunuch Zheng He to lead a fleet and set off for home from Huludao, the destination of this voyage. This is his seventh time at sea. In April this year, Zheng He, who had been drifting at sea for many years, died in Guri and was buried by his entourage in Semarang, Java, Indonesia. This ended an era.
"Asian Copper" is the poet's metaphor for China in the 20th century. China is located in the eastern part of Eurasia, bordering on the western Pacific Ocean. Indeed, yellow is its main color. However, ancestors realized a long time ago that the blue sea means "the benefit of fish and salt" and "the convenience of boat". The vast ocean contains food and treasure, and it is also a waterway and living space. Only by attaching importance to mountains and seas can the country become rich. In 222 BC, Qin Jun of Chu was defeated by 100 Vietnamese troops, and China was unified the following year. In the eyes of later historians, this is the last yellow inland civilization.
But China never stopped trying to go to sea. With the support of Qin Shihuang, Xu Fu led a huge fleet of "Du Dong" loaded with grain seeds and thousands of young men, women and craftsmen. Whether they are looking for the elixir of life or not, this is an organized overseas expansion. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Maritime Silk Road bypassed the Indian Peninsula and sailed to Rome. During the Three Kingdoms period, Sun Wu's regime managed Taiwan Province Province on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and sent officials to explore a new route to the west. The Sui Dynasty opened a canal to connect the north and the south, which was convenient for water transportation.
The prosperity of maritime trade is one of the natural manifestations of "the weather in the prosperous Tang Dynasty". In the early Tang Dynasty, a special organization was set up to manage ships, merchants and collect taxes. It is said that one of the motivations of Zheng He's fleet's voyage to the West was to look for the "Yi Dao" recorded by the "Kirin" giraffe, which was regarded as a mascot by the China court. It starts from Guangzhou and goes all the way to the Persian Gulf.
The economic center of Song Dynasty moved south, and the southeast coast became the economic lifeline. What's more, coastal residents abandoned farming and went to sea, and many mainland businessmen joined in. At that time, some people thought that Yuan Shizu Kublai Khan immediately resumed overseas trade decades after nomadic people who made a living by exchange entered the Central Plains, recruiting foreign businessmen every year, buying pearls, delicacies and fragrant goods from Fan Bangbo, and listening to them sell "goods" and "attack Myanmar, Java, occupy the city and Japan", almost without any nominal age.
The prosperity of commodity economy in Song and Yuan Dynasties provided an endless supply of silk, porcelain, tea and other commodities. They are transported by manpower, horses and ships, gathered in various ports, and loaded with ships that come with the monsoon. At that time, seagoing ships "floated in the south of the South China Sea, like huge rooms", which could store food for hundreds of people for a year. The invention of the compass further promoted ocean navigation.
In the description of a European named Kelpolo, Quanzhou in the13rd century was "magnificent and beautiful", with ships sailing like boats, merchants gathering and goods piling up like mountains. He exclaimed: This city is one of the largest ports in the world. It's hard to believe. Historians of later generations have confirmed that an active trade network connects ports in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, the west coast of India and even the Persian Gulf. They even named this prosperous stage of trade as "Quanzhou Times". 1402, Judy occupied Nanjing and acceded to the throne. He did not hesitate to "trust the money of 13 provinces in the world" and transferred more than 400 outstanding shipbuilders from five provinces and counties such as Zhejiang, Fujian and Huguang to build ships in Nanjing.
Beginning in 405, Zheng He led a huge fleet of more than 200 ships and more than 20,000 people, and "Yun Fan covered the sky" appeared in the Indian Ocean, starting the last ocean voyage in the imperial era.
Historians of later generations believe that the Ming navy was stronger than any Asian country at that time, and even all European countries at the same time were inferior to the Ming navy. No matter from which point of view, it was the largest maritime deterrent force in the world at that time, and the South China Sea was certainly under the control of this force.
Maritime trade/exchange with foreign countries is prohibited.
In July 433, Zheng He's fleet returned to China. His death is not only a tribute to the painter Yan Zheng's voyage to the West in the Tang Dynasty. This painting vividly reflects the scene of foreign envoys paying tribute to Tang Wang in the prosperous Tang Dynasty.
The end of. Three years later, Wang Jinghong, former deputy envoy of Zheng He's fleet, repatriated the missions of 1 1 countries including Sumatra. Since then, the Ming government has never sent a boat to sail again. And the reason is not just because of Zheng He's death.
In August 433, the imperial edict was issued to inform the governor of Zhangzhou. The background of the promulgation of this law is that seafarers and sailors are unemployed because they can't go to sea, and violations of the ban on going to sea frequently occur.
After Zhu Yuanzhang, Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, ascended the throne, he hoped to bind farmers to the land and develop the economy through "dividing fields" in the face of the break of "mutiny year after year and road blocking people's death". He started with civil riots and was particularly sensitive to "rioters" who left the state power. He naturally wants to quickly eliminate the separatist forces in the southeast and the maritime pirates who collude with the coastal people. Therefore, in view of the tendency of encouraging openness in Tang, Song and Yuan Dynasties, he announced the sea ban.
Local officials in the Tang Dynasty often questioned foreign businessmen from China and "allowed them to trade for themselves" on the premise of abiding by the law. This kind of "compassion" and "following fate" not only reflects the ability of the Tang Dynasty, but also is mainly due to the fact that the government obtained real import and export taxes and that Ming Chengzu sent Zheng He to the Western Ocean to benefit ships. Mainly produced in Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangdong, the ship is as tall as a building, with a wide bottom tip, a high bow, a sharp and square bow and fenders on both sides. At that time, China's shipbuilding industry was far ahead of the world.
"The upper half is enough for the national treasury, and the lower half is enough to support the needs of Jianghuai." Song Gaozong emphasized that market transactions are the most profitable. If handled properly, you can earn millions, won't you win for the people? The government inherited the companies established in the Tang Dynasty and introduced incentive policies to attract foreign businessmen. Cai, an official, was named "Cheng Xinlang" in the Song and Yuan Dynasties because he earned a net profit of more than 980,000 yuan by soliciting customers to sell goods. Although the government set up the management of the municipal shipping company, its main purpose was to "return the patent right of cage owners to the public" and to pursue the economic benefits of "moving millions" in essence, the market trade in the Song and Yuan Dynasties was actually an overseas trade managed by both the people and officials.