The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming DynastiesThe Mongol takeover in the 1270s changed the course of Chinese history. The Confucian empire—a millennium and a half in the making—was suddenly thrust under foreign occupation. What China had been before its reunification as the Yuan dynasty in 1279 was no longer what it would be in the future. Four centuries later, another wave of steppe invaders would replace the Ming dynasty with yet another foreign occupation. The Troubled Empire explores what happened to China between these two dramatic invasions.If anything defined the complex dynamics of this period, it was changes in the weather. Asia, like Europe, experienced a Little Ice Age, and as temperatures fell in the thirteenth century, Kublai Khan moved south into China. His Yuan dynasty collapsed in less than a century, but Mongol values lived on in Ming institutions. A second blast of cold in the 1630s, combined with drought, was more than the dynasty could stand, and the Ming fell to Manchu invaders.Against this background—the first coherent ecological history of China in this period—Timothy Brook explores the growth of autocracy, social complexity, and commercialization, paying special attention to China’s incorporation into the larger South China Sea economy. These changes not only shaped what China would become but contributed to the formation of the early modern world. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Landscape of Contemporary China | 4 |
Scale | 24 |
Ming Dynasty Courier Routes and Travel Distances | 32 |
The Lower Yangzi Region Jiangnan | 35 |
Provinces and Cities of the Yuan Dynasty | 40 |
Provinces and Provincial Capitals of the Ming Dynasty | 41 |
FIGURES | 44 |
Two Women Husking Millet Using a Stone Roller | 139 |
Portrait of Shang Lu | 151 |
Portrait of a Ming Gentleman | 154 |
Beliefs | 161 |
Buddhist Monk in the Guise of a Lohan | 165 |
General Map of the Terrestrial World | 175 |
The Business of Things | 186 |
Porcelain Jar | 192 |
The Nine Sloughs | 50 |
Dragon Emerging by Wang Zhao II | 56 |
Heavy Snow in the Mountain Passes by Wen Zhengming | 58 |
Guanyin Protecting Children from Pestilence | 69 |
Khan and Emperor | 79 |
Khubilai on a Hunt by Liu Guandao | 84 |
Portrait of Zhu Yuanzhang | 88 |
Economy and Ecology | 106 |
Distillery Workers Grinding Grain to Make Liquor | 115 |
Magistrate Distributing Grain from a State Granary | 123 |
Families | 134 |
Enjoying Antiquities by Du Jin | 195 |
The South China Sea | 213 |
The Selden Map | 218 |
Collapse | 238 |
Conclusion | 260 |
Lohan by Wu Bin | 265 |
Temperature and Precipitation Extremes | 269 |
Bibliography | 297 |
Acknowledgments | 317 |
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administrative Beijing bian Buddhist capital century Chen Chinese Chongzhen chubanshe cold commercial Confucian court cultural decade disasters Dong dragons drought early Ming Earth economy emperor epidemic European famine flood Fujian fuzhi gentry grain Grand Canal grand secretary Guan Guangqi Hangzhou Heaven historian Hongwu Hongzhi Hongzhi emperor household Huang Zongxi Huizhou imperial Jesuit Jiajing Jiangnan Jiangxi Jianwen Jingtai Jurchens Khan Khubilai late Ming later Lu Rong Manchus merchants military Ming dynasty Ming shi Mongols monks Nanjing northern officials paintings palace political province Qing realm records reign Reprint Rihua ritual River Shandong Shanghai Shanxi Shen shilu silver Slough snow Song South China Sea southern Suzhou tigers tion trade tribute turned Wang Wanli weather Wen Zhengming xianzhi Xu Guangqi Yangzi delta Yongle Yuan and Ming Yuan dynasty zazu Zhang Tingyu Zheng Zhonghua shuju Zhou Zhu Yuanzhang