28.6 The far east: a.d. 1301 to 1400

The far east

Back to The Far East: A.D. 1201 to 1300

China and manchuria (yuan dynasty to 1368, then ming)

By the beginning of this century the use of moveable, wooden characters for printing had become widespread in China and had even spread to - Turkestan. (Ref. 260 ) In the early decades as much grain was carried in seagoing vessels as moved on the canals, in part because improvement of navigation techniques shortened the sea trip along the coast. The use of great rafts began at this time with tree trunks tied together with a type of wicker rope to bring wood from Szechwan down to Peking. For the open sea they had large, four-deck junks with water-tight compartments, four to six masts carrying up to 12 large sails and manned by about 1,000 men. Local rebellions and sea piracy soon became problems that interfered with long distance shipping, however, and even before the collapse of the Mongol Dynasty sea shipments had become markedly reduced. (Ref. 260 , 279 ) The use of the Chinese abacus for calculations and the Indian decimal system had already traveled to the western world across the southern seas and had helped to stimulate trade.

The Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty faltered as the Mongols lost power in Europe and western Asia. The bubonic plague spread eastward, also, so that in 1331 9/10 of the population of Hopei died and between 1353 and 1354 perhaps 2/3 of the entire population of China expired. This, combined with civil war occurring as the Mongols were beginning to be overthrown after 1335, along with disastrous floods in the eastern plains from 1254 to 1359, wrecked havoc on China's population and it dropped from 123 million about A.D. 1,200 to 65 million in 1393. The revolt against the Yuan rulers was led in 1368 by an ex-Buddhist monk, Chu Yuan-chang, who burned the great Mongol center at Karakorum in the Gobi desert and entered Nanking in triumph, proclaiming himself the first emperor of the Ming or Brilliant Dynasty. It was not until 1387-8 that all of China was conquered and the Mongols were finally completely defeated. The use of cannon by the Mings helped in their victory. (Ref. 213 , 260 )

The Ming revised agriculture by rebuilding irrigation and drainage works and carrying out reforestation projects so that another period of prosperity developed by the end of the century. By 1380 the population of the south was 21/2 times that of the north, because of rice cultivation, with 2 or 3 harvests a year. (Ref. 260 ) At first the Ming had an aggressive foreign policy, with campaigns against the Mongols in the far north and- the restoration of Korea to vassal status. (1369). The Ming also rebuilt the navy. A Chinese ship of that period, now being recovered from under water near South Korea, reveals a three-masted junk with squared off ends, flat bottom without keel and bulk heads dividing the ship into compartments. The ship had many treasures, including porcelain, lacquer ware and bronze and iron cooking utensils and silver and iron ingots. (Ref. 12 , 8 , 112 , 140 , 222 )