Читать книгу Asia Past and Present - Peter P. Wan - Страница 69

The reasons why Admiral Zheng He’s expeditions were terminated pose a fascinating question. So what were the reasons behind the about‐face of policy?

1 Emperor Yongle, the initiator and backer of the expeditions, died in 1424, and Zheng He died in India in 1433 while on his seventh voyage.

2 The founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang had issued “seclusion” orders and kept reinforcing them throughout his reign. So Zheng He’s explorations could be an aberration from the tradition.

3 Emperor Yongle’s purpose for sending Zheng He on his voyages was to extol the greatness of the Chinese emperor and extend the tribute‐trade system. Normal trade was of minor interest, and territorial conquest was never a goal. Since the expeditions brought no tangible benefits, and were not even self‐sustaining, they were indefensible against charges of being costly vainglory. (In contrast, the Western expeditions were driven mainly by the desire to reach new markets and colonize new territories. They survived and flourished on the profits, loot, lands, and slaves they acquired.)

4 Zheng He had long been a target at the imperial court. His forefathers were Muslim Arabs who had served for generations in high office in the Mongol Yuan government. When Mongol rule was overthrown, he was captured as a boy of 10, castrated, and sent to work in the household of the future Emperor Yongle. He became a close confidant to his master, helped him in his struggle to seize the throne, and was appointed Admiral of the Ming Fleet. His personal faith in Buddhism and his knowledge of Muslim faith and culture gave him a great advantage in carrying out his diplomatic missions in the lands of Buddhism and Islam. But his opponents claimed that he was unfit to command the emperor’s fleet because he was a eunuch and a Muslim.

5 Why did the succeeding emperor go so far as to try to wipe out all traces of a 28‐year endeavor? Overseas trade was encouraged in the Song Dynasty and enormously expanded in the Yuan Dynasty. So why couldn’t the Ming do the same? Scholars have tried to answer the question.

First of all, the Ming Dynasty capital Beijing was located in the north, far from the southeastern coast. Therefore, its top priority had to be defending its borders against the looming threats coming from the Mongols and Manchus on its northern frontiers.

Second, the Ming emperors could reasonably be concerned that a thriving overseas trade would make the distant southern provinces too powerful to control. And as Western powers such as Portugal and Spain were already colonizing parts of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, opening the door to foreign trade could also mean opening the door to the wolves.

Clearly, clamping down on overseas trade hurt China’s economic development, but it was not a kneejerk reaction.

Zheng He’s epochal voyages of discovery soon faded into oblivion. Meanwhile, the Europeans were going through their “Age of Discovery” (fifteenth to seventeenth centuries). They were pushing ahead with their overseas exploration, even as they went through the Enlightenment, nation‐state building, the commercial revolution, the industrial revolution, and global colonial conquests. And they would change the course of human history.

Ironically, the “seclusion” policy came at a time when China’s domestic economy was becoming increasingly commercialized, and private capital was building up huge reserves that sought new markets. Domestic economic forces demanded overseas trade. The profits to be had from foreign trade were irresistible. So despite government policy to smother it, smuggling and piracy thrived, while legal overseas trade dwindled to a trickle. What became known as the “Japanese pirates” were actually bands of Chinese and Japanese merchants and pirates, often based in Japan, conducting illegal trade, raiding ships, and looting Chinese coastal towns and villages. It remained a challenge to the government throughout the Ming Dynasty.

Zheng Chenggong (1624–1662) is an interesting case study of the true nature of the so‐called “Japanese pirates.” His father was a Han Chinese who was the head of a huge group of pirates and maritime merchants. He had a home in Japan, and one of his wives was a Japanese woman who was the mother of Zheng Chenggong. The Ming government seduced him to return to China by granting him a high position in the Ming navy. While commanding Ming troops, he continued to conduct trade with Japan. He brought his son back to China to receive a Chinese education, and the son grew up to manage much of his father’s military and mercantile enterprise. When the Manchus were in the course of conquering China, the father went over to the Manchus. The son broke with his father and became a major resistance leader. He established his base along the coast and on the offshore islands, and conducted maritime trade and piracy. The largest island off the coast was Taiwan, which had been under Dutch control for nearly three decades. Zheng sent his troops to retake it by force, and governed it in the name of the Ming Dynasty. He also tried to extend his control to Southeast Asia through the local Chinese population, but was unsuccessful. The Manchus managed to capture Taiwan in 1683, thereby removing the last anti‐Manchu stronghold and bringing all of China under Manchu rule.

The Ming government faced another challenge of a philosophical nature. Wang Shouren (1472–1529), who was a scholar‐official and army general of high standing, put forth the “Doctrine of the Heart,” despite the government’s harsh enforcement of Zhu Xi’s ultraconservative Neo‐Confucianism. His theory claimed that both Heaven’s principles and human’s good conscience exist in an individual’s heart, that truth can be found through introspection, and that “knowing is acting, and acting is knowing.” His philosophy substituted an individual’s personal beliefs in Confucian classics as the basis for ultimate truth. It was a liberating force that restored an individual’s autonomy and freed an individual from the shackles of Confucianism’s classics and its hierarchy. Obviously, it was a frontal attack on Zhu Xi’s demand to “promote Heaven’s principles; wipe out human desire,” and was viewed as out‐and‐out heresy. But it had a flip side. Carrying individualism to absurd extremes, many of Wang’s followers indulged in unchecked flights of fantasy and empty talk, and lost their anchor in reality. Scholars would pride themselves on not reading and not discussing real issues, and officials would brag about their ignorance of matters of state.

Ming China reached great heights of achievement. It was the world’s largest country in terms of territory and population, and also the world’s richest country. It had the world’s most advanced science and technology. But all that power and splendor was a swan song. In late Ming, the malignant growth of political corruption, high‐level infighting, eunuchs’ interference in state affairs, and the employment of secret agents were out of control. Against this background of rot and decay, two major forces rose to bring down the dynasty. One was a storm of peasant rebellions, and the other was the non‐Han Manchu invasion.

Li Zicheng (1606–1645) was the leader of the strongest peasant rebel army. He started life as a shepherd boy, then worked at a government post house. When wanted for multiple murders, he fled and joined the army, where he was promoted, but was again involved in murders. He incited a mutiny, joined a rebel army (1629), and worked his way up to becoming the commander of the largest rebel army of half a million strong. He engaged government troops in hit‐and‐run warfare, never bothering to establish a permanent base. His marauding troops left behind large swaths of devastation as they swept through the country, and they eventually took the Ming capital Beijing (1644); the cornered Ming emperor hanged himself. Li declared himself emperor, as his rebel troops indulged in looting luxurious homes, and raping and killing freely. The rebel army’s fighting capacity melted away, as discipline broke down and infighting broke out.

While China was in turmoil, the Manchus on China’s northeastern frontier were getting ready to launch an invasion. Ming General Wu Sangui went over to the Manchus and joined their fight against the rebels. When they breached the defenses of rebel‐held Beijing, Li Zicheng fled and continued to fight and run till he was presumed dead. How he died is one of the more intriguing enigmas in Chinese history. The Ming regime had collapsed, and the rebellion was crushed. The invading Manchus took over the country, and Han Chinese fell under Manchu rule for the next three centuries, just as they had earlier been under Mongol rule for one century.