raharris1973
Well-known member
The Yongle Emperor of the Ming, reigned 1402-1424, was a very vigorous, enterprising, one could say "hyperactive" Emperor.
He supported massive public works, making Beijing the new capital, moving it up from Nanjing, building the Grand Canal to keep food surpluses from the Yangzi river valley flowing into northern China.
He was a very martial and expansive Emperor. He launched several campaigns against the Mongols to the north, winning and losing multiple battles and scattering the Mongols several times, enjoying 7 years peace on that front after the second war.
He did an extensive conquest northeast of the Great Wall, conquering most of the homeland of the Jurchens in what would later be known as Manchuria, extending Ming rule from Liadong province on the Yellow Sea, to cover the north of the Korean border and extend up to the Amur river and reach the Sea of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk and nearly touch Sakhalin island. This northeastern area was named the Nurgan Regional Military Commission.
He intervened in Vietnam militarily, and then turned this into a conquest and annexation of the country as the province of Jiaozhi.
He initiated and sponsored the voyages of Zheng He's Treasure Ship fleets to the South China Sea and into the far reaches of the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and Africa.
His civil achievements and conquests had a varying "shelf-life". The dynasty overall lasted until 120 years after his death until 1644, with pretenders still trying to fight on nearly four decades more. So, that's not dynastically bad. It is not like he can be blamed for the ultimate fall of the dynasty any more than Catherine the Great for the Romanovs or Louis the XIV for the Bourbons. The infrastructural work of the Grand Canal lasted and was useful for the Ming economy for well over a century, with reasonable upkeep. The Mongol menace returned in a fairly deadly form in the next generation, with the Tumu crisis of 1444, when a later Emperor, underestimating a raiding Mongol force, ended up captured by the Mongols, and intermittently caused trouble through the time of Alan Khan when the latter compelled the dynasty to make concessions that kept the Mongol front quiet during the dynasty's dying four decades. The northeastern expansion was gradually rolled back from the Amur and Sea of Japan just to Liaodong and suzerainty over the tribes north of Korea by about a dozen years after Yongle's death. The Vietnamese remained rebellious, won independence and compelled Ming Chinese withdrawal within about three years of Yongle's death. The Emperor immediately after Yongle's death began to abandon the Treasure Ship fleet although the Emperor after that permitted one last Zheng He treasure fleet voyage nearly nine years after Yongle's death. While the treasure fleets were over, private Chinese trade and tributary relationships continued with some countries, but in certain decades of the late 1400s and 1500s later Emperors would do sea bans and trade bans in reaction to piracy threats.
One might get the impression Yongle tried to do too many things, or tried to do more things than his successors could make last.
Did Yongle pursue the ideal strategy for his empire for his time and place? Could he have optimized longer-term value for his empire by doing anything differently, perhaps trying fewer things or expanding in fewer directions, but having greater focus on the chosen direction?
a) For example - The Treasure Fleet effort. I am not going to fall for the temptation of believing Gavin Menzies that the Treasure Fleets got all the way to the Atlantic to touch the Americas or would have ventured *east* deep into the Pacific, or, that failing to do so and failing to set up settler colonies was some obvious "missed opportunity" for Ming Dynasty China. Zheng He's treasure ships went to shores Chinese merchants had been to before. and the Chinese were trying to impress themselves by impressing countries and peoples *they knew to be there already*, not trying to find unexplored edges of the world, or a novel way to Rome, or a brand new land to bring their people and culture to. I'm inclined to think that this was an overly costly vanity project, as Yongle's successors and scholar-bureaucrats thought it was, and the Empire might have been better off using the fiscal, material, and human resources involved for more mundane, domestic civic projects or in remission of taxes. Or at the very least corralled the state's naval/maritime project into a more spatially conservative, conservative conquest, settlement and development project in China's near seas, possibly augmenting the Vietnam or Manchuria expansion efforts, or securing control over Taiwan, the Philippines or individual islands of the East Indies, and setting up for agricultural self-sufficiency, plus a surplus and cash crop production.
b) The Vietnam effort proved ephemeral, with no lasting expansion of the Chinese Empire. That suggests the Empire should not have bothered and save the effort or invested it in something else. Alternatively, investment enough in Southeast Asian expansion, with a broad enough approach that perhaps the conquest has a better chance of "sticking". Possibly through conquest of the Laotian lands of Lan Xang west of Vietnam after the occupation of Vietnam, perhaps with puppet Vietnamese forces, and granting lands and titles to puppet Vietnamese taking part in the conquest. Such a larger scale conquest of Vietnam and Greater Laos might give Ming forces more bases from which to rally to crush rebelling Viets or Lao, and the ability to play 'divide and rule', using Lao and Viet troops against each other. If this model can work and bring about the integration of these southern lands into China, and intermingling of people as Han Chinese move in south and Viets get land to the west, perhaps the Thai Kingdoms of Lanna and Ayutthaya can be subsequent targets, and Ming conquest of those would yield China a coastline and some ports on the Indian Ocean and more trade with India and the Persian Gulf.
c) The Ming expansion into Manchuria, at fullest tide, lasted a little longer, about a dozen years, than the Vietnam conquest, and southern - middle Manchuria remained in the Ming orbit until about 1600. So the Ming could have economized by never reaching for the highest tide of expansion that did not last, and might have done better to concentrate more thoroughly on the areas they were able to keep influencing for longer. Perhaps, with globally cooling weather, settling and developing most of Manchuria would have been too difficult for most of the 1400s or 1600s. Or perhaps the Ming should have concentrated more on the northeast expansion. After all, if they can make all parts of Manchuria Han majority centuries early, and smother the development of Nurchaci's Qing/Manchu state, they will have preemptively destroyed the force that ultimately destroyed their dynasty.
Based on this cursory review of the Ming's situation in the 1400s, and their long-term outlook, I think Ming China would have been better off dropping the Vietnam war and the treasure fleets and going all-in on conquest, consolidation, and Han settlement consolidation of Manchuria, which in addition to preempting the Jurchen/Jin/Manchu threat, would have provide them another angle of attack and buffer against Mongol aggressions.
He supported massive public works, making Beijing the new capital, moving it up from Nanjing, building the Grand Canal to keep food surpluses from the Yangzi river valley flowing into northern China.
Yongle Emperor - Wikipedia
He was a very martial and expansive Emperor. He launched several campaigns against the Mongols to the north, winning and losing multiple battles and scattering the Mongols several times, enjoying 7 years peace on that front after the second war.
He did an extensive conquest northeast of the Great Wall, conquering most of the homeland of the Jurchens in what would later be known as Manchuria, extending Ming rule from Liadong province on the Yellow Sea, to cover the north of the Korean border and extend up to the Amur river and reach the Sea of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk and nearly touch Sakhalin island. This northeastern area was named the Nurgan Regional Military Commission.
He intervened in Vietnam militarily, and then turned this into a conquest and annexation of the country as the province of Jiaozhi.
He initiated and sponsored the voyages of Zheng He's Treasure Ship fleets to the South China Sea and into the far reaches of the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and Africa.
His civil achievements and conquests had a varying "shelf-life". The dynasty overall lasted until 120 years after his death until 1644, with pretenders still trying to fight on nearly four decades more. So, that's not dynastically bad. It is not like he can be blamed for the ultimate fall of the dynasty any more than Catherine the Great for the Romanovs or Louis the XIV for the Bourbons. The infrastructural work of the Grand Canal lasted and was useful for the Ming economy for well over a century, with reasonable upkeep. The Mongol menace returned in a fairly deadly form in the next generation, with the Tumu crisis of 1444, when a later Emperor, underestimating a raiding Mongol force, ended up captured by the Mongols, and intermittently caused trouble through the time of Alan Khan when the latter compelled the dynasty to make concessions that kept the Mongol front quiet during the dynasty's dying four decades. The northeastern expansion was gradually rolled back from the Amur and Sea of Japan just to Liaodong and suzerainty over the tribes north of Korea by about a dozen years after Yongle's death. The Vietnamese remained rebellious, won independence and compelled Ming Chinese withdrawal within about three years of Yongle's death. The Emperor immediately after Yongle's death began to abandon the Treasure Ship fleet although the Emperor after that permitted one last Zheng He treasure fleet voyage nearly nine years after Yongle's death. While the treasure fleets were over, private Chinese trade and tributary relationships continued with some countries, but in certain decades of the late 1400s and 1500s later Emperors would do sea bans and trade bans in reaction to piracy threats.
One might get the impression Yongle tried to do too many things, or tried to do more things than his successors could make last.
Did Yongle pursue the ideal strategy for his empire for his time and place? Could he have optimized longer-term value for his empire by doing anything differently, perhaps trying fewer things or expanding in fewer directions, but having greater focus on the chosen direction?
a) For example - The Treasure Fleet effort. I am not going to fall for the temptation of believing Gavin Menzies that the Treasure Fleets got all the way to the Atlantic to touch the Americas or would have ventured *east* deep into the Pacific, or, that failing to do so and failing to set up settler colonies was some obvious "missed opportunity" for Ming Dynasty China. Zheng He's treasure ships went to shores Chinese merchants had been to before. and the Chinese were trying to impress themselves by impressing countries and peoples *they knew to be there already*, not trying to find unexplored edges of the world, or a novel way to Rome, or a brand new land to bring their people and culture to. I'm inclined to think that this was an overly costly vanity project, as Yongle's successors and scholar-bureaucrats thought it was, and the Empire might have been better off using the fiscal, material, and human resources involved for more mundane, domestic civic projects or in remission of taxes. Or at the very least corralled the state's naval/maritime project into a more spatially conservative, conservative conquest, settlement and development project in China's near seas, possibly augmenting the Vietnam or Manchuria expansion efforts, or securing control over Taiwan, the Philippines or individual islands of the East Indies, and setting up for agricultural self-sufficiency, plus a surplus and cash crop production.
b) The Vietnam effort proved ephemeral, with no lasting expansion of the Chinese Empire. That suggests the Empire should not have bothered and save the effort or invested it in something else. Alternatively, investment enough in Southeast Asian expansion, with a broad enough approach that perhaps the conquest has a better chance of "sticking". Possibly through conquest of the Laotian lands of Lan Xang west of Vietnam after the occupation of Vietnam, perhaps with puppet Vietnamese forces, and granting lands and titles to puppet Vietnamese taking part in the conquest. Such a larger scale conquest of Vietnam and Greater Laos might give Ming forces more bases from which to rally to crush rebelling Viets or Lao, and the ability to play 'divide and rule', using Lao and Viet troops against each other. If this model can work and bring about the integration of these southern lands into China, and intermingling of people as Han Chinese move in south and Viets get land to the west, perhaps the Thai Kingdoms of Lanna and Ayutthaya can be subsequent targets, and Ming conquest of those would yield China a coastline and some ports on the Indian Ocean and more trade with India and the Persian Gulf.
c) The Ming expansion into Manchuria, at fullest tide, lasted a little longer, about a dozen years, than the Vietnam conquest, and southern - middle Manchuria remained in the Ming orbit until about 1600. So the Ming could have economized by never reaching for the highest tide of expansion that did not last, and might have done better to concentrate more thoroughly on the areas they were able to keep influencing for longer. Perhaps, with globally cooling weather, settling and developing most of Manchuria would have been too difficult for most of the 1400s or 1600s. Or perhaps the Ming should have concentrated more on the northeast expansion. After all, if they can make all parts of Manchuria Han majority centuries early, and smother the development of Nurchaci's Qing/Manchu state, they will have preemptively destroyed the force that ultimately destroyed their dynasty.
Based on this cursory review of the Ming's situation in the 1400s, and their long-term outlook, I think Ming China would have been better off dropping the Vietnam war and the treasure fleets and going all-in on conquest, consolidation, and Han settlement consolidation of Manchuria, which in addition to preempting the Jurchen/Jin/Manchu threat, would have provide them another angle of attack and buffer against Mongol aggressions.