was a catalyst of the cotton revolution. She was a native of Songjiang (near modern Shanghai). Fleeing from domestic abuse, she snuck aboard an oceangoing ship as a stowaway, and arrived at Hainan Island off the South China coast. There she lived among the native Li people, and learned the techniques of cotton spinning and weaving. When she returned to her native home, cotton growing was already quite widespread, but spinning and weaving technology still lagged behind. She taught the local women what she had learned from the Li people, and improved or invented new machinery for spinning and weaving. Her technology launched the textile industry in her hometown, and made it a center of the cotton textile industry for centuries.
Another big boost was made to the industry when the water‐powered spinning wheel with dozens of spindles appeared during the Yuan Dynasty, four centuries earlier than it did in England.
Trade thrived under Mongol rule. Their far‐flung empire and its well‐developed road system facilitated trade over vast territories. The Silk Road by land was restored and expanded. The Silk Road by sea was expanded to reach from China’s eastern coast to the Persian Gulf, Africa, and on to the Baltic Sea. China’s exports were silk, tea, and porcelain. Imports included gold, copper, spices, jewelry, and ivory.
The government expanded the role of paper currency to meet the demand of the ever‐growing volume of trade. The paper money was first put on a silk standard, and later on a silver standard. But the government was unable to restrain its appetite for printing ever more paper money without valuable reserves to back it up. In late Yuan, paper money became worthless, and inflation spun out of control.
The Yuan capital Dadu was much farther north than earlier Chinese capitals, while the country’s economic center had completed its shift to the South. Much of the government’s revenue came in the form of rice, silk, and cotton cloth, which were all produced in the South and had to be shipped north by sea. This practice continued even after the Grand Canal was restored and extended to Dadu.
The Yuan government adopted a policy of religious tolerance to bring the many races, nations, and cultures under one big tent. The Mongols themselves embraced Shamanism and Lamaism (a Tibetan branch of Buddhism). As they advanced westward, the religions of occupied regions were backfilled into China. In their capital Dadu, many religions coexisted and thrived, including Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. There were large numbers of Muslims from Central Asia, Catholics from Europe, and 30,000 Protestant Christians. The Yuan emperors exchanged letters with the pope of the Roman Catholic Church and the king of France, and met with their emissaries.
Muslim scientists were at the forefront of science and technology. Their influence reverberated both westward into Europe and eastward into China. Jamā al‐Din (?–1290) was a Persian astronomer and calendar maker in Kublai Khan’s court, and brought the best of Arab astronomy to China. He developed the Muslim calendar and erected seven Arab astronomical instruments in Dadu. Guo Shoujing (1231–1316) was a Chinese mathematician, astronomer, and calendar maker who also served at the imperial court. He made a calendar in 1280 that specified that one tropical year contained 365.2425 days. This measurement is only off by 26 seconds, the same as that of the Gregorian calendar, which was issued three centuries later and is still in use today. Guo’s achievement clearly benefitted from Jamā al‐Din’s accomplishments.
The Yuan government made a few gestures at restoring the status of Confucianism and the imperial examination system. But they were sporadic and halfhearted, just like its attempts at reforming the land system. As a result, large numbers of educated Han Chinese scholars were left outside the system with a social status somewhere between beggars and whores. As outcasts of the establishment, some of them turned their talents to literary endeavor. They developed a new poetic genre, the Qu, which is a highly sophisticated form of poetic drama that combines a plebeian Han Chinese vocabulary with a heavy dose of non‐Han musical influences. Its versatility made it a popular vehicle for the expression of the emotions of the common people, which often gave away a rebellious spirit against the social evils of the day. It was antiestablishment and subversive to Mongol rule. The poetic genres of Yuan Qu, along with Tang Shi and Song Ci, are among China’s most cherished literary heritages.
Other educated Han Chinese rejected by the Mongol establishment easily gravitated to rebel forces toward the end of the Yuan Dynasty. Late Yuan government was corrupt and incompetent to the extreme. Riddled with factional strife and palace intrigue, it had eight emperors in a span of 25 years. Taxes and labor service soared. A rash of rebellions broke out across the country. A major rallying center for rebellions was a secret society—the White Lotus Sect and its military arm known as the Red Turbans. Battered from all sides, the Yuan Mongol regime collapsed. The Yuan Empire lasted less than a hundred years, making it one of the shortest of China’s major dynasties. Its short lifespan was partly due to the fact that the empire was held together by military force with little internal cohesion—it had no common ethnicity, no common culture, and no common economy. It was forged by the sword, and when the sword became blunt and rusted, the empire collapsed and shattered. The numerous territories that were once one single empire returned to their pre‐Mongol state of being many nations and many governments. Although the Mongols conquered China and Korea, their attempts at other Asian conquests (including Japan, Vietnam, Java, and Burma) all ended in abysmal failure.
Suggested Readings and Viewings
1 Jacques Gernet, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250–1276 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962).
2 Mark Halperin, Out of the Cloister: Literati Perspectives on Buddhism in Sung [Song] China, 960–1279 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).
3 Dieter Kuhn, The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011).
4 Mongol (2008), dir. by Sergei Bodrov.
5 Morris Rossabi, Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).
6 Yoshinobu Shiba, Commerce and Society in Sung [Song] China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1969).
7 Cong Ellen Zhang, Transformative Journeys: Travel and Culture in Song China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2010).
8 Zhu Ruixin et al., The Social History of Middle‐Period China: The Song, Liao, Western Xia and Jin Dynasties (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Note
1 1 Wang An‐Shih [Wang Anshi], “Memorial to the Emperor Jen‐tsung [Renzong],” quoted in William Theodore de Bary, comp., Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), p. 414.
6 The Decline of Imperial China: The Ming and Early Qing Dynasties, 1368–1840
To restore order in chaotic times, I have no choice but to use harsh measures.
—Zhu Yuanzhang, founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty
The Ming and Qing Dynasties were China’s last two dynasties, each lasting nearly three centuries. At their peak, China surpassed all other nations in the world in terms of wealth, population, territory, and science and technology. But despite the power and magnificence they exhibited, their extreme despotism and conservatism stifled the vigor and creativity that had distinguished Chinese culture during the Tang and Song Dynasties.
The Ming Dynasty (1368–1644): Powerful, Majestic, Conservative, and Brutal
Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398) was the founder of the Ming Dynasty. He marched his peasant rebel army under the slogan of “Expel the Mongols—Restore Han China,” captured the Mongol‐Yuan capital of Dadu (1368), and relocated China’s capital to Nanjing. He designated his grandson to inherit his throne, but another son of his seized the throne. The new Emperor Yongle