32 Facts About Ming dynasty

1.

Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty.

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2.

The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, the majority ethnic group in China.

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3.

Ming dynasty took great care breaking the power of the court eunuchs and unrelated magnates, enfeoffing his many sons throughout China and attempting to guide these princes through the Huang-Ming Zuxun, a set of published dynastic instructions.

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4.

Ming dynasty rewarded his eunuch supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats.

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5.

The last Yuan emperor fled north to the upper capital Shangdu, and Zhu declared the founding of the Ming dynasty after razing the Yuan palaces in Dadu to the ground; the city was renamed Beiping in the same year.

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6.

Ming dynasty continued policies of the Yuan dynasty such as continued request for Korean concubines and eunuchs, Mongol-style hereditary military institutions, Mongol-style clothing and hats, promoting archery and horseback riding, and having large numbers of Mongols serve in the Ming military.

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7.

Ming dynasty frequently wrote to Mongol, Japanese, Korean, Jurchen, Tibetan, and Southwest frontier rulers offering advice on their governmental and dynastic policy, and insisted on leaders from these regions visiting the Ming capital for audiences.

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8.

Ming dynasty used this line of argument to attempt to persuade Yuan loyalists to join his cause.

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9.

The Ming dynasty used the tribute they received from former Yuan vassals as proof that the Ming dynasty had taken over the Yuan's legitimacy.

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10.

In 1381, the Ming dynasty annexed the areas of the southwest that had once been part of the Kingdom of Dali following the successful effort by Hui Muslim Ming armies to defeat Yuan-loyalist Mongol and Hui Muslim troops holding out in Yunnan province.

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11.

Ming dynasty grew strong in the northeast, with forces large enough to threaten invasion of the newly founded Ming dynasty in order to restore the Mongols to power in China.

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12.

The Ming dynasty decided to defeat him instead of waiting for the Mongols to attack.

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13.

In 1387 the Ming dynasty sent a military campaign to attack Naghachu, which concluded with the surrender of Naghachu and Ming dynasty conquest of Manchuria.

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14.

In 1409, under the Yongle Emperor, the Ming Dynasty established the Nurgan Regional Military Commission on the banks of the Amur River, and Yishiha, a eunuch of Haixi Jurchen origin, was ordered to lead an expedition to the mouth of the Amur to pacify the Wild Jurchens.

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15.

Mingshi – the official history of the Ming dynasty compiled by the Qing dynasty in 1739 – states that the Ming established itinerant commanderies overseeing Tibetan administration while renewing titles of ex-Yuan dynasty officials from Tibet and conferring new princely titles on leaders of Tibetan Buddhist sects.

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16.

Ming dynasty sporadically sent armed forays into Tibet during the 14th century, which the Tibetans successfully resisted.

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17.

The Chinese had sent diplomatic missions over land since the Han Ming dynasty and engaged in private overseas trade, but these missions were unprecedented in grandeur and scale.

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18.

Ming dynasty ordered temples built in his honor throughout the Ming Empire, and built personal palaces created with funds allocated for building the previous emperor's tombs.

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19.

Ming dynasty offered to lead his armies to support Ming and Joseon armies against the Japanese invasions of Korea in the 1590s.

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20.

Ming dynasty officials declined the offer, but granted him honorific titles.

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21.

Peasant soldier named Li Zicheng mutinied with his fellow soldiers in western Shaanxi in the early 1630s after the Ming dynasty government failed to ship much-needed supplies there.

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22.

Governmental institutions in China conformed to a similar pattern for some two thousand years, but each Ming dynasty installed special offices and bureaus, reflecting its own particular interests.

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23.

The Ming dynasty had a vast imperial household, staffed with thousands of eunuchs, who were headed by the Directorate of Palace Attendants.

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24.

Descendants of the first Ming dynasty emperor were made princes and given military commands, annual stipends, and large estates.

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25.

Connoisseurship in the late Ming dynasty period centered on these items of refined artistic taste, which provided work for art dealers and even underground scammers who themselves made imitations and false attributions.

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26.

Ming dynasty revealed that a Xuande era bronze work could be authenticated by judging its sheen; porcelain wares from the Yongle era could be judged authentic by their thickness.

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27.

Dominant religious beliefs during the Ming dynasty were the various forms of Chinese folk religion and the Three Teachings – Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism.

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28.

Advent of the Ming dynasty was initially devastating to Christianity: in his first year, the Hongwu Emperor declared the eighty-year-old Franciscan missions among the Yuan heterodox and illegal.

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29.

However, the 1642 flood caused by Kaifeng's Ming dynasty governor devastated the community, which lost five of its twelve families, its synagogue, and most of its Torah.

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30.

Wang Gen was able to give philosophical lectures to many commoners from different regions because – following the trend already apparent in the Song dynasty – communities in Ming society were becoming less isolated as the distance between market towns was shrinking.

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31.

Early Ming dynasty saw the strictest sumptuary laws in Chinese history.

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32.

Ming dynasty'storians are now turning to local gazetteers of Ming China for clues that would show consistent growth in population.

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