Page 18 - Ming_China_Courts_and_Contacts_1400_1450 Craig lunas

Chapter 1 Once upon a time, it was believed that under Ming rule,
China had a pronounced xenophobic streak. Such a
Justifying Ming Rulership characterisation grew in part from the early Ming
government’s effort to limit contact with the outside world
on a Eurasian Stage through restrictions on private trade and unauthorised

travel abroad on the one hand, and a political rhetoric that
highlighted a revival of pure Chinese values from antiquity
on the other. One suspects that such an image took root
David M. Robinson because it seemed to confirm long-standing stereotypes
about how the Chinese looked upon neighbours near and far
as uncouth barbarians. Rather than standing in splendid
isolation or smug self-complacency, however, the Ming court
actively engaged the peoples and polities of eastern Eurasia.
Through moral suasion, military coercion, economic
incentives and lavish display, the Ming court sought the
obedience and allegiance of its subjects and the cooperation
of its neighbours. Neglect of the Ming court’s efforts to
1
justify its rulership and to secure allegiance handicaps our
understanding of Ming China in a global perspective and
obscures the critical point that the Ming resembled other
courts and empires in the world at that time, thus
unnecessarily perpetuating the enduring myth of Chinese
exceptionalism and hindering the incorporation of the
Chinese experience into wider historical narratives.
Although they are recurring features of empires and
polities, political rhetoric and display must be historicised
since they change over time and are highly contingent. The
14th and 15th centuries, the focus of this chapter, were a time
of unusual commensurability in Eurasia. During the 13th
and 14th centuries, most of Eurasia had come under Mongol
rule (Pl. 1.1); even polities such as the Mamluk Sultanate
centred on Cairo or imperial Japan (to name two examples)
that maintained independence through force of arms
remained deeply tied to the Mongol empire through

Plate 1.1 Map of 13th-century Mongolian empire in Eurasia

8 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450