Page 218 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

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The ferment into which central China had sunk as the Mongols
lost control of the country was finally resolved when in 1 368 Chu
Yuan-chang, in turn shepherd, monk, bandit, warlord, and em-
peror, sent his armies north to occupy Peking, from which the last
Yuan ruler had fled. He proclaimed himself emperor of the Ming
Dynasty, set up his capital in Nanking, and within four years had
not only recovered all the territories held by the T'ang at the
height of their power but had extended his control over the Trans-
Baikal region and Manchuria as well. He built at Nanking a capital
with a city wall twenty miles in circumference, the longest in the
world, and under him and his successor central and southern
China enjoyed a new importance and prosperity. But in 142 1 the
1
third emperor, the usurper Yung-lo, moved his capital back to
Peking whence he had received his chief support in his struggle for
power, and it was he who rebuilt it on the scale wc sec today. But
Peking, on two counts, was a bad site. It was situated too far to the
north of China s new economic centre of gravity, the Yangtse Val-
ley, and it was also highly vulnerable: China's northern enemies
now the Manchus—had only to cross the Great Wall to be at the
gates of the city. The troubles that beset the Ming Dynasty
throughout its subsequent history were largely due on the one
hand to the remoteness of the capital from the parts of China that
mattered most—the centre and south—and on the other hand to
the constant tension along the Great Wall, which lay only forty
miles from Peking. Yung-lo was aggressive and secured the fron-
tier, but his successors were weak and corrupt, the victims of eu-
nuchs at court and rebellions in the provinces, and before long the
northern defences were left unguarded.
We have already drawn a parallel between the Warring States
and classical Greece on the one hand and Han China and ancient
Rome on the other. It is said that history never repeats itself, but
the similar relationship of Ming China to Sung is too close to be
passed over. For the mixture of power and corruption, grandeur
and lack of imagination that characterised the Roman Empire is
equally marked in the Ming Dynasty, which took as its model not
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