Page 346 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

despatched by the Yongle emperor's grandson, China's Ruling Institutions Ming palaces at a New Year's reception in the
who ascended the throne in 1425 and reigned as in the Age of Columbus 14905. After crossing this courtyard and passing
the Xuande emperor. This expedition too, with through the Gate of Great Harmony—hardly a
more than a hundred large ships, visited all the Zheng He served a ruler worthy of his own gate in our sense, but a massive building with
important ports in the Indian Ocean as well as unusual abilities. The Yongle emperor was a portals —they would have entered a second
Aden and Hormuz. 20 man of vast energies and ambitions. The courtyard of similar size, where they would
Zheng He died, probably at Nanjing, late in Xuande emperor, Yongle's grandson, who have formed ranks facing the throne hall cen-
1433. Many leading scholar-bureaucrats of the despatched Zheng He on his last expedition, tered at the far side. This is an immense build-
court had long opposed the expeditions as also attempted a vigorous and martial rule. But ing of perfect proportions, with gleaming
wasteful and improper undertakings for a Con- after his death in 1435 the Ming dynasty con- yellow-glazed roof tiles and deep red walls, set
fucian, agrarian-oriented society. No attempts tinued for two hundred more years without pro- high upon a three-tiered white marble terrace
were made to repeat them during the remainder ducing another emperor in the heroic mold. with carved white marble steps and balustrades.
of the imperial era, but Chinese private ship- Some of the later Ming rulers were tyrannical, To reach that courtyard facing the throne hall
ping and trade continued to flourish, even others willful or perverse. A few were conscien- was the climax of their diplomatic journeys.
through the century and more when overseas tious about governing, but none was notably Here they waited, to prostrate themselves on
travel and trade were formally proscribed by the effective or strong. Does a two-hundred-year the signal that the emperor was entering the
Ming government. Merchants built smaller and succession of second-rate emperors not imply a throne hall. But they would not enter that hall,
more economical vessels but continued to weak and declining state? Not necessarily, in the and probably would not even catch a glimpse of
appear everywhere that Zheng He's armada had case of China, where the government in the his august person, unless the envoys were later
stopped, and profited from the aura of Chinese later dynasties of imperial rule was a bureau- entertained at a formal banquet served there
magnificence that remained. cratic machine of large scale and virtually un- and on the surrounding terraces. Even then,
What had Zheng He accomplished? He went shakable stability. The rulers' personal they probably would never speak to the
to no place that Chinese had not previously characteristics of course had some impact on emperor, who was always seated high above
visited, so one might conclude that he was not a government, but they did not threaten the con- them, surrounded by eunuchs and palace
discoverer. Yet he did assemble much new and tinuity of Ming statecraft. The tone of govern- guards. Behind the immense throne hall, where
detailed knowledge that interested Chinese elite ment was set more by the bureaucrats — the outsiders never were allowed, lay a vast com-
society and served the needs of government and scholar-officials —than by the rulers. Among plex of palaces, courts, and gardens, making up
of the private merchant community. His voy- the scholar-officials who staffed the bureaucracy the private residence quarters of the imperial
ages represented a new kind of undertaking in a conservative devotion to tradition and family.
that they were vast and well-organized expedi- precedent guaranteed the continuity of proce- All relations with envoys, even those who
tions carried out by fleets of the Chinese impe- dures and policies and maintained the daily were heads of state, were mediated by the Min-
rial government, accomplishing essentially operations of governing. istry of Rites, not by an agency functioning like
diplomatic objectives. It would be centuries In the 14208 the Yongle emperor had moved a modern department of foreign relations.
before any other country in the world could the Ming capital from Nanjing (which remained Ritual defined relations among states. Ritual
emulate this achievement. Perhaps Commodore the "secondary capital") to Beijing. There he projected, in a highly formalized manner, the
Perry's opening of Japan in 1853 bears compari- built the imperial palace city, the so-called For- Chinese view of their place in the world: China
son, but Zheng He was sent to accomplish far bidden City, more or less as it is today. The occupied the center of the world and possessed
less specific national policy objectives, and his inner, walled, palace city, lying within the great its only true culture; civilization radiated out-
means were both less threatening and more outer walls of Beijing, represented the other ward from that center; China's nearer neighbors
grandiose. Perhaps the search for historical terminus of Zheng He's diplomatic ventures. It shared more fully in that civilization, as
comparisons yields little; the grand voyages of was built to overawe not only the Ming dynas- evidenced by their use of the Chinese script and
Zheng He truly have no counterparts in other ty's native subjects, but also the rulers and their acceptance of the authority of China's clas-
nations' histories. envoys of other states. At dawn on New Year's sics, which taught how humankind should live;
What tantalizes the reader of this account is Day the court officials and the assembled the farther the distance from China to a foreign
no doubt Zheng He's demonstration that China envoys made a long formal progress along the state, the more benighted it was expected to be.
could deploy larger and better-organized naval central axis of the Imperial City. After passing But this sublime arrogance did not imply an
forces than those with which Spain and Portugal through the Gate of Heavenly Peace (Tian'an immutable we/they distinction. On the con-
and the other European powers, in the centuries Men) and proceeding northward through the trary, as non-Chinese peoples progressed in
after 1500, built their far-flung world empires. Meridian Gate (Wu Men), they arrived at the their assimilation to civilized —i.e., Chinese —
If Zheng He had carried Vasco da Gama's or vast courtyard shown here. Beyond this looms patterns, they were to be considered increas-
Affonso de Albuquerque's mandate, or that of the Gate of Great Harmony (Taihe Men), ingly "Chinese," that is, "civilized." It was
other early European empire builders, might the entrance to the "center of the very center of the assumed that in time all people would wish to
Chinese not have preempted them all in build- world." About 600 feet on each side, this vast make that progress. Yet even those who had
ing the first great world empire of modern courtyard and its buildings appear today as advanced little or not at all toward that goal
times? But history is about what happened, not rebuilt after a fire in 1627, when the five were still regarded as human beings, with the
about what might have been. To understand bridges in the foreground were added. Never- potential for becoming worthy persons. The
why this outcome was not even distantly pos- theless, despite that rebuilding, and changes in emperor was, in principle, obligated to extend
sible within the context of Chinese history, we all the names after the end of the Ming dynasty benevolence to all who appeared at his court,
must look at the Chinese emperors, their court, in 1644, this scene appears more or less as the and his agents were expected to do the same to
and their government. envoys of foreign states would have seen the all fellow humans, unless they were so untamed

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