Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
expeditions to areas as far away as India and even the Swahili Coast of
Africa. His purpose might have been to cultivate more diplomatic con-
tacts and thus new legitimizing recognition for the new emperor.
As the Ming dynasty wore on there was a distinct inward turn in
China, and some xenophobia and isolationism emerged, although
international trade and contacts were never completely curtailed. The
overall Ming mood was certainly less cosmopolitan, less international,
and less open than the Tang. The Ming, of course, did have its share of
trouble from foreign peoples, particularly the Mongols.
MING-MONGOL RELATIONS
By far the greatest foreign policy concern for the Ming was the
Mongols, who after all had conquered and ruled China for nearly a
century before being overthrown and expelled. The Mongols made
frequent noises about restoring the Yuan dynasty and recovering
China, and for several decades after their return to Mongolia they
maintained the fiction of a Northern Yuan regime. The Chinese built
the Great Wall of China during the Ming dynasty to counter Mongol
revanchist threats and refused, for almost the entire dynasty, to come
to any sort of a trade accommodation with the Mongols. As a result,
the Ming was subjected to raids and harassment along its northern
borders to an extent unparalleled in Chinese history.
Yongle's strategy for dealing with the Mongol threat was to invade
Mongolia periodically and play off rival Mongolian groups against
one another, usually Western Mongols against Eastern Mongols. After
his death, however, Ming China reverted to a more passive and defen-
sive strategy. In 1449 a Western Mongol leader launched a massive
invasion of Chinese territory and fought his way to Beijing. The Ming
emperor himself went out to meet the Mongols on the battlefield, but
this action ended in defeat and his capture. The Western Mongols
thought they now had a hugely valuable bargaining chip with the
Chinese, but the Ming simply enthroned another emperor. Thus
deprived of their leverage with Ming China but still fearful of Chinese
reprisals if the captive emperor were harmed, the Western Mongols
returned the hapless emperor the next year. The entire incident embar-
rassed the Ming but also spelled the end of the Western Mongols'
prestige and power in the steppe lands.
The next threat to Ming China came from the Eastern Mongols, who
could lay claim to the lineage of Chinggis Khan. By the 1500s the
Eastern Mongols were regularly launching cavalry raids on the Ming's
