That's not entirely true. A good portion of the Mandarinate didn't come from backgrounds that were well off by any stretch of the imagination.
The Chinese Fleet of the Ming Dynasty
- Thread starter Raziel
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That's not entirely true. A good portion of the Mandarinate didn't come from backgrounds that were well off by any stretch of the imagination.
Also, much of the reasons for the ban on trade were that the extra precious metal influx into China's markets were actually causing inflation. There was nothing really that the Europeans could offer China and many, many things that China could offer Europe. China during the Ming Dynasty was at such an advantage that it wasn't really better off engaging in trade with foreigners. Private traders in China could weigh the cost/benefit ratio as they saw fit, but with regards to overall trade relations, the Chinese government wasn't about to make foreign trade an overemphasized policy.
Lets turn it around
If the chinese would have discovered a largely unsettled territory (in the americas) and created settlements in say OTL british columbia and washington state, vast forests, great fishing.
If they have already established settlements the idea of banning ships produces the reaction
a) Are you nuts?
b) Were not leaving and if you dont like it send some big ships to come and get us...oh wait...hehehe
If the chinese would have discovered a largely unsettled territory (in the americas) and created settlements in say OTL british columbia and washington state, vast forests, great fishing.
If they have already established settlements the idea of banning ships produces the reaction
a) Are you nuts?
b) Were not leaving and if you dont like it send some big ships to come and get us...oh wait...hehehe
The point is not where they came from, the point is that once they became officials, that status was - loosely - equivalent to the aristocracy.
Allowing for considerable differences between Chinese and European society, obviously.
I agree with Carlton Bach here for the most part, although I do think the attitudes are going to produce a less favorable situation given the tighter control the officialdom can impose than the Church. All things being even, that is.
Voss: Why would anyone in China want to settle there? It's a howling wilderness far from home and the benefits thereof.
And given how Chinese society worked, which is focused on the community - not hive mind, just that the community is a dominant element in the individual's life - I'm not sure you could get something equivalent to the Pilgrims easily.
I wouldn't want to rule it out without the support of those who know more about China than I do, but that sounds unlikely - not impossible, but unlikely.
scholar
Banned
You don't understand, Europe had many classes either upper or lower that fulfilled the "role" of the middle class, though this population being "large" would only have been around 10-15%. In China even the mercantile class in its entirety was something along the lines of 2-5% of the whole population, and this caste was almost universally despised both by those above and those below. They were despised for the profit seeking nature of the elite, and thus countless restrictions were placed upon them leading to the institution of many state run monopolies and heavy taxation on marketable items. Also, Merchants barely resemble the west in form, most were low level merchants with barely any amount of wealth. The other were actually part of the nobility, either as a cousin or uncle. There was also no real traditional concept of "property" in China, as all materials and lands were owned by the state. All fiefdoms were on loan, granted by the state to the nobility for their service and could be taken back at any notice. This continued down to the lowest of the classes.
Further, the city dwellers did not play the role of the "middle class", almost all of the city dwellers were employed directly by the government. Armies of artisans and their families worked for the government, soldiers and guards were also present within the cities and the nobility reigned supreme for as long as the Emperor his overseers allowed them to. There was no middle class in China because there was no way for a Middle Class to develop without significant butterflies, largely contorting the Confucian and Buddhist doctrines in China.
While some state that Confucianism's importance is greatly exaggerated, this is not true. If anything it is undervalued. This is not to say that all Chinese were good Confucians, not even close. Just that people tend to view the Chinese scholarly class as similar to the stoics of Greece and treat them as just as diverse and adhering to the Confucian Ethic (Many are faithful, most are passive, some are not), but this leads to a vastly misleading impression of society in China. The only way to even get a halfway decent grade inside the school systems in China, you are required to have memorized almost all of the Confucian principles. Otherwise, you failed and would never be considered. Every. Single. Official. was learned in the Confucian Ethic and had studied the classics extensively, otherwise you would not be deemed fit to have public office. Even if you weren't a good Confucian, if you didn't practice Li to the letter you would never be employed, and probably would not be welcomed by your family. This seems absurd to the West, but being Confucian was tantamount to being Chinese in almost every single Dynasty in its history after the Han.
scholar
Banned
Christianity is a religion, and behaves like a religion. For Confucianism it exists apart from religion, one can be Buddhist or Taoist and still be Confucian. However, in an effort to compare to two, in order to become a government official you would need to have the equivalent ecclesiastic education and indoctrination to that of a Bishop who is without extensive family connections. However, the classics and the Confucian literature are not what makes a Confucian, a Confucian. It is beyond apparent that most of the people would not be able to recite the classics from memory as a minister should be able to do when he's first employed, rather the essence of Confucianism deals in relationships and attitudes. The Five relationships, the Four Classes, the concept of Tianxia; these are as integral to China and as apparent to Chinese citizens as the belief that there "is a god" for Christians.
The problem is that reading that and truly believing that are two different things, otherwise everyone who has read the bible would be a devout Christian.
That was my idea when I did Gaosen Wars. People who havve a more immediate interest in naval dominance could well get there, and once they are in the Americas - well, look at what Spain achieved. Compared to any state in the Sinosphere, late medieval Spain was a joke.
Actually, the Wakou could had formed a trade network and discovered americas but that did not happen.
scholar
Banned
Yes, Just Yes.
Almost all city dwellers were employed directly or indirectly by the government through the government itself or its wealthy ministers. The farmers dwelling outside of the city are not "city dwellers".
Its not "reading", its being able to recite the passages on command. If all you ever did was read it you'd never get passing grade, unless you had remarkable memory. It is possible that a large number of people did not "truly believe" in everything a Confucian should, but it is almost impossible to get more than 1% of the ministers with any influence to say that they don't believe in Confucius's teachings. If this were the case, they would still be no different from any other minister because coming out with this revelation was enough to destroy the careers of not just yourself, but your entire family.
Even so, I've said its not reading the bible that would qualify them as being "Confucian", rather the simple ethic and treatment of one another. The Five Relationships, the Four Classes, the concept of Tianxia. Those are what Confucianism meant to most of the people, rendering much of the Confucian Ethical texts moot in favor of the practical approach to the concept of Li.
Korea is a no go with a POD after the Han Dynasty, and is nearly impossible before that unless you go back to the mists of time. Japan is a different story, in so far that if a proto-industrial revolution makes its way to Japan, because odds are it would never occur inside of it, then Japan could take it and build upon it. The problem is Japan was not always a unified entity, the few periods in which it were are looked upon with something akin to noncompetitive sinophiles, copying many concepts from China such as architecture, philosophy (including Zen Buddhism), government, etc. in the beginning, and rabid conservationism near its end. Otherwise we have Feudal eras. Oddly enough, Japan is more likely to industrialize in the feudal eras filled with wars than otherwise. The Tokugawa are troublesome, but its a myth that they stopped all industrialization, as it continued at a very slow and stagnated pace to the point where right before the Meiji Restoration that many of the provinces were almost industrial.
Oddly enough I'm more curious about an Indonesian Industrial Revolution. They never had the necessary parts or the cohesion to do so, but if its started elsewhere and spreads there, the possibilities are endless. At the very least you'll get a plausible and realistic colonization of Australia and New Zealand rather than stretching the suspension of disbelief that China would navigate through these highly profitable zones and decide inhabiting a mostly desert island is better.
There's a very good reason for that. Wakou Trade, and Wakou Piracy (mostly Piracy), tends to stick around where the people are, and where the profits are. They are also bound by necessary limited supplies so that they can stuff their boats with "earnings". The highest they would have considered going was above Hokkaido for some rather miniscule and insignificant trade. The idea that they would want to travel hundreds, or even thousands, of miles through the barren, bitter, ice filled journey across the Russian Far East, through the Berring Straits, and down into Alaska and the Pacific Northwest is almost completely absurd. There's no sane drive.
When you want a dozen apples, you go to the nearby mart and purchase a dozen fresh apples. You don't walk on foot, in the winter, across the entire continent, without staying inside a hotel or anything, to buy one shriveled old apple that rots away to nothing by the time you walk all the way back. If you haven't died already or got seriously ill, you would be damn near emaciated and would vow never to go there again.
My point is, anyone can study X without believing it - reading the Bible was picked as a comparison for Christianity's texts.
And it's almost impossible to find in Christian Europe (outside the Jews) people saying they don't believe in Christ's teachings, but we don't everyone living and breathing things like Turn the Other Cheek.
So . . . why is Confucianism meaning more again? "No one can achieve a position as an official without professing to believe in and practice this." doesn't necessarily translate into actually practicing or believing.
scholar
Banned
Just as one can practice and study Confucianism without believing in it? Perhaps, but you're not going to get it if you go in thinking Confucianism is a religion and relate it to the religiosity in Western Europe about the various levels of secularism in both rulers, the middle class, its ministers, and so forth. True, in order to be a minister you need to know the classics almost by heart. True, just because you know them and follow them (part of being able to become and maintain a position as a Minister is the reputation and the actions you do before and during said appointment) you don't have to necessarily believe everything the Confucian ethic says one must believe. The thing is that the government and nearly everyone in it at least have the appearance of being good, "pious", Confucians. The people below also have many of the Confucian traits as an integral and inseparable part of their culture.
Its like saying in regards to the Indian Caste System that not everyone may have believed in the righteousness of those castes, but they were still in the Castes, still bound by the Castes, and the Cast System permeated every section of Indian society. True, they may have different levels of believe in the religious aspect of the Caste System, but the secular aspect (as with the secular aspect of Confucianism because Confucianism was entirely and inherently secular in practice) is something that could never be denied or downplayed.
Having actually been to China, Northern china is hardly a paradise during winter. The area in otl would become seattle and Vancouver would be quite lovely in the winter compared to beijing.
Also peasant rebellions were fairly common. Suppose China decides to defuse potential rebellions is to offer them land somewhere else. China would export its hungry peasant problem to the americas.
Seriously. You've been posting a lot of misinformation in this thread but that one regarding Chinese city dwellers is so egregious that I can't ignore it. That quote is so unbearably stupid, it demonstrates that your knowledge about the economic history of China is fundamentally broken to a degree in which anything else you write is suspect.
I strongly encourage everyone else posting in this thread to stop reading scholar's posts until he can get the facts right.
scholar
Banned
Can you provide me with something to show me how I'm wrong? I'm not intentionally going to lie to people here. I'm going off of what I actually believe from my understanding of the Chinese economy. Now, what I study is largely archaic, being not from the Qing or even largely from the Ming, but from what I understand the essence is relatively similar. The Confucian elite tended to stay out of commerce and frowned upon blatant profit seeking. Merchants did tend to cumulate inside of the cities, but most people in the cities were not what could be called independent workers. Most of the populous were Artisans, Soldiers, and Officials alongside their families. The Artisans were almost unvariably employed by the officials. The Soldiers were also amongst their pay. The farmers were relatively secure on their plots of land, but there was no mistaking the fact that it was understood that they didn't privately own it as the land was the government's land. [The Emperor of China technically, nominally, owned everything inside of China.] Much of the produce would be taken by government officials for later use. Soldiers were invariably employed by the state and the nobility. Those that weren't weren't called soldiers at all, but bandits or rebels. Merchants, the only self employed of the major people dwelling inside of the cities, made up only a tiny fraction of the population. This is compounded by state run monopolies on salt, mining, and wine-making.
What is wrong with this statement? What is misinformed, slightly correct, misleading, or completely fallacious? I'm eager to learn more than I'm eager to talk about and correct, but in order to correct something I need to be sure that what I'm saying is accurate and therefore I have all the greater drive to learn as much as I can.
voss749 said:
Having not been to China, I can't say, but even if the climate is better, it's utterly undeveloped - not to say the eastern coast is better, just that it's going to be a fair sized project to build up a viable colony, and a seriously daunting prospect for anyone who isn't desperat.
Although exporting land hungry peasants to American colonies might be an interesting way to keep them going, I don't know if it would get them started.
Yli said:
What exactly is the reality of the situation? All I know about it is that the Chinese situation lacks certain things the European one did, but none of that means anything close to "everyone works for the government" - just a different legal system and different social structure and culture that happen to all balance out in a way favoring what developed rather than developing in a way to revolutionize that (thus OTL being, well, what it was).
Europe was less able to effectively impose control due to weaker governments and social developments that favored certain things - looking at this less in terms of trade and commerce and more about war (which is a great destabilizing force).
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