WI China chose to engage in mass exploration/colonization in the 15th century?
- Thread starter Malone
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The article I cited had to do with both the emperor and his ministers agreeing that the island was pretty trivial and not something they need to care about; the settlement of Han Chinese most likely had to do with the mainland being too overpopulated and the government being forced to sent people off somewhere where there's less people.
Faeelin
Banned
If the emperor and his ministers agreed the island was trivial and not worth caring about, why did they conquer it and then settle it? You then go on to say it was colonized to relieve population pressures, which suggests why China would look outward, because, under your argument, it did look outward to relieve population pressure.
I'm not saying this is why they settled Taiwan. Just taking repeating what I read.
I'm not saying this is why they settled Taiwan. Just taking repeating what I read.
You and I both know why, it's because the Ming remnants were there, who would be contenders to the mandate of heaven if they continued to exist. And Chinese overpopulation is only a 18th/19th century phenomenon.
I think a good POD would be if Chinese merchants figure out how much the nutmeg and clove trade was worth and try to dominate the Spice Islands. This would get the attention of the Ming state. With the Ming fleet exploring the region between the Banda Islands and Timor, they would have a fair chance discovering Australia. The Ming voyages would be self-financed had the fleet controlled those few tiny islands.
Faeelin
Banned
Not sure it's "only" an 18th/19th century phenomenon. Thousands of Chinese settled in Luzon, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia in OTL before then after all, despite hostility. They also settled southern China or in the southwest.
And the Zheng family moved to Taiwan to set up an independent base and gain control of trade. True, the Qing didn't have these motives, but they were a dynasty that associated the sea with hostility and foreign rule. They are going to always act differently than a Chinese state would. It's sort of like saying, in a world where the Ottomans conquer Holland, that Dutch culture would never colonize.
People really need to stop acting like philosophies and the will to do things can just be conjured out of thin air. The reason the official Ming government didn't explore the seas is that their are multiple, intertwined political, cultural, geographic, economic, and military reasons for focusing on the mainland. It's not like you can just "replace" Confucianism and get a sea-focused China because that completely ignores the context in which Confucianism evolved in. You need to change the environment instead of blaming things on a particular aspect of culture.
In any case, I've long harbored an idea for an overseas-focused Ming in the 17th century. In the 14th century though...no idea.
In any case, I've long harbored an idea for an overseas-focused Ming in the 17th century. In the 14th century though...no idea.
Faeelin
Banned
Perversely, I think it's easier to get a Chinese California after the Spanish get there, and the Manila trade kicks off. The Chinese know there's a land of gold out there at least.
Well if you have a POD far back enough anythings possible.
People say 'replace Confucianism' but that's dumb because it's been around for more than two thousand years and won't just disappear. Though a POD having Mohism replace Confucianism or at least have Mohism and legalism co-exist to an extent within national decisions might do the trick to an extent.
People say 'replace Confucianism' but that's dumb because it's been around for more than two thousand years and won't just disappear. Though a POD having Mohism replace Confucianism or at least have Mohism and legalism co-exist to an extent within national decisions might do the trick to an extent.
Hi,
I think the problem is in that, when thinking about a possible Chinese colonialism, we always have as the standard European colonialism. So if the Chinese "do" colonialism, it has to be a variation of the European phenomenon, otherwise it isn't "really" colonialism. So we imagine the Chinese literally conquering and installing viceroys, massive emigration of Chinese to the colonies where they subject the natives to third-class status and implant an extractive economy, etc. That would be "normal". But I think it is the other way around. European-style colonialism, the one that emerged since the late XV century, is a very unique phenomenon.
What made European-style colonialism even possible was that they stumbled into a region of the world with a massive power imbalance with respect to them: the Americas. A whole continent(s) full of resources and people who died literally on contact, and those who survived only with a stone-age military technology (whatever other advances they had) to oppose you. And to cap it off, full of what you desired the most: gold, silver, new crops, etc. And to cap off the caping off (hehe) sitting at the end of a clear sea route facilitated by prevailing winds and currents, making it within reasonable reach of your naval technology. The result? Europeans could impose their will, their cultures, their very genes in a way that nobody else could to any other people. So they colonized all of the Americas at will, while fighting each other nonstop.
The Chinese case was nothing like that. No population that biologically and culturally vulnerable was within reach (forget about Australia!), that had even remotely a similar payoff as the Americas. So they could politically dominate neighboring states (and they did), and export a merchant class (just about everywhere in Asia, as they did) but never pull out an European-style colonization. External conflict wouldn't had stopped them, the same as in the European case.
Or, to say it another way, if the Chinese were in Europe and the Europeans in China, it would have been the Chinese the ones to overwhelm the Americas and thus define "classical" colonization.
Geography, gentlemen. Geography.
Chinese-style colonialism is closer to the historical norm. It is European colonialism that is off the charts, due to the vagaries of geography.
I think the problem is in that, when thinking about a possible Chinese colonialism, we always have as the standard European colonialism. So if the Chinese "do" colonialism, it has to be a variation of the European phenomenon, otherwise it isn't "really" colonialism. So we imagine the Chinese literally conquering and installing viceroys, massive emigration of Chinese to the colonies where they subject the natives to third-class status and implant an extractive economy, etc. That would be "normal". But I think it is the other way around. European-style colonialism, the one that emerged since the late XV century, is a very unique phenomenon.
What made European-style colonialism even possible was that they stumbled into a region of the world with a massive power imbalance with respect to them: the Americas. A whole continent(s) full of resources and people who died literally on contact, and those who survived only with a stone-age military technology (whatever other advances they had) to oppose you. And to cap it off, full of what you desired the most: gold, silver, new crops, etc. And to cap off the caping off (hehe) sitting at the end of a clear sea route facilitated by prevailing winds and currents, making it within reasonable reach of your naval technology. The result? Europeans could impose their will, their cultures, their very genes in a way that nobody else could to any other people. So they colonized all of the Americas at will, while fighting each other nonstop.
The Chinese case was nothing like that. No population that biologically and culturally vulnerable was within reach (forget about Australia!), that had even remotely a similar payoff as the Americas. So they could politically dominate neighboring states (and they did), and export a merchant class (just about everywhere in Asia, as they did) but never pull out an European-style colonization. External conflict wouldn't had stopped them, the same as in the European case.
Or, to say it another way, if the Chinese were in Europe and the Europeans in China, it would have been the Chinese the ones to overwhelm the Americas and thus define "classical" colonization.
Geography, gentlemen. Geography.
Chinese-style colonialism is closer to the historical norm. It is European colonialism that is off the charts, due to the vagaries of geography.
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I wonder if the best colonization model might be for an independent Chinese state to form in the New World from the start, rather than for the Ming Dynasty to attempt to exert sovereignty (as I doubt the Ming would be interested in holding onto such a distant colony).
So, a rough timeline would be this:
–Someone like Zheng He (maybe Zheng He himself) goes exploring to the east in the 1400s. Possibly with the intention of finding another trade route to Arabia going the other way around the world.
–They discover the Americas, finding some land that, as far as they're concerned, hasn't got many people and looks good for agriculture. OTL Vancouver Island or California perhaps. The Chinese may incorrectly believe ths land to be Europe.
–Some of the crew members from the voyage stay in the New World, constructing a village, and declare the creation of a new kingdom called the "Kingdom of Penglai" or something (not finding any major native government, and thinking that there should be a government). They trade with the indigenous people and get on mostly peacefully.
–The section of the crew that returns to Asia spreads word of the newly-discovered territory. More colonists come.
So, a rough timeline would be this:
–Someone like Zheng He (maybe Zheng He himself) goes exploring to the east in the 1400s. Possibly with the intention of finding another trade route to Arabia going the other way around the world.
–They discover the Americas, finding some land that, as far as they're concerned, hasn't got many people and looks good for agriculture. OTL Vancouver Island or California perhaps. The Chinese may incorrectly believe ths land to be Europe.
–Some of the crew members from the voyage stay in the New World, constructing a village, and declare the creation of a new kingdom called the "Kingdom of Penglai" or something (not finding any major native government, and thinking that there should be a government). They trade with the indigenous people and get on mostly peacefully.
–The section of the crew that returns to Asia spreads word of the newly-discovered territory. More colonists come.
Sorry, I got misinterpreted.
I don't mean Christiannity is inherently better, just that if the court was converting at a religion coming from oversea, from another continent, they might start to look more at what's happening beyond their frontier.
You'd need more priests, bishops, you might send a couple young princes to the Vatican, start a Jesuit college and monasteries with more people from all over the world
A PoD that far back would end up with things like a Persian cultural sphere stretching from the Danube to the Ganges, or a Roman Empire analogue in similar stasis to OTL China while TTL China is a completely politically fractured region with an alt-Chu ruling an overseas Indo-Pacific maritime empire while warding away the threat of a powerful alt-Qin and a rising Zosyneian (alt-Helleno-Tocharo-Korean) kingdom of Yan.
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Hm. What about having the Qing only conquer the northern half of China while the southern half continues under a new Han dynasty that gets heavily influenced by the will of the mercantile faction?