Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-17T13:56:10.183Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Delimiting the Realm Under the Ming Dynasty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2021

By
David M. Robinson
Edited by
Yuri Pines ,
Michal Biran  and
Jörg Rüpke
Yuri Pines
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Michal Biran
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jörg Rüpke
Affiliation:
Universität Erfurt, Germany
Get access

Summary

This chapter examines the construction and representation of borders in China under the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). It considers the spatial dimensions of the Mongol empire, which was the Ming dynasty’s immediate predecessor. It examines the Ming court’s efforts to conquer or coopt Mongol power-holders and their territories, its plans to establish lasting control over those regions and their peoples, and its discursive and administrative strategies to describe and regulate issues of diversity and distance. The chapter reviews changes in the Ming dynasty’s geopolitical engagement in eastern Eurasia, tracing the dynasty’s loss of territory and influence along the northern and western borders and simultaneously a steady expansion of state institutions into the southwestern frontier. The essay concludes with developments during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including responses to early Western European agents of empire in East Asia and, more broadly, the expansion of Chinese interest into maritime Asia.

Keywords

distancediversityhistorical memorymaritime Asiamilitary institutionsMing dynastyMongol legacyZhu DiZhu Yuanzhang
Type
Chapter
Information
The Limits of Universal Rule
Eurasian Empires Compared
 , pp. 284 - 315
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allsen, Thomas. 1997. “Ever Closer Encounters: Appropriation of Culture and the Apportionment of Peoples in the Mongol Empire.” Journal of Early Modern History 1: 2–23.Google Scholar
Allsen, Thomas. 2001. Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Allsen, Thomas. 2015. “Population Movements in Mongol Eurasia.” In Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change: the Mongols and Their Eurasian predecessors, ed. Amitai, Reuven and Biran, Michal, 119–51. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar
Amitai-Preiss, Reuven. 1998. “Mongol Imperial Ideology and the Ilkhanid War Against the Mamluks.” In The Mongol Empire and its Legacy, ed. Amitai-Preiss, Reuven and Morgan, David, 57–72. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Andrade, Tonio. 2016. The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Andrade, Tonio. 2018. “The Dutch East India Company in Global History: A Historiographical Reconnaisance.” In The Dutch and English East India Companies: Diplomacy, Trade and Violence in Early Modern Asia, ed. Clulow, Adam and Mostert, Tristan, 239–56. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Google Scholar
Anonymous (mid-14th century). 1992. Bi shu jian zhi 祕書監志. Rpt. Zhejiang Xinhua shudian.Google Scholar
Batchelor, Robert. 2013. “The Selden Map Rediscovered: A Chinese Map of East Asian Shipping Routes, c.1619.” Imago Mundi 65(1): 37–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batchelor, Robert, 2016. “Maps, Calendars, and Diagrams: Space and Time in Seventeenth-Century Maritime East Asia.” In Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai: Maritime East Asia in Global History 1550–1700, eds. Andrade, Tonio and Hang, Xing, 86–113. Honolulu HI: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar
Bi, Aonan 畢奧南. 2004. “Menggu hanguo yu Yuanchao guanxi de kaocha” 蒙古汗國與元朝關係的考察 [An Examination of Relations between the Mongol Empire and the Yuan Dynasty]. Zhongguo bianjiang shidi yanjiu 中國邊疆史地研究 14(4): 40–51.Google Scholar
Bretschneider, E. 1967. Mediaeval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources, Vol. 2. New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc.Google Scholar
Burbank, Jane and Cooper, Frederick. 2012. Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chang, Tien-tse. 1934. Sino-Portuguese Trade from 1514 to 1644. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Chen, Dezhi 陳得芝. 2009. “Guanyu Yuanchao de guohao, nianhao yu bianjiang wenti” 關於元朝的國號，年號與邊疆問題 [The Yuan Dynasty’s Dynastic Title, Reign Titles, and Territory]. Beifang minzu daxue xuebao 北方民族大學學報 87: 5–15.Google Scholar
Christian, David. 1994. “Inner Eurasia as a Unit of World History.” Journal of World History 5(2): 173–211.Google Scholar
Clulow, Adam and Mostert, Tristant. 2018. “Introduction: The Companies in Asia.” In: The Dutch and English East India Companies: Diplomacy, Trade and Violence in Early Modern Asia, ed. Clulow, Adam and Mostert, Tristan, 13–21. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Google Scholar
Di Cosmo, Nicola. 1999. “State Formation and Periodization in Inner Asian History.” Journal of World History 10.1: 1–40.Google Scholar
Cohen, Paul. 1984. The Discovery of History in China: American Historical Writing on China’s Recent Past. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Peiyuan, Cong 丛佩遠. 1998. Mingdai Dongbei bian 明代東北編 [The Northeast during the Ming Period]. In Zhongguo Dongbeishi 中國東北史 [A History of China’s Northeast], ed. Dong, Tong 佟東, Vol. 3. Changchun: Jilin wenshi chubanshe.Google Scholar
Dardess, John. 2003. “Did the Mongols Matter? – Territory, Power, and Intelligentsia in China from the Northern Song to the Early Ming.” In: The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History, ed. Smith, Paul and von Glahn, Richard, 111–34. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Asia Center.Google Scholar
de Heer, Philip. 1986. The Care-taker Emperor: Aspects of the Imperial Institution in Fifteenth Century China as Reflected in the Political History of the Reign of Chu Ch’i-yü. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Dictionary of Ming Biography. 1976. Ed. Goodrich, L. Carrington and Fang, Chaoying. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Dreyer, Edward. 1982. Early Ming China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Elisonas, Jurgis. 1991. “The Inseparable trinity: Japan’s relations with China and Korea.” In: The Cambridge History of Japan, Early Modern Japan, volume 4, ed. Hall, John, 235–300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Geiss, James. 1987. “The Leopard Quarter During the Cheng-te reign.” Ming Studies 24: 1–38.Google Scholar
Geiss, James. 1988a. “The Cheng-te reign, 1506–1521.” In: The Cambridge History of China. Volume 7: The Ming Dynasty, Part One, ed. Twitchett, Denis and Mote, Frederick, 403–49. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Geiss, James 1988b. “The Chia-ching Reign, 1522–1566.” In The Cambridge History of China. Volume 7: The Ming Dynasty, Part One, ed. Twitchett, Denis and Mote, Frederick, 490–505. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
He, Yuming. 2013. Home and the World: Editing the “Glorious Ming” in Woodblock-Printed Books of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Guang, Hu 胡廣 (1369–1418). Hu Wen mu gong wen ji 胡文穆公文集. Rpt. in Siku quanshu cunmu congshu 四庫全書存目叢書, ji 集 28.Google Scholar
Huang, Ray. 1981. 1587: A Year of No Significance. The Ming Dynasty in Decline. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, Peter. 1999. “From Ulus to Khanate: The Making of the Mongol States, c. 1220–1290.” In The Mongol Empire and its Legacy, ed. Amitai-Preiss, Reuven and Morgan, David, 12–37. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Yufu, Jin 金毓黻, ed. 1985. Liaohai congshu 遼海叢書 [A Liaohai Collectionea]. Rpt. Shenyang: Liaoshen shushe.Google Scholar
Johnston, Alastair. 1995. Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hodong, Kim 金浩東. 1993. “Isŭrram seryok ŭi Tongjin kwa Hami wangguk ŭi morrak” 이슬람勢力의 東進과 하미王國의 沒落. Chindan hakpo 震檀學報 76: 107–42.Google Scholar
Hodong, Kim 金浩東. 2006. “Mong’gol che’guk kwa Tae Wŏn” 몽골帝國과 大元 [The Mongol Empire and the Yuan Dynasty]. Yŏksa hakpo 歴史學報 192: 221–253.Google Scholar
Hodong, Kim 金浩東. 2009. “The Unity of the Mongol Empire and Continental Exchanges over Eurasia.” Journal of Central Eurasian Studies 1: 15–42.Google Scholar
Lam, Yuan-chu. 1990. “Memoir on the Campaign against Turfan.” Journal of Asian History 24(2): 105–60.Google Scholar
Langlois, John. 1988. “The Hung-wu Reign.” In: The Cambridge History of China. Volume 7: The Ming Dynasty, Part One, ed. Twitchett, Denis and Mote, Frederick, 107–81. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kangying, Li 李康英. 2010. The Ming Maritime Trade Policy in Transition, 1368 to 1567. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag.Google Scholar
Xian, Li 李賢 (1409–1467). 1990. “Feng su” 風俗. In Da Ming yi tong zhi 大明一統志, 2 vols. Rpt. Xi’an: Sanqin chubanshe, 2: 1311.Google Scholar
Zhisheng, Liang 梁志勝. 1999. “Hongwu ershiliunian yiqian de Shanxi xingdusi” 洪武二十六年以前的陝西行都司 [The Provisional Regional Military Commission of Shaanxi prior to 1393]. Zhongguo lishi dili luncong 中國歷史地理論叢 3: 165–75.Google Scholar
Liu, Ji 劉基 (1311–1375). 2011. “Shanyin xian Kongzi miao bei” 山陰縣孔子廟碑. In Liu Bowen ji 劉伯溫集, 4 vols. Rpt. Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe.Google Scholar
Yingli, Liu 劉應李 (d. 1311), compiler. 2003. “Preface” 題記 of Da Yuan hun yi fang yu sheng lan 大元混一方輿勝覽 [An Easy Guide to the Unified Territories of the Great Yuan], 1310 edition. Rpt. Chengdu: Sichuan daxue chubanshe.Google Scholar
Yingsheng, Liu 劉迎勝 2006. Chahatai hanguoshi yanjiu 察哈台汗國史研究 [A History of the Chaghadaid Qanate]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe.Google Scholar
Lo, Jung-pang. 1970. “Intervention in Annam: A Case Study of the Foreign Policy of the early Ming Government.” Tsinghua Journal of Chinese Studies 8. (1–2): 154–82.Google Scholar
Ren, Lu 陸韌. 2001. Bianqian yu jiaorong: Mingdai Yunnan Hanzu yimin yanjiu 變遷與交融：明代雲南漢族移民研究 [Transformation and Integration: Migration of the Han Ethnicity in Yunnan during the Ming Period]. Kunming: Yunnan jiaoyu chubanshe.Google Scholar
Ren, Lu 陸韌 and Hongjun, Peng 彭洪俊. 2013. “Lun Mingchao xinan bianjiang de junguan jimi diqu” 論明朝西南邊疆的軍管羈縻地區 [Military Loose Rein Regions of the Southwest Border Region during the Ming Period]. Zhongguo bianjiang shidi yanjiu 中國邊疆史地研究 1: 30–9.Google Scholar
Lukacs, Gabor. 2014. “Da Ming sheng guo (sic): An Important Little Known Seventeenth Century Manuscript Map of China.” The British Cartographic Society 51(1): 52–62.Google Scholar
Shunping, Ma 馬順平. 2008. “Mingdai Shanxi xingdusi jiqi weisuo jianzhi kaoshi” 明代陝西行都司及其衛所建置考實 [An Examination of the Establishment of the Provincial Regional Military Commission of Shaanxi and Its Garrisons during the Ming Period]. Zhongguo lishi dili luncong 中國歷史地理論叢 23 (2): 109–17.Google Scholar
Shunping, Ma 馬順平. 2011. “Mingdai dusi weisuo renkou shue xintan: fangzhizhong liangzu Mingdai Shanxi xingdusi renkou shuju de pingjia” 明代都司衛所人口數額新探：方志中兩組明代陝西行都司人口數據的評價 [A Reexamination of the Population Figures of the Garrisons of Regional Military Commissions of the Ming Period: An Appraisal of Two Sets of Population Data in Local Gazetteers for the Shaanxi Provincial Regional Military Commission during the Ming Period]. Suzhou keji xueyuan xuebao 蘇州科技學院學報 (shehui kexue ban 社會科學版) 28(4): 49–54.Google Scholar
Mote, Frederick. 1974. “The T’u-mu Incident.” In: Chinese Ways in Warfare, ed. Kierman, Frank and Fairbank, John, 243–72. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mote, Frederick. 1988. “The Ch’eng-hua and Hung-chih reigns, 1465–1505.” In: The Cambridge History of China. Volume 7: The Ming Dynasty, Part One, ed. Twitchett, Denis and Mote, Frederick, 343–402. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hidehiro, Okada. 1999. “China as a Successor State to the Mongols.” In: The Mongol Empire and Its Legacy, ed. Amitai-Preiss, Reuven and Morgan, David, 260–72. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Park, Hyunhee. 2012. Mapping the Chinese and Islamic Worlds: Cross-Cultural Exchange in Premodern Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jianying, Peng 彭建英. 2004. “Mingdai jimi weisuo zhidu” 明代羈縻衛所制度述論 [An Overview of the Loose-reign Garrison System of the Ming Period], Zhongguo bianjiang shidi yanjiu 中國邊疆史地研究 14(3): 24–36.Google Scholar
Perdue, Peter. 2015. “1557: A Year of Some Significance.” In Asia Inside Out: Changing Times, ed. Tagliacozzo, Eric, Siu, Helen, and Perdue, Peter, 90–111. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pines, Yuri. 2005. “Beasts or Humans: Pre-Imperial Origins of the ‘Sino-Barbarian’ Dichotomy.” In Mongols, Turks, and Others, ed. Amitai, Reuven and Biran, Michal, 59–102. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Robinson, David. 2009. Empire’s Twilight: Northeast Asia under the Mongols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Robinson, David. 2013. Martial Spectacles of the Ming Court. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Robinson, David. 2015. “Chinese Border Garrisons in a Transnational Context: Liaodong under the Early Ming Dynasty.” In: Chinese and Indian Warfare – From the Classical Age to 1870, ed. Lorge, Peter and Roy, Kaushik, 57–73. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Robinson, David. 2019. In the Shadow of the Mongol Empire: Ming China and Eurasia. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, David. 2020. Ming China and Their Allies: Imperial Rulership in Eurasia. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rossabi, Morris. 1982. The Jurchens in the Yüan and Ming. Ithaca, NY: China-Japan Program, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Rossabi, Morris. 1988. Khubilai Khan. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rossabi, Morris. 1998. “The Ming and Inner Asia.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 8, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, part 2, ed. Twitchett, Denis and Mote, Frederick, 222–271. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, James. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Serruys, Henry. 1955a. “The Mongols of Kansu During the Ming.” Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 10: 215–346.Google Scholar
Serruys, Henry. 1955b. Sino-Jürced Relations during the Yung-lo Period (1403–1424). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Serruys, Henry. 1959. “Mongol Ennobled during the Early Ming.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 22: 209–60.Google Scholar
Shin, Leo. 2006a. “The Last Campaigns of Wang Yangming.” T’oung-pao 92(1–3): 101–28.Google Scholar
Shin, Leo. 2006b. The Making of the Chinese State: Ethnicity and Expansion on the Ming Borderlands. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lian, Song宋濂 (1310–1381). 1999. “Guo chao ming chen xu song” 國朝名臣序頌, Qian xi qian ji 潛溪前集. In Song Lian quanji 宋濂全集, 4 vols. Rpt. Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe.Google Scholar
Tianjue, Su 蘇天爵 (1294–1352), ed. 1993. Yuan wen lei 元文類. Wenyuange Siku quanshu edition. Shanghai: Shanghai chubanshe, vol. 1367.Google Scholar
Swope, Kenneth. 2005. “A Few Good Men: The Li Family and China’s Northern Frontier in the Late Ming.” Ming Studies 34: 34–81.Google Scholar
Swope, Kenneth. 2008. “Bestowing the Double-Edged Sword: Wanli as Supreme Military Commander.” In Culture, Courtiers, and Competition: The Ming Court (1368–1644), ed. Robinson, David, 61–115. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Makoto, Ueda上田信. 2005. Umi to teikoku: Min Shin jidai 海と帝国：明清時代 [The Seas and Empire: The Ming and Qing Periods]. Tokyo: Kōdansha.Google Scholar
Wade, Geoff. 2005. “The Zheng He Voyages: A Reassessment.” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 78(1): 37–58.Google Scholar
Wade, Geoff. 2008. “Engaging the South: Ming China and Southeast Asia in the Fifteenth Century.” Journal of the Economic & Social History of the Orient 51(4): 578–638.Google Scholar
Waldron, Arthur. 1990. The Great Wall of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wills, John. 1998. “Relations with Maritime Europeans, 1514–1662.” In The Cambridge History of China. Volume 8, The Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), Part Two, ed. Twitchett, Denis and Mote, Frederick, 333–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zhihe, Wu 吳智和. 1982. “Mingdai Zhengtong guobian yu Jingtai xingfu” 明代正統國變與景泰興復 [The Zhengtong Incident and the Jingtai Restoration of the Ming Period]. Shixue huikan 史學彙刊8 (1977); rev. version rpt. in Mingshi yanjiu luncong 明史研究論叢 [Collected Essays in Ming History], ed. Zhihe, Wu, vol. 1: 159–241. Taibei: Dali chubanshe.Google Scholar
Lijun, Xiao 肖立軍. 2010. Mingdai shengzhen yingbingzhi yu difang zhixu 明代省鎮營兵制與地方秩序 [The Provincial Garrison System of the Ming Period and Local Order]. Tianjin: Tianjin guji chubanshe.Google Scholar
Zhengtai, Yang 楊正泰.1994. Mingdai yizhan kao 明代驛站考 [The Postal Relay System of the Ming Period]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe.Google Scholar
Xiuqing, Yu 于秀情. 2010. Mingchao jingying Baiyi yanjiu 明朝經營百夷研究 [The Ming Dynasty’s Governance of Baiyi]. Beijing: Zhongyang minzu daxue chubanshe.Google Scholar
Xie, Zhang 張燮 (1574–1640). 2000. Dong xi yang kao 東西洋考. In Xi yang chao gong lu jiaozhu: Dong xi yang kao西洋朝貢典錄校注: 東西洋考. Punctuated by Fang, Xie 謝方. Beijing: Zhongguo shuju.Google Scholar
Shaochuan, Zhou 周少川. 2008. “Yuanchao de kaifang yishi yu yuwaishi yanjiu” 元朝的開放意識與域外史研究 [The Yuan Dynasty’s Sense of Openness and Research into the History of Territories Beyond the Realm]. Hebei xuekan 河北學刊 28(5): 78–85.Google Scholar
Song, Zhou 周松. 2008. Mingchu Hetao zhoubian bianzheng yanjiu 明初河套周邊邊政研究 [Border Policies in the Ordos Region during the Early Ming Period]. Lanzhou: Gansu renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar
Siben, Zhu 朱思本 (1273–1336?). 2004. “Yu di tu zi xu” 輿地圖自序. In Quan Yuan wen 全元文, Vol. 31, 60 vols. Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, juan 1006.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×