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From Chinese Identity: Foundations and Structures, Hazel Greenberg, The American Forum for Global Education

The Ming Dynasty

After the Mongol Empire broke apart and the Yuan Dynasty collapsed, a Chinese dynasty was founded, the Ming (1368-1644). The early Ming was a recovery of some of the setbacks of Mongol rule, but many Yuan institutions were retained, since the forms and the institutions of the Song could not be directly or fully restored. The Mongol capital at Beijing was made the Ming capital in 1421 and except for brief intervals has remained the capital of China until today. Economic revival led to a high level of commercial activity and handicraft production, but not to the innovative spirit of the early Song. Nevertheless, the Ming seems to have been one of the most prosperous periods of Chinese history. It was during these centuries that the great potential of south China came to be fully exploited. New crops such as cotton, maize, and sweet potato came to be widely cultivated, and industries such as porcelain and textiles flourished.

The Ming is generally considered the first or autocratic Chinese dynasty (if the Yuan is considered an alien dynasty). The problems of central control of a huge, complex empire appeared pressing to the early emperors, who were intent on assuring personal control of the machinery of the bureaucracy and finding ways to keep the officials in line. The Jurchen and Mongol innovation of provincial governments, consisting of branches of the central government, was developed further as a way to cope with the difficulty of direct control of the whole empire. The censorate, imperial guard, and eunuchs were all used to keep the emperor informed of possible wrongdoing throughout the country. The arbitrary actions of the emperors undoubtedly demeaned the status of high officials and often jeopardized their welfare, but would have had less impact on villagers, whose affairs were still left pretty much to elders and local notables.

Sources for the Ming are even more varied than for the Song. Particularly valuable are genealogies, charters, and other records of group activities which show the proclivity of peasants and townsmen to form corporate groups of various sorts, such as lineages, guilds, village associations, and secret societies. Such groups were probably common before the Ming, but they cannot be as well documented until then. The major reason for forming corporate groups seems to have been to gain protection from the casual mistreatment or exploitation of officials, large landowners, rich merchants, and other powerful people. Once one group of people had organized to protect their own interests, others would imitate them so as not to be left isolated. Indeed, by the Ming there is evidence that isolated individuals, without groups to support them, often lived precarious lives or had to put themselves under the protection of a landlord or employer who could take advantage of their weak position.

Vernacular fiction is another valuable source for the structure and content of social life and culture which becomes plentiful only in the Ming. The development of fiction in the vernacular language had begun in the Song with storytellers, and had progressed further in the Yuan, when drama flourished. During the Ming the stories that had evolved through oral and dramatic performances were written down as short stories and four long novels, Journey to the West, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, and Jing Ping Mei. This colloquial fiction is a valuable source for understanding Chinese civilization for two reasons. First, many stories contain realistic portrayals of social life; while often exaggerated for humorous effect, the conversations and behaviors of tradesmen, servants, bullies, concubines, government clerks, teachers, and so on are colorfully portrayed and must have corresponded to social types recognized by the audience. The second value of fiction is as a repository of themes, images and symbols with broad appeal. Much like the myths and folk tales, stories of bandits, treacherous women, and docile servants could dramatize the conflicts of everyday life and resolve them in ways emotionally satisfying, even if unrealistic. The great love, from at least the Yuan period on, of stories of the outlaws in the Water Margin saga must be seen in this way – not as evidence that Chinese peasants and townsmen admired bandits (whom they probably considered a scourge if they were ever unfortunate enough to live within their reach), but as evidence that the flouting of authority provided symbols that helped make sense of life as people actually found it.