The construction of the Zhengguo Canal, the first to be built in China, laid the foundations for the rise to power of the state of Qin. It was completed by the Qin in 246 BC and irrigated about 200,000 acres in the Wei Valley north of Xian and led to such prosperity and population increase that the state of Qin became the first to unify China after a long period of internecine strife. The power of that state - and its ability to organise - can be seen at the tomb of the Quin emperor near the central city of Xian today. It is guarded by a life-size army of terracotta warriors some 8,000 of them. However, both the canal and the Qin empire were short-lived. The canal silted up and became useless about IS0 years after it was built. Furthermore, the Qin population pressure caused farming to expand out into the loess plateau.Thus the link between hydraulic control and political power is ancient.During the last decade however, it has taken on a symbolism that is extremely uncomfortable for Beijing 's rulers. The river known as ' China 's sorrow' for its power and ferocity now elicits pathos for an entirely different reason. For example in 1997 it was dry in Shandong for a full 226 days. The problem however is entirely manmade. Well over half the water in the river is taken for industry, agriculture and residential use, but it is estimated that as little as one-third of the water taken for agricultural irrigation actually reaches the crops, spilling out of irrigation ditches or sinks into the soil beneath the eight large dams and thousands of small ones. Perhaps it is that after thousands of years of political organisation to control the consequences of too much water, the machinery of the state has not had enough time to readjust to the reality of too little. Or are there also other lessons to learn from, the sociology of history?
Archaeological evidence and descriptions by visiting Chinese emissaries from the time of international maritime trade network that circulated goods from China to Rome, indicated that around this same period, also southern Vietnam 's Mekong delta and along the coasts of peninsular Siam , various states emerged with competing capitals substantial populations, arable lands, walled and moated settlements including elite housing and documents.
An important point in the Asian maritime route as early as the fourth century AD, many trading settlements were established along its eastern shores. Over several centuries, populations reaped great yields from the land, and canal networks cut across the delta to link settlements and facilitate the movement of goods have been documented. (See Bishop, Sanderson, and M. T. Stark, Dating Pre-Angkorian Canals in the Mekong Delta, Southern Cambodia, Using Radiocarbon and Oslo Journal of Archaeological Science 31, 3, pp.319-36, 2003; E. Bourdonneau, The Ancient Canal System of the Mekong Delta. pp. 257-70, and E.Y. Manguin, The Archaeology of Early Maritime Polities of Southeast Asia. pp. 282-313 in Bellwood and Glover, eds., A Cultural History of Southeast Asia: From Earliest Times to the Indic Civilizations, 2004).
For our earlier larger picture see also:
For S.E. Asia this included fourth-century Pallava style objects and statues from the Andhra coast of eastern India reflecting a widespread economic network, explaining why, the voyages 1421 voyages of Zeng Hi had very little connection with exploration. In fact even Zeng Hi’s much later, seventh and final, voyage that may have sailed all the way to Mecca, would hardly be exploration. The location of Mecca was familiar to Muslims everywhere, including those in China, and the travel by sea of Muslim pilgrims to Mecca had been going on for centuries. The names of both Zheng He's father and grandfather indicate that they made that pilgrimage, though there is no evidence for the route they took.
Instead the idea that exploration was the purpose of Zheng He's voyages is a modern Western myth, the actual goals of the voyages were stated clearly by the Qing Dynasty historians who compiled the Mingshi.
Zheng He lived in the reigns of five Ming emperors, four of whom had shilu composed for their reigns. Also called "veritable records" the shilu of the period. are the highly formalized process of official historiography, presented to or issud by the emperor in his daily court sessions. After the fall of the dynasty, the shilu served as the primary sources for the official bistory compiled by the successor dynasty, and then they were usually destroyed. Since the Mingshi, the Qing-compiled official history of the Ming Dynasty, was issued only in 1739, long after the fall of the dynasty, copies of the shilu of the Ming period survived down to the present.
For example the Taizong Shilu compiled after Emperor Yongle's death includes the period of Emperor Jianwen's reign, and since the first six voyages of Zheng Hi took place under Emperor Yongle, this is the richest source of Zheng He material. The Renzong Shilu of the brief Hongxi reign and the Xuanzong Shilu covering the Xuande reign also have notices relating to Zheng He.
The tribute system during the Ming, started when Ashikaga Takauji was made "king" of Japan for this purpose. And next, also made possible by earlier maritime advances, 1405-33 Zheng He (1371-1433) asserted Chinese power untill 1433. The first Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, rose from the ranks of the White Lotus (Maitreya) inspired "Red Turban" rebellion. A much later White Lotus (Maitreya) the 'Boxer' Rebellion (against European influence), from November 1899 to September 7, 1901, is frequently mentioned in the propaganda of the current, Chines regime. Expecially since the 1999 presumed American 'air attack' deemed "part of a greater plot, such as distracting China's attention from the economic development and causing China to be bogged down in upheavals or saddled with the heavy burden of warfare." (People's Daily editorial appeared on the first page of the newspaper on May 19, 1999).
Also Zheng He's biography states that Qing dynasty emperor Yongle "wanted to display his soldiers in strange lands in order to make manifest the wealth and power of the Middle Kingdom." In order to carry out this mission Zheng He's fleet "went in succession to the various foreign countries, proclaiming the edicts of the Son of Heaven and giving gifts to their rulers and chieftains. Those who did not submit were pacified by force." However this deserves further investigation thus, for the first time ever (sociologyesoscience.com web exclusive): From Red Turban to Ming Tax collecting.
The Ming Empire rose from (a much earlier) White Lotus (Maitreya) inspired, in this case "Red Turban" rebellion against the Yuan Dynasty and its 'foreign Mongol,' elite. In fact the Ming derived their name from the White Lotus' messianic figures of "Big and Little Ming Wang" (Brilliant Kings), who were thought to have been sent by Maitreya to the world to restore order. Although no direct relationship has been established, it is not difficult to see a paralell legend among the Shi'ite in Iran of some kind of 'future Maitreya' that will restore order..).
Where the ships used by the Ming 'navy' the larger ships built for the Zheng He voyages were first built in what now would be part of Indonesia. By the time of the Ming, these were often pirate ships.While the true nature of whatever thalassocracy Majapahit wielded has been much debated, under Rajasanagara (Hayam Wuruk, ruled 1350-89), during whose reign the Ming Dynasty came to power, the Javanese kingdom was certainly able to exert military power at least in southern Sumatra. The proclamation of the Ming Dynasty in early 1368 coincided with an impressive display of Chinese naval power, since troops transported by sea established Ming authority over the southern coast of China at the same time as the Ming main army marched overland to capture the Yuan capital. A new dynasty reigning at Nanjing might well be expected to revive traditional maritime connections between a regime based in south China and southeast Asia. In reality Emperor Hongwu from the beginning based his revival of the tribute system on his understanding of ancient precedents, and he considered the more recent precedents of the Yuan and Southern Song undesirable. He maintained a public posture of indifference to wealth derived from overseas trade, and he was very suspicious of the political and social consequences that might accompany oceangoing commerce. He welcomed tribute missions, but only from truly independent states. He allowed trade to take place only under official auspices and only when tribute was presented. He prohibited private trading between Chinese and "barbarians" and prohibited Chinese from sailing overseas. He repeated his prohibitions against foreign trade and overseas travel frequently, and in an edict of 1394 he admitted that, because he had prohibited even tribute missions from most countries, Chinese merchants were sailing overseas to buy spices and aromatics. His solution was that they should use Chinese substitutes. These prohibitions had the effect of turning the already numerous (even if the numbers are difficult to estimate) Chinese maritime population into pirates and smugglers, since they could not be expected to give up their livelihood. Hence Zheng He found Palembang under the control of a Chinese pirate fleet on his first voyage, and the Chinese sources describe "pirates" -certainly Chinese pirates-preying heavily on shipping in other areas.
Since Hongwu had prohibited overseas commerce, he was also concerned that tribute missions not become a mere cover for trade, and therefore he looked for proof that entities sending tribute missions were in fact independent countries. By 10S2 Jambi rather than Palembang had become the capital of the state the Chinese still called Shri Vijaya (Sanfoqi), even though trade was conducted in both harbors and a dynasty still ruled Palembang in a subordinate status. The founding of the Ming raised great hopes for the revival of trade with China , and from 1371 to 1377 both harbors sent missions to China . In 1374 a mission came from Palembang, whose ruler called himself both king of Sanfoqi and maharaja (transcribed as manada in Chinese) of Palembang (here called Baolinbang); Hongwu formally invested this unnamed person as king and granted him a calendar and other gifts. In 1377 Hongwu approved the request of the ruler of Jambi (also called Malayu or Malayu-Jambi) for investiture as ruler of Sanfoqi. Java protested that Sanfoqi was a dependency of Java and waylaid and murdered the Chinese embassy sent to confer this investiture. The events of 1377, sometimes described as a Javanese conquest of southern Sumatra , seem in fact to have been more like a firm reassertion of a suzerainty established earlier.
Hongwu, furious that he had been deceived, cut off relations with Sanfoqi for twenty years. In 1380, when he executed his chancellor Hu Weiyong and massacred hundreds of high officers and their families whom he accused of involvement in Hu's crimes, intrigues with foreigners and illicit trade in connection with the tribute missions were a major element in the accusations. Foreign rulers, he felt, often conspired with merchants to turn tribute missions into occasions for trade, and for that reason tribute missions from foreign countries were often rejected. Chinese missions to Southeast Asia during 1377-97 went only to countries that could be reached by land.
Sometime between 1377 and 1397, probably in 1391-92, Java expelled the now subordinate but still hereditary ruler of Palembang from his capital, compelling him to begin the journey that transformed him into the founder of Malacca. Trade unauthorized by Ming China continued to sail to and from Palembang , and in 1397 the old emperor sent an angry letter by way of Thailand to Java, ordering the Majapahit king to order the Palembang ruler to mend his ways. Instead, Java appointed a "small chief" to manage affairs in Palembang , where things were rapidly slipping out of Javanese control partly because of the influx of Chinese merchants. "At this time"-the Mingshi says-"Java had already overthrown Shri Vijaya (Sanfoqi) and annexed the country, changing its name to Old Harbor Uiugang). But after the demise of Shri Vijaya, there was great disorder in the country, and Java also was not able to hold on to all of this territory. Chinese people residing there temporarily more and more often came to live there permanently. There was Liang Daoming, originally of Nanhai District in Gllangdong, who had lived in this country for a long time. Several thousand families of soldiers and people from Fujian and Guangdong , who had sailed across the sea and joined him, selected Liang Daoming as their leader." This was taking place while China was distracted with the civil war that followed Hongwu's death. By the beginning of the Yongle reign, Palembang had become a southeast Asian city ruled by an overseas Chinese community drawn from the Chinese maritime population whose oceangoing trade Yongle's father had tried to prohibit.
In 1405 Yongle sent an official, a native of the same county as Liang Daoming, to summon the latter to court. Liang Damning came to court, presented tribute in local products, received imperial gifts, and returned. In 1406 Chen Zuyi, described as a "headman" (toumu) of the Old Harbor and "also" (like Liang Daoming) originally a native of Guangdong , sent his son to court with tribute; Liang Daoming sent a nephew. "Even though Chen Zuyi had sent tribute to court, he committed piracy on the high seas, and tribute missions going to and fro suffered from this." Returning from his first voyage in 1407, Zheng He defeated and captured Chen Zuyi. Zheng He had been warned about Chen Zuyi's piracy by Shi Jinqing, another member of the Chinese community at Palembang, whom the Ming court then appointed as its chief. Liang Daoming's fate is unknown.
Palembang's previous hereditary ruler Paramesvara, alias Iskandar Shah, by then had ended his wanderings and had established himself as ruler at Malacca. His career consisted of three years in Palembang (1388-91), six years in Singapore (1391-97), two years en route to Malacca (1397-99), and fourteen years as ruler in Malacca (1399-1413), making up the full twenty-five years of rule ascribed to him by the Malay sources. Originally at Malacca he was subject to Thailand , with an annual tribute of 40 Chinese ounces, or liang, of gold, an item confirmed by both the Mingshi and Ma Huan. In 1404 the eunuch Yin Qing was sent as envoy to his land, and Paramesvara (Bailimisula), "very happy" at this, promptly sent back an embassy with tribute in local products. His reward the following year, in which Zheng He commenced his first voyage, was Ming investiture as king of Malacca. Malacca collaborated enthusiastically with the treasure voyages: Ming China, after all, had recognized their royal status; that, plus Zheng He's fleet, protected Malacca against any reassertion of Thai overlordship. Paramesvara's death in 1413 was reported to the Ming emperor in 1414.