In the late Spring and Autumn period (722–481 BC), King Fuchai of Wu, ruler of the State of Wu (present-day Suzhou), ventured north to conquer the neighboring State of Qi. He ordered a canal be const ...
"Moghulistan" simply means "Land of the Moghuls," or Mongols (the term Mughal is Persian for Mongol) in reference to the eastern branch of the Turco-Mongolian Chagatai Khans who ruled it. The term "Mo ...
The former ruling dynasty of ??i Vi?t, the Tr?n, had relations with the Chinese Ming empire as a tributary. However, in 1400, H? Qu? Ly deposed and massacred the Tran house before usurping the t ...
Under the Han dynasty, generally, the reception of memorials was the responsibility of the Imperial Secretary tasked with overseeing provincial administration. He generally needed to present any forma ...
At the beginning of the Ming dynasty, the administration adopted the Yuan model of having only one department, the Secretariat, superimposed on the Six Ministries. The Secretariat was led by two Chanc ...
Mongol invaders were still causing many problems for the Ming Dynasty. Yongle prepared to eliminate this threat. He mounted five military expeditions into the Mongolian steppe and crushed the remnants ...
The Yongle Emperor was born Zhu Di (朱棣) on 2 May 1360, the fourth son of the new leader of the central Red Turbans, Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang would later rise to become the Hongwu Emperor, the fi ...
The Hongwu Emperor realized that the Mongols still posed a threat to China, even though they had been driven away after the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty. He decided to reassess the orthodox Confucian ...
Although the Hongwu Era saw the introduction of paper currency, its development was stifled from the beginning. Not understanding inflation, the Hongwu Emperor gave out so much paper money as rewards ...
The monastery where Zhu Yuanzhang lived was eventually destroyed by an army that was suppressing a local rebellion. In 1352, Zhu joined one of the many insurgent forces that had risen in rebellion aga ...
In September 1499, Vasco da Gama returned to Lisbon, Portugal, from his voyage to India. Before da Gama's return, Girolamo Sernigi wrote about Portuguese accounts that "certain vessels of white Christ ...
There are several extant contemporary accounts, including Ma Huan's Yingya Shenglan , Fei Xin's Xingcha Shenglan , and Gong Zhen's Xiyang Fanguo Zhi . Ma Huan served as an interpreter on the fourth, s ...
The fleet comprised more men than the whole male population of any port city from Guangzhou to Mombasa at the time. Each treasure ship were crewed by about 500 men (according to Mills) or at least 600 ...
On 14 May 1421, the Yongle Emperor had ordered the temporary suspension of the voyages, but the suspension ultimately came to last to the end of his reign. The imperial attention and funding came to b ...
In the third lunar month (30 March to 28 April) of 1405, a preliminary order was issued for Zheng He and others to take command of 27,000 troops to the Western Ocean. An imperial edict, dated to 11 Ju ...
