The Traditional Navigation Thought in Ming Dynasty

The sea ban is a traditional policy, which existed before the Ming Dynasty. The maritime ban policy of the Ming Dynasty originated from the Yuan Dynasty, which was to learn from the Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty initiated a maritime ban because the imperial court wanted to monopolize overseas trade and increase taxes.

First, the maritime ban of the Ming Dynasty, on the one hand, was that the imperial court wanted to monopolize overseas trade, hoping to crack down on non-governmental trade through the "maritime ban" and put the overseas trade rights with other countries into the hands of the government, thus implementing monopoly and directly putting high profits into the central finance to alleviate the dilemma of the central finance. On the other hand, it is indeed for theft prevention. At that time, there were many pirates. Without a maritime ban, it is difficult to distinguish between businessmen, fishermen and pirates. If the maritime ban is implemented, it will be easier to eliminate pirates and pirates if all pirates are considered.

Second, for political reasons, avoid doing business with foreigners without the consent of the court. It seems incredible now, but in ancient times, it was a tribute system. It is a political favor for foreigners to do business in China, and it is an important diplomatic means of the imperial court.

Third, for economic reasons, from the middle of Ming Dynasty to Qing Dynasty, the silver standard replaced the original copper standard. With the surge of trade, a large number of silver gradually replaced copper coins as the main currency in circulation. However, the local silver production in China is limited (in other words, the government can't supervise the circulation of silver from the source of production), and most of the silver circulating in the market comes from foreign trade (these soaring currencies are popularly called hot money).

Today, the government can use financial regulation to supervise capital, but in ancient times, the government could not play any role in financial regulation at all. Such a large amount of money that is not controlled by the empire enters the imperial market, which naturally makes the empire in an unstable state. So the empire adopted the simplest and roughest method, the so-called sea ban, which mainly started from the source, leaving only one or several trading ports to be responsible for foreign trade, so it was relatively easy to monitor the inflow of silver.