How big was the territory of the Ming Dynasty? You'll know after reading

The boundaries of the Ming Dynasty have been a constant source of controversy online in recent years.

Some articles cite Taiwan's Li Ao's view that the Ming Dynasty (at least the end of the Ming Dynasty) had a territory of only 3.5 million square kilometers. Some articles, however, say that the boundary of the Ming Dynasty was even larger than that of the Qing Dynasty. So, how big was the territory of the Ming Dynasty?

I.

First of all, let's cite the map of the Ming Dynasty in 1443, the eighth year of Xuande (see Figure 1) in the Chinese Historical Atlas, which is publicly available in China, and look at the territory of the early Ming Dynasty. As can be seen from the map, the territory of the early Ming Dynasty included the following areas that are now not part of China: the Far East of Russia, about half of Burma, Bhutan, Sikkim, and one-half of Kashmir. However, the territory of the early Ming Dynasty did not include most of Xinjiang (nearly three-quarters of it), nearly half of Inner Mongolia, nor did it include Taiwan. According to this map of the territory, the area of the pre-Ming Dynasty was about 11 million square kilometers.

However, we must see that the Ming Dynasty's boundaries, the largest geographical area of the northeast of China and the Far East of Russia, the Qinghai-Tibet area (including Bhutan, Kashmir, etc.), the Xinjiang Hami area, are all tie-up areas. It belongs to Nurgan, Uszang, Xifan, Hami and so on. The so-called tie-up areas means that the central government of Ming Dynasty did not set up any formal administrative organization and appointed the local minority chiefs to manage these areas. The only official administrative regions of Ming Dynasty were the two capitals and thirteen Buzhengzhi (布政使司).

The two capitals are Jingshi (Beijing) and Nanjing, and the thirteen Buzhengzhi are Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Jiangxi, Huguang, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, and Guizhou. Probably Li Ao and others said that the Ming Dynasty 3.5 million square kilometers of territory is this part.

II. In the late Ming Dynasty, the tie-up areas in the northeast of Ming Dynasty (including the northeast of China and the far east of Russia nowadays) were disconnected from the Ming Dynasty since the establishment of the Later Jin Dynasty by Nurhachu in 1616.

In addition, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang Hami area, Qinghai and Gansu part of the area, many places in Myanmar also long ago did not belong to the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, at this time, the Ming dynasty's territory is less than 5.7 million square kilometers (I estimate).

III. How to see the tie-up areas in Ming Dynasty

Custodial tie-up rule is a kind of rule by the central government to the border ethnic minority areas since Tang Dynasty.

The tie-up areas are different from the vassal states, and they are not official administrative areas.

The central government ruled the area by appointing local tribal chiefs of the ethnic minorities.

The central government did not have any administrative organization or military garrison in the tie-up areas. When the central government became weak and unable to reach the tie-up areas, or when the local minority leaders rebelled, the tie-up areas no longer belonged to the central government.

The competition of external forces is also a factor of tie-up areas. For those tie-up areas which are vast and sparsely populated, their boundaries are often vague and unstable with the migration and change of local minorities as well as the competition of external forces.

The Ming Dynasty's rule over the present Russian Far East belonged to this kind of fuzzy state. The Ming dynasty only had a direct military presence in the Liaodong region to control the northeast. In the Tibetan region, there was not even a representative body like the minister in Tibet established by the Qing dynasty.

IV. Ming dynasty territory inherited from the Yuan dynasty Ming dynasty rule over Tibet and the northeast is actually inherited from the Yuan dynasty.

Because the remnants of the Northern Yuan refused to surrender, and the Ming Dynasty did not have a good way to deal with the Mongolian nomadic regime, the Ming Dynasty did not include parts of Inner Mongolia, Outer Mongolia, and most of Siberia of the Yuan Dynasty.

V. China's Northeast is the Manchu Qing Dynasty into the customs brought with it?

Some people say that the Northeast originally did not belong to the Ming Dynasty, is the Manchu Qing Dynasty into the Central Plains to China to bring the dowry. This argument is not true!

The early Ming Dynasty, after defeating and surrendering the Yuan Dynasty, inherited the territory of the Yuan Dynasty in the Northeast (including the present Russian Far East).

Until Nurhachu established the Later Jin regime for about 200 years, the Northeast has been the territory of the Ming Dynasty, Nurhachu father and grandfather and himself are Ming Dynasty appointed officials. Northeast is in the Nurhachu rose against the Ming dynasty only after the Ming dynasty off the amplitude.

Six. Is the Baikal region a Ming territory?

During the Yongle period, the Buryat Mongol tribes in the Baikal region were under the jurisdiction of the Nurgan capital, so the area east of the Lena River in Siberia was Ming territory at that time.

If the territory of the Ming dynasty according to then, it should be more than 12 million square kilometers. We will listen to this argument for a while.

But one thing is clear, even if the Baikal region once belonged to the Nurgan Department of jurisdiction, it is not the central government of the Ming Dynasty directly under the jurisdiction of the local ethnic minority tribal leaders through the management of the short-lived, unstable.

VII. How to view the rule of Ming Yongle Dynasty over Vietnam.

When Emperor Jianwen of the Ming Dynasty, there was a palace coup in Vietnam, in which the Hoa minister killed the King of Vietnam, usurped the throne and claimed it, and later killed the heir to the throne who was sent back by Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty. While the original King of Vietnam was enthroned by the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty believed that the new King of Vietnam was committing treason and treason, so they sent troops to attack Vietnam.

After the Ming army pacified the new usurper king of Vietnam, because the original king's family had been killed by the usurper, no one could be made king, so they simply assigned Vietnam to the Ming territory.

But because the Ming officials who governed Vietnam did not do a good job of managing the country, and were so ruthless that they lost the hearts and minds of the people, the Vietnamese people rose up in revolt, and the Ming government was forced to withdraw from Vietnam during the Xuande era because they could not get a foothold in the political arena, and there was no hope of winning the war militarily.

There is no need to be upset about the loss of Vietnam. Vietnam has been independent since the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and by the beginning of the Ming Dynasty had been self-reliant for hundreds of years, and no longer had any centripetal force towards the Chinese dynasty. Coupled with the failure of the Ming government to administer the country, it made sense to lose Vietnam. The Ming Dynasty's war against Vietnam was not without its benefits, at least it preserved the Ming Dynasty's suzerainty over Vietnam. The new ruler of Vietnam, who defeated the Ming Dynasty, immediately paid tribute to the Ming Dynasty in order to accept the Ming Emperor's enthronement as a warrant for his legal rule over Vietnam.