Mongols to Ming

“Grain transports and merchant ships gathered like clouds….Merchants from foreign lands brought gifts of rare objects, rhinoceros horns and peacock feathers to fill up the warehouses.”

- Ta Yuan Haiyun Ji (Records of Maritime Transportation
of the Great Yuan), circa AD 1294

China’s merchant fleet continued to expand and trade far and wide, taking control of the spice trade and ranging into the Indian Ocean. But while overseas trade to Southeast Asia grew, China’s coastal trade declined. The Japanese, eager to avenge the Mongol invasions of 1274 and 1281, ravaged the coast with pirate raids. The Mongols responded by pulling much of China’s internal trade off the coastal routes and back into the interior canal system, and they built fleets of patrol boats to police the canals and rivers.

The buildup of the internal waterways and an inland navy was a sign of weakness in the Yuan Dynasty. The Mongol rulers of China and their dynasty were overturned, beginning in 1351, by rebellions that spread through the country. By 1359, the war for control of China centred on the Yangtze and a struggle between the states of Han and Ming. Ming controlled the lower Yangtze, but the middle part of the river remained under Han control. The matter was decided in climactic battle, on Lake Po-yang, on the Middle Yangtze, in 1363. The Han ruler, Ch’en-liang, built a fleet of large, three-decked warships, armoured with iron plates, armed with heavy cannon and manned by crews as large as 2,000 to 3,000 men. The Ming leader, Chu, met the fleet with a mixed force. Some of the Ming ships were large, but most were smaller vessels and no match for the giant Han warships. But Chu successfully used fire and his small ships’ superior maneuverability to defeat the larger vessels.

Using the victory at Lake Po-Yang as a springboard, Chu pushed into northern China, seizing the remaining states and pushing out the Mongols. Incorporating the remaining Han ships into his fleet, Chu swept into the South China Sea and conquered the coastal ports. Chu’s Ming Dynasty completed its seizure of control in China from 1363 to 1382. Amazingly, the country emerged from these wars both prosperous and powerful. The new Ming rulers did not forsake naval power, and under Chu’s 30-year reign, as well as his successors, a large navy was built to control not only the interior and the coast, but to range far overseas.