Pros And Cons Of Confucianism

Zheng He sailed the oceans for the Chinese Empire during the early fifteenth century. (Zheng) He took seven voyages during his tenure, as admiral of the Chinese naval power. Suddenly, in the year of 1433, all expeditions came to a halt and the ships were burnt until they no longer existed along with most documentation of these voyages. Although some historians, like Needham, argue that the new outbreak of Confucianism among the common people changed the thought process of the Chinese and their opinion of these voyages, and other historians, like Li Ung Bing, argue that the threats of the Mongols led to the stoppage of the voyages, my paper will argue that China stopped these voyages and burnt their whole maritime fleet, in order to focus on
being internally dependent on themselves rather than other countries and to have the ability support their growing population. In order to make my argument clear, I use the views of Pomeranz and others.
In the fifteenth century, China was the greatest naval/maritime power in the entire world. Zheng He, an admiral of the Chinese naval forces, would lead fleets that reached 3,500 ships, 1,700 warships, and 400 armed transports. In comparison to the Chinese, the Spanish Armada that tried to conquer England in 1588 had approximately 130 ships (Exchanges, 22). Although the fleets were so much larger than any other in the world, they very seldom did they attacked or colonized. In lieu of not colonizing, they enjoyed a large amount of economic benefits from these excursions. China was the largest force in the Indian Ocean, but after the ships were destroyed, there was little to no presence. China could have dominated the oceans and explored more of the western world before anybody else. Although this could have happened, the fourth Ming Emperor ordered the ships to be burned and all voyages to end. The historical evidence presented above would all point to the continuation of Chinese exploration, but instead, they stopped abruptly and burnt their entire fleet.
Kenneth Pomeranz, a 19th and 20th century historian, wrote a book titled “The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy.” In his work, he argues that China and Europe had the same needs, but China took an approach where they chose to become self-sufficient while Europe became dependent on their colonies. Since we are discussing why China destroyed their whole naval fleet, we will focus on the path that China took. Pomeranz brings in the opinion of Sugihara because he discussed the Chinese path most efficiently by saying that China “(Started) Supporting people, creating skills and, so on” (Exchanges, 27). The skills they created were for jobs such as farming and other agricultural activities. Pomeranz says this best when he says that “East Asia (was) on a labor-intensive path” (Exchanges, 28). There were many reasons for the labor-intensive path, but the major reason is the large population growth happening in China, and how the land was in poor condition. Pomeranz argues that China did not have the means, both financially and economically, to trade for the goods to support the population, and so they went on a labor-intensive path. On this path, they produced their own food and goods to satisfy their own people. This argument is essential to the argument about the voyages because the major point is that China was going to be sending out mass amounts of men on voyages, to build relations and trade with other countries, while the Chinese commoners were struggling to survive. They made chose this path, and took all of the men from the voyages, and used their skills and labor to build a self-sufficient China. While this argument is persuasive, many other arguments have been proposed about why the Chinese destroyed their ships and stopped their voyages.
Li Ung Bing is a historian with a view that differs from Pomeranz's. Bing argues that the voyages stopped because the threat of the Mongols. Most of the voyages took place under the third Ming emperor, who was successful in conquests and battles against the Mongols. Since the third emperor was successful in these battles, the fourth emperor ordered the ships to be destroyed because he may have thought that Mongol retaliation was coming soon. The retaliation was well supported because “the imperial army was attacked by the Mongols; and, being taken by surprise, the Chinese were easily routed with great slaughter” (Exchanges, 26). Although the Mongol threat was a large threat, China did not internalize because of a threat. Since China was getting beaten badly in wars and the Mongol threat was still a serious one, China needed to look internally and keep as many people readily available to withstand attacks by the Mongols.
Sun Laichen wrote an article discussing the military growth of China and other Asian countries. He points out many things, but one thing he says jumps off the page. He says that “by 1450, 50 per cent of some military units on the northern frontier (of China) were equipped with the cannon, and by 1466 one-third of Ming troops may have been carrying firearms” (Sun Laichen, 498). China began spending more money on innovation, and its people were in the motherland more often, so they had the ability to innovate. The fourth emperor was most interested in stopping the Mongol threat because his successors were successful doing so, but he was not. Since most emperors were capable of fighting the Mongol threat and using their nautical abilities to explore, the fourth emperor was going to look like he was incompetent and unable to help China succeed. He ordered the ships to be destroyed, and spent the money that was previously spent on the expeditions on internally building a military force to stop this threat. As the quote above demonstrates, the money and time China spent on innovating and producing weapons was very substantial and caused major improvements. All of this innovation and these improvement would have been impossible without China becoming internally self-sufficient. So, the reason for the destruction of the ships and voyages was not to combat the Mongol threat, but to help build up the status of the fourth Ming Emperor.
Confucianism was starting to spread rapidly through China during the 15th century, when the ships were burned and destroyed.
Even to this day, Confucianism is the “substance of learning, the source of values, and social code of China” (Confucianism). Many people believe it is a religion but it does not fit the description because it is not organized, but it has had a strong “influence of Chinese literate culture and has exerted a profound influence on spiritual and political life” (Confucianism). Some historians, especially Needham, argue that Confucianism took off in China and that people started living according to what Confucianism said they should live like. The major core of Confucianism is humanistic, which makes the quote aforementioned even more powerful, and compels his argument. In a document that references his opinion, it says “voyages were terminated because compassionate Confucians wanted the money spent on the ships to go instead to water conservation and grain projects” (Finlay, 297). This quote demonstrates that the people who were benefiting from the voyages consisted of the government officials and maybe another small group, undisclosed to the public. The Chinese government may have been arguing internally with these people, which may have changed their focus away from the voyages. In essence, that is what Needham is arguing. Many historians argue that China chose not to continue exploration because of “Cultural deficiencies and shortcomings”. Every person in the world wants their government to spend less money on some things, and more on other things, but that seldom
happens.
Pomeranz would combat this argument and say that China was suffering from “in timber supply, soil depletion and other crucial ecologic measures” (Exchanges, 27). Since China was destroying its timber supply to build the ships, they had to stop building them. Pomeranz would point out that the large population growth in China and say that they had to do something, in order to service the population. They switched to a labor-intensive country, which solved their soil depletion, increased their timber supply, and other problems. The costs of these projects never mattered because China was bringing in revenue from the voyages, but these projects were able to be completed because the people, who normally were at sea, could focus their energy on helping complete the internal projects. The number of men on these voyages ranged from 27,000 to 37,000 men, which is a sizable amount that could help these projects be done much faster (Exchanges, 24). These projects were done relatively cheap because China was internally fixing the problems they created. Internally solving problems is always much easier to do then outsources and suffering economically.
Some historians would argue that economically, the voyages did not make sense to continue. William S. Atwell has some of his works published in “the Journal of Asian Studies”. He discusses the voyages and how he believes China only did it to prove its greatness in the world. He makes the point that “the maritime expeditions and some of the other ‘diplomatic activities’ mentioned above must have been extraordinarily expensive” (ATWELL, 92). The argument that Atwell is presenting is that the voyages stopped because they became too expensive for the Chinese to finance. He makes his argument stronger by saying that, “(China had) an imperial desire to demonstrate its greatness to the world, may well have been willing and able to sustain such losses, at least during the prosperous years of the fifteenth century” (ATWELL, 92). The major argument is that, during the beginning years of these expeditions, the Chinese were able to afford it, but once they built such relationships, the costs outweighed the benefits. But, Atwell argues that the costs were so high for these voyages that they had to stop.
As we know, China turned to an internal approach, as opposed to outsourcing and depending on other countries to be economically successful. Although people may have believed that these voyages were unprofitable and that trade did not happen, “trade from Chinese ports never ceased, but was illegal and not publicized” (Wills, 199). This quote by Wills shows that the Chinese were profiting from the trade that they were doing. If something is not broke, fixing it is not necessary. They did not want to stop it, but once they made a move to become internal, they could not document the trading that they did. This evidence is essential because it shows that China was doing well economically from these voyages, and so, a partial amount of these voyages were being covered by the trading revenue. The people of China wanted to use these ships to transport goods produced from one side to the other, through the Grand Canal. China made the decision to become internally sufficient because the Grand Canal was an expensive project, so before having to do this, the voyages were stopped and the ships were burned. If China became internal, they would innovate and come up with a new way for the grain and other goods to be transported, besides them spending large amounts of money on a canal and the transportation.
The government did not want to deal with the costs of the implementation of the Grand Canal, which refers to the economics of the country, but something must have happened inside the government to make this decision happen. The government sent these missions and voyages out yet “some of these same advisers saw Zheng He, a Muslim Eunuch, as inadequate to represent the empire’s interests” (Carter and Warren, 11). If some advisors of the government did not agree on a person to represent their country, it could send them spiraling into turmoil. This fact, or opinion demonstrated by Carter and Warren, points to the fact that this was possible. If a government is in dispute of something this large, the representation of their country, it could potentially lead to the downfall of the voyages, and the turn to becoming an internal country. On the contrary to this, they may have looked at the representation of China that Zheng He provided for them, and realized that he represented China in the best way possible. Since Zheng He died in 1433 and the ships were burnt to a crisp in the same year, this explanation fits. There is no way to provide evidence that the government wanted these expeditions to continue or end because they destroyed most of the files about the voyages.