HIS280Y1 Chapter Notes - Chapter week 2: Foot Binding, Silversmith, Taoism
Document Summary
Lecture 1: the yuan empire (1279-1368) & its decline. How to reconcile the chinesey systems that preserve central authority without (cid:272)o(cid:373)p(cid:396)o(cid:373)isi(cid:374)g the mo(cid:374)gol(cid:859)s steppe (cid:272)ultu(cid:396)e? (cid:895) Conquests were expensive and often compromised by the weather (remember, the kamikaze winds that saved japan: runaway inflation, caused by printing too much paper money. The mongols originally adopted paper currency to facilitate long-distance trade (consider: money needed to be light when traveling): plague. 70-80% of central chinese population either died from the plague or fled from it. Losing population in an agricultural-dependent economy is especially concerning, because losing labour workers = losing profit. Formed in north china during the late yuan, along with a bunch of yuan loyalist groups. They had different factions, but had a common buddhist belief system and were anti-mongol. Gave their factions self-consciously anti-mo(cid:374)gol (cid:374)a(cid:373)es, like (cid:858)ha(cid:374)(cid:859) ___________________________________________: ming dynasty: empire of great brightness. First native chinese to be an emperor in almost 250 years.
