How Did Confucianism Lead To The Decline Of The Ming Dynasty

Confucianism has been a part of Chinese culture for over a thousand years. Many who have studied Confucianism would say that it is not a religion. It is better described as a philosophy or moral code. The philosophy of Confucianism comes mainly from the speeches and writings of Confucius, a great Chinese thinker and educator. He believed that Humanity, Rite, Neutrality, Virtue, Education, and Cultivation were the basis of human behavior. In addition, Confucius felt that this philosophy was the best way for people to behave and interact with others in society.

During the 1300’s each empire during this time had a religion that was significant to their state and impacted them, this includes the Ottomans and the Ming. During the time period of the Ming dynasty, they based their states’ religion of Neo-Confucianism or “new-Confucianism”. Neo-Confucianism incorporates aspects of Buddhism and Taoism into tradition Confucian beliefs. Their religion had a significant impact on their State. After the Mongols conquered and ruled China, as a result China disunited. One of the main reasons the Ming Dynasty lasted long as an empire, was for the reason the restored and recenter China after the destruction of the Mongols. And their religion benefited them, for it helped unite china. Having one common religion upon an empire, would eventually cause the areas within the empire to unite. In addition the religion of the Ottoman Empire had a similar impact on its society. The ottomans were a Muslim based empire, but unlike other empires they didn’t force people within their empire to convert

The Ming Dynasty ruled China from 1368 to 1644 (Morris). The Ming Dynasty was established by King Zhu Yuanshang, who named the dynasty not after Nohis family but the word ming which can mean “bright” or “luminous” (“The Chinese Ming”). It had a population around eighty-five million making it the largest civilization on Earth. As Professor Clunas points out in the exhibition’s exemplary catalog, everything about it was on a grand scale: “It had a greater land area, bigger cities (and more big cities), bigger armies, bigger ships, bigger palaces, bigger bells, more literate people, more religious professionals.” (Morris). Not only was the Ming Dynasty bigger, it brought many major advances in art, technology, and philosophy during its time.

The Qing empire ruled China with Confucianism as the main imperial system used until the very end. However, the beginning of Qing downfall result of the exam system became corrupted and filled with bribery. Instead of the fair examination on the knowledge of Confucianism, the wealthy use their power to get their ways, result in not the most qualified politicians. Additionally, it shows the lack of Confucius value in the Qing system. On the other hand, bureaucracy meant to improve the lives of the wealthy not the poor. Also, the money was given to the people with power and wealth, not to infrastructure.

Confucianism had a positive impact on China because it increased social stability. Confucianism is a philosophy which focused on everyday problems and the relationships between people. It’s main goal was to restore peace, harmony and social order. Confucius is the creator of Confucianism believed that societies like China had lost touch traditions and morals so he made the concept “filial piety” which stressed “respect for ones parents, elders, and ancestors… bring a good name to ones parents and ancestors… he believed that if everyone respected, their family, was obedient, and worked hard to bring honor to their families name”. (Document 1).

Culture effected government in China from 500 BCE to 500 CE because the balance of belief systems employed in the different dynasties brought stability. The Qin Dynasty was most strongly influenced by Legalism, which believed in using force to create stability. The Han dynasty adopted Confucianism, which adopted the belief of fulfilling your role in order to create stability. Despite the fact that Confucianism and Legalism affected government in the Han and Qin dynasties, Daoism did not influence government and instead believed in natural order being the governing force. They felt that this would create balance between the government and their culture.

IN the Qin dynasty, Shi Huangdi created a centralized government since the rulers before, the Zhou dynasty, had been rebelled against because their government structure was a mess. For example, the Zhou did not have a good connection with their outer cities and the Zhou government leaders did not know what was going on in their society. Shi Huangdi created provinces, which was divided into counties, and there were heads of the provinces who reported to the emperor about what was going on within their province. In the counties there was a head too. The head of the county reported to the head of the province.

In politics, the Han Dynasty used Confucianism to guide their legal system. The Han created a bureaucracy, which was filled with the middle class that were the government officials. The majority of China, during this time, was Confucian. The Han overthrew the Qin, and the Romans overthrew the Etruscans.

The Qing and Ming dynasty ruled for extremely long and both were prosperous. The Qing lasted for over two hundred years while the Ming lasted for about 300 years. This is an extreme amount of time for these empires to thrive in ancient China. The Ming dynasty made China a great superpower through trade. Becoming an extreme trading place, it began to influence other parts of Asia, majorly in the west.

The religion of Confucianism begins, of course, with Confucius whose Chinese name was Kong Qui and who lived from 551 B.C. to 479 B.C. Surprisingly Confucius was merely a low level government worker. He did not exactly view himself as the founder of a school of thought. Regardless, Confucianism is the most influential belief system in Chinese culture. It provides the rules which govern the social behavior of the individual. The basic teachings of Confucius are grounded in the Five Constant Virtues: humanity, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faithfulness. Confucius went on to define five basic human relations and

The Chinese Empire became large and it punctually controlled most of Asia. One of the dynasties that ruled the empire was the Ming Dynasty. Ruling from 1368 to 1644, the Ming Dynasty ruled for almost three hundred years and it impacted much of Chinese history. The purpose of this paper is to tell the history of the Ming Dynasty’s impact on the Chinese Empire and to explain how this dynasty helped build the empire.

In china there has been no central rule in China for 70 years until the Song Dynasty created in 960. Things started to change in China, for example, the government started to aid the poor a lot more than what they have in the past. They were getting this money from the newly introduced income tax. This made a lot of people happy and everyone started to have more patriotism and pride. This pride gave the government a feel of legitimacy. Some of the major things the government is paying for is the roads, food, and education. Pottery at this time helps out the economy in China, because the pottery is so advanced that it was being exported for good money and it also led more people to come to China. Even though China was number one in the world for many things like technology and a sophisticated culture they were weak military wise (Holcombe p.127).

Confucianism while often seen as a religion to our western culture, according to current Chinese government it is not considered a religion, it is more of an ethical, philosophical way of life. Kongzi (Confucius) did not refer to himself as a “creator” of Confucianism, but rather as a “transmitter”, due to the fact that he did not invent any new ideas but rather put together what many teachings were already advocating at the time, such as Daoism (Prothero 2011).Confucius was primarily concerned with relationships, human relationships, and the rules that come with them (Ivanhoe 2000). That is what made him a great philosopher that he is today, almost 2000 years later, while many things have changed, humans still flourish while with other humans,

The Chinese Empire was large and controlled most of Asia at one point in time. One of the dynasties that ruled the empire was the Ming Family. Ruling from 1368-1644, almost three hundred years, the Ming Dynasty impacted Chinese history very much.

Confucianism was orchestrated and created by Master Kong who was later named Confucius by missionaries from Jesuit when visiting China. Nevertheless, the basic principles of Confucianism preceded his birth during the Zhan Empire. During that time, the concepts of respect and the considerations for others flourished but there was as well emphasis given to spiritual concerns- specifically, the divine’s goodness and supremacy. Such concepts focused on uniting the people, establishing stability and monitoring rebellion against existing authorities.