Upon leading a victorious rebellion against the
foreign Mongul
rulers of the Yuan Dynasty, a peasant named Zhu
Yuanzhang
seized control of China and founded the Ming
Dynasty in 1368.
As emperor, he founded his capital at Nanjing and
adopted the
name Hongwu as his reign title. Hongwu, literally
meaning “vast
military,” reflects the increased prestige of the army
during the
Ming Dynasty. Due to the very realistic threat still
posed by the
Mongols, Hongwu realized that a strong military was
essential
to Chinese prosperity. Thus, the orthodox Confucian
view that
the military was an inferior class to be ruled over by
an elite
class of scholars was reconsidered. During the Ming
Dynasty,
China proper was reunited after centuries of foreign
incursion
and occupation. Ming troops controlled Manchuria,
and the
Korean Joseon Dynasty respected the authority of
the Ming
rulers, at least nominally.
Like the founders of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.- 220
A.D.),
Hongwu was extremely suspicious of the educated
courtiers
that advised him and, fearful that they might
attempt to
overthrow him, he successfully consolidated control
of all
aspect of government. The strict authoritarian
control Hongwu
wielded over the affairs of the country was due in
part to the
centralized system of government he inherited from
the
Monguls and largely kept intact. However, Hongwu
replaced the
Mongul bureaucrats who had ruled the country for
nearly a
century with native Chinese administrators. He also
reinstituted
the Confucian examination system that tested
would-be civic
officials on their knowledge of literature and
philosophy. Unlike
the Song Dynasty (960-1279 A.D.), which received
most of its
taxes from mercantile commerce, the Ming economy
was based
primarily on agriculture, reflecting both the peasant
roots of its
founder as well as the Confucian belief that trade
was ignoble
and parasitic.
Culturally, the greatest innovation of the Ming
Dynasty was the
introduction of the novel. Developed from the folk
tales of
traditional storytellers, these works were transcribed
in the
everyday vernacular language of the people.
Advances in
printmaking and the increasing population of urban
dwellers
largely contributed to the success of these books.
Architecturally, the most famous monument of the
Ming
Dynasty is surely the complex of temples and
palaces known as
the Forbidden City that was constructed in Beijing
after the
third ruler of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Yongle,
moved the
capital there. Today, the Forbidded Palace remains
one of the
hallmarks of traditional Chinese architecture and is
one of the
most popular tourist destinations in the vast nation.
Pillows in Ancient China were originally made of
stone. Over
time, other materials began to be employed,
including wood,
bronze, and terracotta, which eventually became the
most
popular. Porcelain pillows first appeared in the Sui
Dynasty and
began to be mass-produced in the Tang Dynasty,
reaching
their height of popularity in the following centuries
that
coincided with the Song, Jin, and Yuan Dynasties.
Both the
form and the decorative elements varied greatly
depending on
the time period and regional styles. Thus, we find a
wide range
from simple functional geometric shapes to
elaborately
modeled forms imitating animals, architecture, and
other
natural forms. Decorative motifs included patterns
based on
plants and animal hides, water and mountains, and
calligraphic
characters. Generally, the sophistication of
porcelain pillows
evolved in tow with the overall technical
development of the
porcelain industry in China. While glazed terracotta
pillows
would have been used by the living, they were also
buried in
tombs alongside other everyday items that belonged
to the
deceased.
