Military conquests of the Ming dynasty

The military conquests of the Ming dynasty were instrumental to the dynasty's hold on power during the early Ming.

Early in his reign, Zhu Yuanzhang, the first Ming emperor, laid down instructions to later generations that included advice to the Chief Military Commission on those countries that posed a threat to the Ming polity, and those that did not. He stated that those to the north were dangerous, while those to the south did not constitute a threat, and were not to be subject to attack. Yet, either despite this, or as a result of it, it was the polities to the south that suffered the greatest effects of Ming expansion over the following century.

In 1369, not long after Zhu Yuanzhang founded his new dynasty, he sent proclamations for the instruction of the countries of Yunnan and Japan. This early recognition of Yunnan (which lay beyond the Ming) as a "country" was to change very soon thereafter. By 1380, Yunnan, which was still held by a Mongol prince, was considered to belong to China since the Han dynasty, and 250,000 troops were deployed in an attack on the polity, taking Dali, Lijiang and Jinchi in 1382. As a result, the Ming founder took control of the major urban centres of the north-western part of what is today Yunnan, including several Tai areas.

By 1387, Ming Taizu had set his sights further and prepared for an attack on the Baiyi (Möng Mao) polity to the south. Under the commander Mu Ying, the Ming forces attacked the Baiyi with firearms, taking a claimed 30,000 heads. Si Lunfa was subsequently dunned for all the costs of the military expedition against him, as a quid pro quo for recognising him as ruler of the Baiyi.

The new polities "created" (or recognised) in Yunnan under the first Ming ruler were known to the Ming as "native offices" (tu si), since initially they were usually left under the control of the hereditary rulers, by which the Ming exerted control, and engaged in economic expropriation through tribute demands and other levies. Che-li (Jinghong), for example, was established as a "native office" in 1377. Here, then, was the beginnings of the process by which formerly Southeast Asian polities were gradually absorbed into the Chinese polity.

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