Whew! This author is tired Orz~ Having written to this point, Great Ming's part will temporarily come to an end. These past few days, this author seriously looked up a great many primary sources from the Ming era, striving to restore the national policy and current state of Great Ming's maritime ban in this age, as well as the logic behind it. I really put my heart into it.
1494 was the seventh year of Hongzhi, right in the phase of the "Hongzhi Restoration." Great Ming's scholar-officials had already overpowered the eunuchs and the military-officer class, truly taking control of the enormous state. The starting point of the maritime-ban policy was actually very practical: to maintain the stability of the country. And the actual state of the maritime ban in this era was just like that classic line in the book-friend comments: "strict legislation, universal violation, selective enforcement"...
As a great nation of hundreds of millions, Great Ming had already expanded to the limit under its current system. "Agrarian thought," "emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce," and ensuring agricultural production were Great Ming's most important foundations for establishing the state. In this era, the "money and grain produced under Heaven" truly "had its own fixed number." The drawbacks of maritime trade for the nation's agricultural production were repeatedly discussed many times in the memorials of famous officials throughout the Ming dynasty; they absolutely did not come from an empty cave without wind.
And Great Ming's north-south imbalance was already very prominent at this time. In order to maintain the food supply of the Nine Garrisons and the imperial capital, grain had to be transported continuously from the south, especially Jiangnan. This was also why the grain transport system was so critical: it was the state's true lifeblood. Great Ming's political framework