Essay about Ming Dynasty and Chinese Luxury Goods

Submitted By brianalashastanley
Words: 319
Pages: 2

Europeans began to explore the East because of greater wealth, spread of Christianity, and technology. In the 1400’s Europeans had developed a taste for Chinese luxury goods. The Europeans liked the products but they hated having to pay the Muslim and Italian merchants. Their goal was to find a cheaper way to get Chinese luxury goods. Portuguese were the first to move East. Portuguese dominated the East. They were able to take control of more territory along the trade routes in Africa. They used their ships to take control of the Middle East. They controlled traffic thru the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea. In the end they wounded up in the East Indies and controlled the Spice Islands trade.
The Asians started limiting European contact. Once the Ming Dynasty came into play they went back to the traditional Han tradition which was the Confucius Ideas. They learned that bringing in different cultures was dangerous. Yonglo wanted to limit the impact of European cultures. Ming government started focusing on farming rather than trade. They had low tax on farming and high tax on manufactured items. Ming government allowed Christian missionaries from Europe to come to China because they were interested in European technology. From this they were introduced to Astronomy and Fundamental Math. Christianity did not have a major impact on China.
Impact of Europeans was all of the spices coming back to Europe were dropped by 1/5 og the original cost. It was dropped because it