Ming China's Yongle Emperor sent maritime expeditions under Admiral Zheng He to establish imperial control over the maritime trade, to bring the maritime trade into the tributary system and to force foreign countries to comply with the tributary system. But the expeditions were stopped to divert their funds to the mounting conflicts with the Mongols. What if they weren't stopped and Ming conquered the Indian Ocean ? POD is that instead of looking down on trade Hongwu Emperor establishes a state monopoly on all external trade in ports and border cities. He opts for a professional standing army partly funded by this trade monopoly instead of Militia based Guard battalion system. An expeditionary fleet solely funded by this trade is established monopoly. This fleet divides and vassalizes the Majapahit Empire in East Indies by intervening Regreg War. Subsequently Sri Lanka, Gujarat, Oman, Yemen, Ethiopia and Zanzibar are also vassalized. This gives China control over most of Indian Ocean trade.
Ming conquer Indian Ocean
- Thread starter Ohfshkssgb
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Derek Pullem
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First answer is that they wouldn't gain control of the Indian Ocean trade as they would probably be deposed by the "Mongols" / Jurchen earlier than OTL if they didn't strengthen the army and rebuild the wall defences.
Second answer is that actually fighting a war is forbidden by the "constitution" of the Ming in order to protect their tributes from a range of SE Asian states. This was one of the reasons given for stopping Zeng He voyages in the first place.
But the first answer is the strongest - can't maintain control of the sea if you capital is in flames.
I can't see a tributary system exploitative enough to be successful in raising that much funds. Maybe it would work for a short period of time, but eventually the Southeast Asian/Indian states will get wise to it and crush the Ming. In this era, there's not enough differential between powers so they couldn't pull off any major victories over the fleets or land armies they face. And even Portugal didn't just go around beating people up or extracting tribute--actually doing battle was not their intention, hence their victories at sea didn't cause further conflict against them. And Portugal had better ships than the Ming too.
It would be interesting since it could mean another north-south divide in China, although probably too late for Northern Yuan to survive as a proper Chinese dynasty and return to Khanbaliq.
The answer is, the Hongwu Emperor did establish a state monopoly on all external trade and outlawed all private external trade. By doing this, the dumb arse ended up causing these elite to engage in smuggling and piracy instead. The officials, gentry and merchants all ended up agreeing overtime that they prospered far more from smuggling than any formal regularisation of private trade(since no one had to pay any taxes). This ended up undermining the state monopoly and destroyed government control over the coasts. Massive amount of resources had to be devoted to fighting these smuggler/pirates instead . Zheng He’s expeditions ended up harming the interests of all these smugglers, and so it had to be ended.
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I do not exactly see the Ming conquering the countries of the Indian Ocean, but I can see the Ming encouraging private Chinese trade with the countries of the Indian Ocean, which could allow for prosperous Chinese creole communities to form in Southeast Asia and maybe even India, which possibly could set off very interesting butterfly effects.
The Ming actually lost money from tributaries. They gave gifts that were worth more than the value of the tributes given, so they weren't too keen on too many tributaries and reduced the frequency of tribute missions from tributaries like the Joseon. Tributaries were politically autonomous, so this sort of conquest wouldn't fit the tributary system the Ming set up. The system was more symbolic (to increase the prestige of the Ming court) rather than for political domination and conquest.
As for conquering the Indian Ocean, the Ming didn't have the fleet and army to go on such a conquering spree at any point in their existence. Their economy probably wouldn't have done too hot either (they could've just trade for such goods regardless). Military conquest is generally more expensive than just trade, especially if the traders were coming to China regardless (thus removing the cost of a naval presence to get over the sea). And it would've all fallen apart as nomad pressure in the north intensified, as was tradition in Chinese history.
That's just a bit OTL SE Asia projected a bit further (not to mention the Chinese individuals who did end up in the Indian Ocean, only for their descendants to assimilate into the local cultures). The overseas Chinese communities might be co-opted as local governors like in SE Asia, but those communities didn't affect Chinese history all that much and their roles could be substituted for other wealthy minority groups.
For money they can tax trade going in and out of Red Sea, Southeastern Africa, India and the East Indies. That will be enough rule the Indian Ocean and defend against the Mongols
They couldn't even tax all the trade in their own country thanks to corruption. How could they possibly maintain what amounts to occupying every single port, let alone ensuring every single official is submitting at least a reasonable share of the customs revenue to the central government? If you were a Ming official in Somalia charged with taxing trade, you'd be a very hated person and the only way you'd protect yourself is by allying with the local ruling class, and that means marrying into them and submitting a lot of that tax revenue to them.
Also, trade routes shift. This occurred several times throughout history (i.e. Persia fell into chaos post-Ilkhanate and the Persian gulf was full of pirates, so trade shifted to the Red Sea-Indies route). Tax it too much, merchants would rather travel overland using the Silk Road or perhaps the Northern Silk Road. Or perhaps trade would shift even further south in the Indian Ocean beyond the reach of Chinese vessels--that's actually a cool POD to imagine medieval Swahili and Arab ships using the Brouwer Route.
Could this lead to China being more willing to adopt European technology and science if the Ming encourage Chinese creole communities to form in South East Asia and maybe even India (most likely the Dravidian peoples) then it could be that science, technology, ideas and news will spread much faster, leading to China being more willing to adopt technology.
China did adopt European technology but the problem was that it didn't innovate it's economy to adjust to the new technology
There were no creole Chinese communities in Southeast Asia because the Chinese kept assimilating really quick into the local society. There were Chinese enclaves in port cities but that was because their numbers kept getting replenished by new merchants coming from the motherland. To get an actual self-sustaining creole community you'd need to do the same as Europeans and enforce a strict racial hierarchy with privileges accruing according to various definitions of blood quanta. In other words, creole communities aren't things that arise organically but are created and sustained by active political measures so you'll need to do the same if you're wanting that outcome.