In 1433, Zheng He passed away at sea. With a huge royal fleet, and Zheng He's hair, boots and hat onboard, his lieutenant set forth into the setting sun at Liujiawan of Taicang. Emperor Xuande issued an immediate order to put a stop to the voyages, the flags of the great Ming Dynasty completely disappearing from the seas. The Ming prohibition on maritime trade would immediately become even more pervasive.
In order to protect the imperial authority, the country both opened, and closed its doors to the outside world.
After extensive research, it has been concluded that Zheng He's voyages would have reached the Americas 87 years earlier than Columbus, and would have circled the Cape of Good Hope 93 years earlier than Vasco da Gama. And so, if proven, an entire nation's pride will be heard once again throughout the lands. But from an objective point of view, the significance of Zheng He or Columbus discovering the new world, and Vasco da Gama's opening of the Far East trade route is simply not of the same class.
Columbus went in search of the New World with a business objective. Before his trip began, he signed a famous agreement with the King of Spain, promising a share in any fortune his discovery may lead to. He would receive the title of commander and governor, as well as one-tenth of any profit made. His partnership with the King of Spain was one protected by law, a completely foreign concept to the Eastern notion of "masters and slaves." This sort of contract would become a defining feature of the industrial revolution.
In 1497, Vasco da Gama circumnavigated the Cape of Good Hope, through his east-bound journey into the Indian Ocean opening up the trade route from Europe to the Far East. The Portuguese were the first European traders to take this route through India, Malacca, and eventually China and Japan. Along with merchants, missionaries also utilized this route in order to propagate their ideologies. This was the beginning of an unprecedented era in the history of humankind…
American scholar and author of The History of Civilization Ralph Burns once stated: "Overseas exploration voyages were an essential precursor to and stimulus for the industrial revolution…The consequences of colonial establishment would be impossible to estimate. For starters, the barren, confined Mediterranean would become a global enterprise."
CHINA's MIGRANT history is fundamentally different from the West. China has no history of colonization for exploiting natural resources. "Gold rush" migrations were also a rare occurrence throughout history. Most large scale migration of Chinese has been driven by famine or war. Chinese migrants were either victims of natural disaster, or refugees. These are the victims of history, and sometimes, they would become unexpected rewriters of it.
From the end of the Song Dynasty to the early Ming Dynasty, central China would be the victim of war after war and countless military disasters in a time of outside invasion. This led to the decline of central China's civilization and economy, as well as a wave of migration to Guangdong. Migrants spread, redrawing the map of Chinese civilization that is slowly shifting toward the South. The intersection of indigenous, Western and South-east Asian cultures would give birth to a diverse new central Chinese culture. Without this, there would have been no "journey to the north" of ideology, culture, government or military only a few hundred years later.
Xiangshan is blessed with a location on the estuary of the Pearl River, its fertile lands known by locals as sha (sand) or shatian (tidal field) of Xiangshan. These vast barren area became thriving migrant inland settlements. The mass of southbound migration had a profound impact on the culture, economy and social demographics of Xiangshan.
Historically, Zhongshan, Zhuhai and Macao were all parts of Xiangshan. As a migrant settlement, Xiangshan developed its own distinct and unique culture. Starting from 1152, the seed of Xiangshan culture was planted in the Song, developed in the Ming and Qing, and matured in recent times. Its own identity was defined by a concentration of Cantonese, Fujian and Hakka cultures.
Ancient Xiangshan County was established in the Song Dynasty, and had its first crucial developmental steps in the same period. After the first emperor of Song Dynasty Zhao Kuangyin's rise to the throne in 960, in addition to a focus on increasing productivity, he also ordered the return of empty land reclaimed since the Tang Dynasty from 618 and its following five dynasties to the farming population. Soon after, he further added that reclaimed land would become property of farmers who developed it, and only tax would be solicited, not rent. These two reforms set the foundation for Xiangshan's development, not only fostering a productive agricultural industry, but also the excavation of minerals and precious metals.
On the 13th day of the first lunar month of 1279, Song's Deputy Prime Minister Wen Tianxiang was sent to Xiangshan by the Yuan army, and forced by the Yuan army's commander-in-chief Zhang Hongfan to write a letter to persuade the Ming military commander Zhang Shijie to surrender. Wen Tianxiang immortalized this in his poetic response:
Waves of destruction,
Terror surrounds.
Rivers and plains vanish with the wind,
Our livelihoods wrenched with raindrops of terror.
The coasts scream fear,
The oceans sigh.
We are born to die,
But not in vain.