The fleet traded for ivory, spices, ointments, exotic woods, giraffes, zebras, and ostriches;
In this time, China seemed to constantly want more. More people, more trade, and more land and cities.
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During his three-decade reign, China’s population recovered from plague and famine, and grew from 60 to 100 million.
With the population almost doubling during his reign, I wonder if it would have happened regardless of if Hongwu was Emperor or not during that time.
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Female infanticide has been a problem throughout Chinese history, as was, until the last century, the practice of foot-binding, which rendered generations of Chinese women crippled and semi-mobile for the sake of what amounted to a fetish of Chinese fashion.
The practices of infanticide and foot-binding are interesting because they directly go against the virtue of gentleness that Confucian wanted.
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But the exams were also democratic in a way: even a scholar from a poor family could take the exam if he could educate himself;
With a generally fair way to take the tests, it probably left room for more people to want to be in positions of power.
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Confucian ideas about conduct focus on five basic virtues: seriousness, generosity, sincerity, diligence, and kindness.
These five virtues are interesting to me because, though they aren't from the same religion, they are somewhat similar to the Fruits of the Spirit in the Bible. Which are: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
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iron, copper, and porcelain production as well as a variety of technological inventions including the compass, gunpowder, paper-making, mechanical clocks, and moveable type printing.
There is no doubt that China was extremely advanced and successful due to their abundance of goods. This is still somewhat true today given that a lot of the products used worldwide are made in China.
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- Aug 2025
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Religious conversion often accompanied Arab merchant activity.
This is interesting because it would also affect trade of crops.
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The three other staple crops of the modern world (corn, potatoes, and cassava) were developed between 9,000 and 7,000 years ago by natives of the Americas, as we will discuss below
In old ways of farming, it was common to see three plants next to each other. Often called the "3 sister" way of farming, Native Americans did it with different crops as well.
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And some have suggested we may have been thinking about agriculture wrong.
This reminds me of one thing about the agricultural industry that is still true to this day, there is always room for improvement and a possibility of a better way of doing something.
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