为什么明朝的郑和探索亚洲国家的时候没有开展殖民？就像哥伦布在新世界干的那样。 [美国媒体]

Whydidn't China during the Mingdynasty colonize Asia like what Columbus did tothe New World when Zheng He explored the Asiancountries？

为什么明朝的郑和探索亚洲国家的时候没有在亚洲开展殖民？就像哥伦布在新世纪干的那样。




Shijia Wei, lived in China
Updated Apr 9, 2015
China had a tributary system, so allsurrounding states engaging with China had to pay tributes andrecognize Chinese suzerainty.
China was a continental power, it had little to no experience of founding andmanaging overseas territories far away from the mainland. The centralizedbureaucracy was specialized in administrating a cohering land, not a disjoinedone with parts that are spread far from each other.

中国有一个朝贡系统，所以周边所有国家都与中国订了合约的，他们都向中国朝贡来承认中国的宗主国地位。
中国是一个大陆式的强权，它没有探寻和管理海外领土的经验。中央集权的官僚制度擅长于管理一片连贯的土地，而不擅长管理一众互不接壤的土地。

China was a proud (you may also say arrogant) and self-centric civilization,regarding its own territories as vast, rich and abundant and the centre of theworld, so there was little motivation to settle in far away "lesser"territories that were deemed barbaric and uncultivated.
About Zheng He, you may like to readthis:Why could Islam be spread to Indonesian and Malaysian natives but not tothe Chinese living in the same communities?

中国文明是非常傲娇（你也可以称之为傲慢）和以自我为中心的，觉得自己领土广袤、物产丰富、富裕、是世界的中心，所以它没有动机去占领那些遥远的小地方，他们觉得这些地方都是野蛮、未开化的。关于郑和，这篇文章你可能喜欢：Why could Islam be spread to Indonesian and Malaysian natives but not tothe Chinese living in the same communities?

Zheng He's expeditions were notmotivated by territorial expansion. It is believed that Yongle Emperor, whoinitiated the expeditions, was trying to hunt down and kill the exiled JianwenEmperor, whose throne Yongle usurped. Because of this dubious nature of theexpeditions, they were later wiped out from the official records. The voyageswere supported by the eunuch's faction (which Zheng He belonged to), while thescholar-bureaucrats opposed it from the begin, since they regarded it as aviolation of longstanding Confucian traditions and a token of the eunuch'striumph over the bureaucratic administration. After Zheng He died, the eunuch factionfell from power, so you may say the voyages died off along with theiradmiral.  The later Ming emperors stopped the voyages and imposed aprohibition on sea expeditions with the reason that it violated the first Mingemperor's testament:

郑和的远征意图并不是领土扩张。据称是永乐皇帝发起的远征，意在追杀建文帝，其被永乐帝所篡位。由于这次远征的性质比较可疑，后来被官方记录抹除掉了。宦官们支持这次远航（郑和也是宦官），但是士大夫在一开始就反对这次远航，因为他们认为这违反了长期以来的儒家传统，而且视之为宦官胜过官僚行政的象征。郑和死后，宦官失去了权势，所以你可以认为随着郑和上将的死，这次航行也死了。随后明代皇帝停止了远航，然后禁止航海，因为这违反了明代先皇的遗嘱。

Some far-off countries pay their tributeto me at much expense and through great difficulties, all of which are by nomeans my own wish. Messages should be forwarded to them to reduce their tributeso as to avoid high and unnecessary expenses on both sides.

一些遥远的国家克服了巨大困难、花费巨资给我朝贡，这无疑是我不愿意看到的。应该给他们传信，减免朝贡，这样也可以避免双边不必要的高额花费。

Greg Kemnitz, wrote the innards of "the world'ssmallest (SQL-capable) database"
Answered Mar 13, 2015
Ironically, Europe soughtcolonies because it was so hard for Europeans to conquer each other. Unlike the giant land empires of Asia that unified very early in history,Europe's geography made it very hard for single big empires to develop, andwhen they did (like Napoleon's), they lasted only briefly as they were underconstant attack.

讽刺的是，欧洲就试图去殖民，因为欧洲国家相互之间很难征服。不像亚洲那些历史上很早就统一的大型帝国，欧洲的地理环境使得单一的大型帝国很难建立，当大型帝国建立时（比如拿破仑的帝国），它的持续时间非常短，因为总是不断地遭到攻击。

As for Spain, "Hidalgo" is short for "hijo de algo" orliterally "son of somebody" in Spanish, and was used as something ofa pejorative for minor, generally somewhat poor nobles who had to go out andseek their fortune instead of having lands to support them.  The Spanishconquistadors, in particular, were almost all hidalgos.  The hidalgoswere the backbone of the Spanish armies that fought the Muslims during the Reconquista,and were effectively out-of-work by 1492, when the Reconquista was complete and- not coincidentally - Columbussailed the ocean blue.

至于西班牙，“伊达尔戈”，"hijode algo"的简称，西班牙语的字面意思是“某人的儿子”，被用作未成年人的贬义。通常都是某些穷困的贵族不得不自己去寻求自己的命运，而不是拥有土地来支持他们。西班牙征服者，正好大部分都是“伊达尔戈”。这些没落贵族们是西班牙军队在“再征服运动”中与穆斯林战斗的中流砥柱，然后在1492年被弃用了，当“再征服运动”结束后，并不是出于巧合，哥伦布向蓝海起航。

So, if you have a bunch of entrepreneurial, combat-hardened, but out-of-worknobles, what  do they do?  They build ships - or get investors tobuild ships for them  - and go off to seek their fortunes, by trade,conquest, or both.
For the most part, this is how the various "companies" that didbusiness and set up trading networks - and occasionally physical empires - cameabout.  They were very rarely direct acts by governments, but were moretypically "ventures" that may or may not have had royal sanction butnot much in the way of actual royal support until they were initiallysuccessful.

所以，如果你有很强的创业精神、坚强的战斗意志，但是却是没什么事做的贵族，那么你会干些什么？他们造了船---或者找投资者为他们造船---然后出去追寻自己的命途，通过商业、征服，或者两者皆而有之。
在大多数情况下，这就是大量从事商业活动、建立贸易网络、偶然成为天然帝国的“公司”们的起家之道。 他们几乎很少由政府操纵，他们更多的是有典型的“冒险精神”，有些经过皇家授权有些则没有，但实际上由皇家支持并不太多，直到他们开始变得成功。

Oddly, this could be thought of as similar to "outsourcingfailure": let the little independent group succeed or fail, and if itsucceeds, the king jumps in later...)
That said, the never-ending wars fought in Europe required constant cashflow,which ended up requiring overseas colonies and trade networks.

奇怪的是，这可以被认为与“外包失败”类似：让一些独立的小团体成功或者失败，如果成功了，国王就掺和进去分一杯羹。
就是说，欧洲永无休止的战争需要源源不断的现金流，这导致了对海外开展殖民和建立贸易线路的需求。

Joseph Wang, Chief Scientist, Bitquant Research
Answered Feb 28, 2015
Germs.
The main Europeans were able to conquer the new world was that they broughtwith them diseases which the natives had no resistance to.  This causesthe population of the Americasto crash, living an empty continent for the Europeans to colonize.
In Asia and Africa, the natives were immune to the diseases, the populationsdidn't crash, and China kept expanding until it hit an army that was able todefeat it.  In Central Asia, this was theRussians.  Toward the south it was the Burmese.

病菌。
欧洲能征服新世界的原因是他们给原住民带去了疾病，而原住民没有疾病抵抗力。这导致了美洲人口数量崩溃，给欧洲留下了一个空的大陆用来殖民。
在亚洲和非洲，那里的原住民对这些病毒有免疫力，人口不会骤降，中国一直在扩张，直到碰见一支能打败其的军队才停止。在中亚有俄罗斯，往南则有缅甸。

Joseph Boyle
Answered Mar 1, 2015
Settler colonies are expensive and risky with little benefit.Besides expending manpower, they mean your political enemies have a safe placeto plot rebellion. English religious dissidents could found colonies onlybecause the English state was so divided with civil war in the 1600s, andfailed in several later attempts to get them back under control.

殖民是一项昂贵且高风险的活动，获益很少。除了要人力以外，也意味着你的政敌有一个安全的地方与你对抗。英语国家的异见人士能找到殖民地，仅仅是因为英语国家在1600年代的内战导致四分五裂，而且后来几次尝试将其唤回并控制都失败了。

French Protestants founded Fort Caroline which gave its name toCarolina and La France Antarctique at Rio de Janeiro but the Catholic Spanishand Portuguese quickly destroyed the heretic footholds. After Catholic Franceput down its Protestants in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, it strictlylimited the number of colonists to New France ensuring North America would speak English. New Netherlandwas there for beaver not settlement.  

法国新教徒建立了卡罗琳堡，其名字来自里约热内卢的卡罗莱纳州和法属南极。但是天主西班牙和葡萄牙迅速摧毁了异教徒的立足点。天主教法国在圣巴塞洛缪日大屠杀中屠杀了新教徒之后，严格限制了去往新法兰西的殖民者数量，这也致使北美说起了英语。新荷兰在那里则没有定居点。

Japanese pirates, traders, and mercenaries cut a swathe all over Asia but assoon as Japan was unified the new government cut all this off for security. 
China has been unified under land-oriented dynasties ruling fromBeijing for most of the last millenium. The exceptions were the Southern Song,the early Ming, the Taiping Tianguo, and the KuomintangRepublic of China,all founded in the Jiangnan area between Nanjing,Hangzhou, and Shanghai,and the new colony of Taiwanunder Koxinga and the later ROC.
The Mongols hunted down the last Song emperor at Hong Kong (HK's only historic event until 1840) as he tried to keep fleeing south where he might have established a maritime Chinese exile state.

日本的海盗、贸易商和雇佣军在亚洲各地到处劫掠，但是日本统一以后，新政府为了安全起见停止了这一切的活动。
中国在过去一千年的大部分时间里，都是由北京统治的以土地为导向的统一政权。除了南宋和明代初期、太平天国、中华民国，这些都建立在南京、杭州和上海的江南地区，而新殖民地台湾则是由郑成功和后来中华民国的统治。
蒙古在香港击杀了南宋最后一任皇帝（香港1840年前唯一的历史事件），彼时皇帝试图逃亡到南方，在那里他可能可以建立中国海外流亡国家。

The early Ming launched Zheng He's famous voyages before power passed back toBeijing which ended them as a security threat. [Thanks to Shijia Wei'sanswer, even Zheng He may have been searching for an escaped former Chineseruler who was a potential threat.]
When the Ming fell its diehards took to the sea, seizing Dutch Formosa whichlike Spanish Philippines and Dutch Indonesia had many more Chinese settlersthan Europeans. This state lasted for one strong ruler before the Qing took itover.

明代初期在政权移交到北京之前，开展了着名的郑和下西洋活动，政权迁到北京之后此项活动被视为安全威胁（感谢Shijia Wei的答案，甚至是郑和也可能在搜寻一位逃亡的、被视为潜在威胁的前中国统治者（应该指的是建文帝），）
当明朝的顽固分子出海以后，夺取了葡萄牙占领的台湾，就像西班牙占领的菲律宾和荷兰占领的印度尼西亚一样，那里的中国移民比欧洲人还要多。这个国家持续被一个强大统治者统治着，直到清朝将其夺回。

The Ming and Qing also several times ordered all population to move somedistance back from the sea as part of their counterinsurgency against"Japanese" pirates, who like the European colonies actually containedmore Chinese. 
The Taiping Tianguo and Nanjing Decade ROC each lasted only a decade, thencontrol went back to Beijing.
Maritime China and Maritime Japan were able and willing but only Europeansallowed them to settle abroad. Their own governments did their best to preventit.

明代和清代还数次将其民众由海边往内陆迁回了一段距离，为了镇压倭寇。这些倭寇就像欧洲殖民者一样，虽然其实当中更多的是中国人。
太平天国和南京国民政府都只持续了十年，然后政权由北京控制。
中国和日本都有能力和意愿（向外殖民），但是只有欧洲国家允许其人们在海外殖民。他们自己的政府费尽心思阻止了殖民活动。

Andrew Lee, works at Gome Elcetrical ApplianceHolding
Updated Jan 11, 2016
Some people maybe say it was the consequence of the combinedeffect of  the politics,economy and ideology circumstance in that time.
However,as Isee it,the reason is the Ming dynasty can't get any benefits from conqueringother asia country.
First,when in the14-17th century,the Ming dynasty was one of superpower in the world.Theycreated the advanced civil servant system,possessed the powerful firearm andcan design the biggest seagoing vessel,at the same time,chinese earned silverand gold by sold the tea,silk and  porcelains. So they have lots ofwealth, why the need to rob?

有人可能会说，这是那个时候的政治、经济和意识形态综合导致的结果。
然而依我看，是因为明朝征服其他亚洲国家得不到任何利益。
首先，在14-17世纪的时候，明朝是当时世界的一个超级强国。他们创造了一个先进的公务员制度，拥有先进的火器，而且能设计最巨大的海上轮船，与此同时，中国人通过售卖茶叶、丝绸和陶瓷赚钱黄金白银。所以他们拥有大量财富，他们为什么需要去掠夺呢？

Second,the Mingdynasty replaced the seat by defeated the Mongols.Nevertheless,after a seriescrutal war,the Mongols still keep great influence in north of china(even hadhijack a emperor of Ming in 1449).So the most of army and  war resoureswas used in north of china.After the Mongols,another nomadic ethnicrised----Manchus,and they eventually became a overriding military threat andwiped out Ming rulers.
By the way,I deny the ideology can influence politics,any ideology is created to serve politics.I don't think the Confucianism is one of the reason.Any way,no benefit no war.

第二，明朝击败了蒙古人入主中原。不过在几场残酷的战争之后，蒙古人在中国北方依然有很大的影响力（甚至在1449劫持了一位明代皇帝）。所以大部分的兵力和战争物资都用在北方了。而在蒙古人之后，另一个游牧民族又崛起了---满洲。最终其成为了最大的军事威胁从而灭了明朝。
顺便说一句，我否认意识形态影响政治这个说法，任何意识形态都是为政治服务的。我并不认为儒家思想是其中原因之一。

Robin Daverman, world traveler
Answered Mar 1, 2015
Actually, very few countries managed to keep their overseascolony as part of their own territory. Kind of like the Great Britain and the U.S.- Britaincould colonize the land but could not keep the land.
There was no history in China where the central government was able to holdland masses that were physically not continuous, so it was never attempted. TheMing dynasty also had this perception that China was rich and culturallysophisticated, and all the other land they visited were poor and somewhatbarbaric, so what was the point.

实际上，只有很少的国家成功守住了海外殖民地并将其视为自己的领土。比如英国与美国。英国能殖民这片土地，但是守不住这片土地。
中国从未有中央政府守住不连续土地的历史，所以它不会去尝试。明朝还有一个观念就是，中国既富有文化又渊博，他们到访的其他国家又穷又野蛮，所以为什么他们要殖民呢？

Siddharth Pathak, Hindi Chini bhai bhai, 中印兄弟
Answered Mar 2, 2015
Asian countries didn't colonize the world on the scale of theEuropeans because the major Asian empires were all self sufficient. 
Mughals reached their biggest land extent under the reign of Aurangzeb, buteven then the Empire was always within the Subcontinent. Similarly almost allthe different Chinese Empires were all within the present boundaries. Thereason for this was mainly because of the self sufficiency and the sheer sizeof such Empires in population and land extent.

亚洲国家没有像欧洲国家那样大规模殖民，是因为主要的亚洲帝国都能自给自足。
莫卧儿王朝在奥朗则布的统治下达到了领土面积的巅峰，但是即使是在这种情况下，这个帝国依然维持在（南亚）次大陆之内。同样的，几乎所有中国的帝国都在现在的边界以内。其原因主要是由于能自给自足，这样的帝国在人口和土地范围上都非常巨大。

The Indus-Gangetic plain in North India and Yangtze river delta region in EastChina are the two most fertile lands in the world which always meant a highamount of people living in those two regions. Any Empire that controlled theselands were already draining a huge chunk of resources managing these lands.

印度河-恒河流域平原在印度北部，长江三角洲在中国东部。这二者是世界上土地最肥沃的地区，这通常也意味着会有大量人口居住在这俩个地区。任何一个帝国如果控制了这些地区，那么就已经掌握了足以管理这片土地的大部分资源了。

China and India have been, for almost all of their existence as civilizationsbeen self sufficient. Both had huge number of things which others wanted, buthardly anything others had which Indians or Chinese wanted. This influenced thecultures to be very inward looking. During the early times of the Ming dynastythere was no rival in the world which came close in being the most dominantentity in the world. This changed during the later periods of Ming rule as theMughals reached their zenith in Indiaduring the heights of Akbar and Shah Jahan. But despite the shift in powerdynamics, neither of the Empires were interested in anything concerning withthe Europeans who started making an appearance around this time.

中国和印度，自有文明以来就能自给自足。它们都拥有其他国家想要的大量物资，但是几乎没有其他国家的东西是中国和印度想要的。这样也使文化受到了影响，变成一种内向文化。在明代初期，没有一个主宰世界的力量与明朝相接近。但是在明朝后期这一情况发生了变化，莫卧儿王朝在此时由阿克巴和沙贾汗统治，达到了顶峰。但是除了权利的交替，这俩帝国对任何事都不感兴趣，即使是欧洲人此时开始出现在周围地区。

This doesn't mean that Chinese and Indian Empires didn't colonize or influencetheir neighboring lands. They certainly did. Southeast Asia is heavilyinfluenced by India and China and about a thousand years ago virtuallyall of Southeast Asia was under the influence of Chola dynasty in Southern India.
But it would be a mistake to consider Chinese and Indian colonialism would havereflected European colonialism, because the main reason Europeans subsided suchmassive lands was not because the European governments themselves waged war andcolonized the far off lands, but it was their corporations that did so. Indiawas colonized not by the Queen's armies but by the East India Company.

这并不意味着中国和印度的王朝不开展殖民或者影响其邻国。他们当然做过。东南亚深受中国和印度的影响，1000年以前，所有的东南亚国家无形中都受到了南印度朱罗王朝的影响。
但是，认为中国和印度的殖民主义影响了欧洲殖民主义，这一想法是错误的。欧洲之所以殖民了如此大片的土地，主要原因，不是因为欧洲的政府们发动了战争去殖民遥远的地区，而是他们的企业法人干的。印度也是被东印度公司殖民的而不是女王的军队。

Kingsley Tsang,native Cantonese speaker
Answered Feb 28, 2015
I'll add that:
1. There was no great economic imperative to colonize. At the time, China/ Ming wasstill the silver sink of the world. Traders from Europe, India, and the Middle East purchased silk, tea,and er China.The balance of trade became such a drain that the British eventually tried tobreak the imbalance with the opium trade a few hundred years later. When peoplewere stuffing money in your pocket and you can get foreign stuff through trade,there was little incentive or will to look outward.

1.在经济上殖民没有什么必要。在那个时候，中国/明朝仍然是世界的白银中心。中国与欧洲、印度、中东的贸易交易的是丝绸和茶叶。贸易平衡变得十分糟糕，最终英国在几百年以后试图通过鸦片贸易打破贸易不平衡局面。当人们把钱放在你的口袋里，你可以通过贸易获得外国的东西，就没有什么动机或意愿向外看了。

2. Confucianism. What we have now is great; what we aspire to become is thatprefect past. "Let's leave these barbarians along. Make sure they payrespect/ tribute to us and acknowledge we are great."  

2.儒家思想。我们现在的儒家思想很棒棒；我们渴望追寻的是完美的过去。“我们不要理这些野蛮人。保证他们尊重我们，给我们朝贡，承认我们的伟大就可以了。”   

3. Threat in the north. By md. Ming, the Manchus in the north became an issue.They eventually became the overriding military threat and wipe out the Mingrulers. There was no resource to spare for colonization scheme.

3.来自北方的威胁，明代中期，北方的满洲成为了一个问题。最终其成为了最主要的军事威胁并且灭了明朝。

Clark Mula
Answered Mar 1, 2015
The Ming dynastywere afraid of foreigners. 
The Ming came to power right after the Mongol Yuan dynasty. They spent alot of time getting rid of the Mongol influence. They made it illegal to useMongol names etc. 
If they invaded or created colonies in the poorer countries, they would beat risk of falling down the same pit that they did with the Mongols. TheMongols came in and got rid of most Chinese culture. They killed Confusionscholars and burned schools. 
The Chinese were paranoid about outsiders so they tried ot limit theirinteraction.

明朝害怕外国人。
明朝在元朝之后掌权。他们花了很多时间去除蒙古人的影响。使用蒙古名字是违法的。
如果他们入侵穷国或者创建殖民地，他们就有重蹈蒙古人覆辙的风险。蒙古人入主中原并摒弃中国文化，杀掉儒家士大夫、烧掉学校。
中国人的对外态度近乎偏执，所以他们尽量限制对外互动。

Xuan Su, There is your truth, my truth and whatreally happened. This is my truth.
Answered Jan 14
Because Ming dynasty's official policy put importance ofagriculture way above the importance of trading. Under that policy, there issimply no way for a far away colony to return a profit for the country. So anysuch adventures would not be supported. So instead, the government concentratedon establishing better relations, and gaining prestige, by granting gifts underthe tributary system.

因为明朝的政策重视农业多于商业。在这种政策下，根本没有办法开展远距离殖民从而为国家带来利益。所以任何这样的冒险活动都不会被支持。取而代之的是，政府更注重通过朝贡体系（给属国）施与礼物。搞好国家关系、提升国家声誉。

Mike Chow, ex-Quoran
Answered Feb 28, 2015
There were several attempts to attack and invade countries likeJapan and Vietnam during the Yuan dynasty with disastrous results.
For the Ming empire the most immanent threats were from the north.  Therewere still nomadic tribes and the old Mongolian foes to be dealt with.  Sothe military resources would not be reserved for overseas expansions.
The 1st emperor of Ming specifically laid out a list of countries not to beattacked.  Many of them were southeast Asian countries that paid regulartributes to China.  This effectively ruled out Ming's possibility to colonise any SE Asiancountries.  

元朝期间，有几次试图攻击/入侵日本和越南，结果是灾难性的。
对于明朝来说，最主要的威胁来自北方。北方还有游牧民族部落和蒙古敌人需要对付呢。所以军事资源不会被用来向海外扩张。
第一任明朝皇帝特别列出了一个不会攻击的国家的名单。其中许多就是东南亚那些定期朝贡的国家。这有效地排除了明朝在东南亚各国殖民的可能性。

The Qing empire basically inherited Ming's oversea policy except when it neededto attack Taiwan.   For the first 100 years Qing was an aggressiveexpansionist but mostly on land.   There were always higherpriorities elsewhere in the empire that a high sea campaign was never on thetable.

清朝基本上继承了明朝的海外政策，除了当它需要攻击台湾以外。清朝前100年里是一个具有侵略性的扩张主义者，但大部分还是在陆地上。总有一些其他事物的优先级比较高，而海洋从来不在考虑范围里。

Gwydion Madawc Williams, Read a lot about history, and notesome general patterns.
AnsweredApr 15, 2015
There was no large military advantage, as as Spanish found whenthey followed up the initial discovery.

因为没有很大的军事优势，正如西班牙人沿着他们的脚步探险发现的那样。

Anudeep Ravi, overthinking stuff .... or AmI? దేశ భాషలందు తెలుగు లెస్స
Answered Feb 28, 2015
The only logical Explanation. They couldn't
They did some Regime Changes in Indonesia region, by supporting DemakSulatanate and the like against Existing empires, But that was the extent oftheir Political Interference.
This is 14-15 century.  people around Indian oceanwere not so Fragmented and Isolated like 17-18th centuries.
Ming Dynasty may have been Powerful, But no one is That Great. Had others beenDisunited, We could have seen a different version of colonialism, with Chineseemperor demanding Tributes across the Indian Ocean.

唯一符合逻辑的解释---他们不能够。
他们在印尼地区发起了政变，通过支持淡目国对抗当时的王朝，但那只是政治干涉的程度。
那时候是14-15世纪，印度洋周边的人民并不像17-18世纪那样相互隔离一盘散沙。
明代可能很强大，但是没人有那么牛逼。其他国家分裂的话，伴随着中国皇帝在印度洋范围索求朝贡，我们可以看到不同版本的殖民主义。

Quora User, Life Warrior in China
Answered Apr 14, 2015
Colonization is an imported new idea for Chinese. The closestadministration to colonizaiton in ancient Chinese history is it control overthe Silk Road. And even on Silk Road, Chinese officials treated their subordinate subjects byConfucian doctrines, which prohibits brutality and exploitation.

殖民主义对中国人来说是一个外来的新概念。在中国古代历史中，与之最相近的行政手段就是控制丝绸之路。就算是在丝绸之路上，中国官方也是以孔孟之道对待属国的，孔孟之道禁止野蛮和剥夺的行为。