Dynastic China

Week 12 Discussion Post Prompts

1. How did Chinese culture (painting, drama, literature, etc) change during the Mongol era?
2. Identify a detail in Marco Polo’s travelogue that suggests he either went to China or had intimate knowledge of it? 
3. Discuss the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty. In what ways did Zhu Yuanzhang and the early Ming emperors break from Mongol precedent, and in what ways did they incorporate aspects of Mongol rule into the new dynasty’s governance? 
4. To what extent did the itineraries of the Zheng He voyages overlap with the places marked on the Selden Map? Where did they differ?