# Ming Dynasty The **Ming Dynasty** (1368-1644) expelled the Mongol Yuan and rebuilt Chinese foreign commerce on a controlled tribute model, in which trade was conducted through approved embassies rather than by private merchants, punctuated by **haijin** maritime prohibitions that banned private overseas trade outright for long stretches. The dynasty's defining episode for world history is the sequence of seven treasure-fleet voyages under the admiral Zheng He between 1405 and 1433, which reached East Africa on a scale no European navy would match for centuries — followed by their abrupt discontinuation, the suppression of the records, and the decay of the shipyards. Chinese maritime power withdrew from the Indian Ocean in the decades immediately before European ships entered it. The decision to treat foreign trade as a security question rather than a revenue question is the hinge on which much of the subsequent balance of world power turns. See [[Chinese History Hub]]. > [!note] Stub > Spine stub. Expand: the Hongwu and Yongle reigns, the Zheng He voyages and their cancellation, the haijin and the silver trade, the northern frontier and wall-building, and the collapse.