Ethnic relations: During this period, there was war and peace among ethnic groups, frequent exchanges and further strengthening of ethnic integration. The Khitan and Jurchen people who entered the Yellow River valley were constantly sinicized and were called "Han people" in the Yuan Dynasty. The formation of a new minority-hui nationality. Overall: China culture gradually closed and began to decline, and the disadvantages of feudal system were exposed.
Ming and Qing dynasties: 1. The system construction is unprecedented and complete. The system construction in Ming Dynasty has the obvious characteristics of comprehensively integrating the previous system and creating new systems. Take the political system as an example. For example, after Zhu Yuanzhang's drastic reform, he abolished the prime minister system and the provincial system, forming an official system structure with "five governments" and "nine ministers" as the main bodies and "three ministries" as the main bodies in the provinces under the imperial power; After Yongle, the cabinet and Li Si supervision system were formed to assist the emperor in handling political affairs; It also gradually formed a governor system aimed at unifying power to strengthen local control. Compared with the Yuan Dynasty, its official system was greatly simplified and showed obvious characteristics of checks and balances, and the imperial power and ruling efficiency were unprecedentedly strengthened. After the mid-term, a system was formed in which all senior officials were selected and major decisions were made by various departments. First, the relevant yamen put forward suggestions or officials "discussed", then the cabinet "drafted" the opinions, and finally asked the emperor to make a ruling. Therefore, under the premise of ensuring the arbitrariness of imperial power, the decision-making procedure is characterized by "brainstorming". For another example, on the basis of an unprecedented and complete imperial examination and government-run education system, after Yongle, the imperial examination and academic achievements gradually became the most important basis for determining the official career of scholars and the appointment of officials in the court, thus implementing the principle of fairness in selecting officials to the highest limit that society could reach at that time, which not only generally improved the cultural literacy of civil servants, but also greatly expanded the ruling foundation and enhanced the cohesion of all social strata to the court. In addition, the system construction in economy, law, military and other aspects of the Ming Dynasty is also highly complete, unique and occupies a very important historical position.
2. Unprecedented development of commodity economy. Generally speaking, the economy of Ming Dynasty is still dominated by self-sufficient agricultural natural economy, but compared with the previous generation, it has made great development, mainly manifested in the obvious improvement of agricultural productivity with the increase of grain varieties, especially the introduction of high-yield crops such as corn and sweet potato, and the popularization of cash crops such as mulberry planting and cotton planting. On this basis, the commodity economy and handicraft industry developed rapidly, and many handicraft products and economic raw materials crops with local characteristics emerged, and a large number of famous towns emerged due to industry and commerce; The fair trade in the vast rural areas is also unprecedentedly popular and prosperous, and the commodity circulation between regions is very active; Private overseas trade has developed strongly; The rise of local merchant groups such as Huizhou merchants and Shanxi merchants plays an increasingly important role in economic and even social life. Under this background, some handicrafts in the developed areas of southeast China have adopted the employment relationship, which is also called the capitalist sprout.
3. New changes have taken place in the class structure and social mobility has accelerated. After the Song Dynasty, clan landlords completely withdrew from the historical stage, and non-aristocratic landlords became the main body of the landlord class. In the Ming Dynasty, the number of non-noble landlords and their proportion in the landlord class increased unprecedentedly. In addition to gentry landlords, there are also a few commercial landlords in economically developed areas. The citizen class also rises with the unprecedented prosperity of industry and commerce and cities; At the same time, the status of ordinary civilians has been further improved compared with the previous generation. With the unprecedented acceleration of social mobility, schools and imperial examinations have almost become the only way for non-noble landlords and even civilians to gain political status and enter the official gentry class, especially to gain status privileges through imperial examinations and then seek economic benefits through status privileges, which has become the main way of social mobility.
4. The social atmosphere changed in the middle and late period, and the ideology and culture were colorful. First of all, there has been a general atmosphere of valuing business, "striving for profit" and pursuing pleasure, and the concept of "everyone must be private" and money worship are popular. Secondly, Neo-Confucianism declined and Wang Xinxue prevailed. People all over the world have changed from observing Zhu Xi's attitude and understanding things to being suspicious, complacent and bored, always enjoying novelty and even pursuing personality liberation. Thirdly, the literary world advocates "expressing one's own spirit". Popular literature represented by novels reflects the unprecedented prosperity of citizen culture, especially Jin Ping Mei, San Yan and Liang Pai, which directly reflects the values and outlook on life of the citizen class. Fourth, the style of study is from simple to empty, and then to seeking truth and seeking truth. Unofficial history's unprecedented prosperity in historiography, especially his private study of contemporary history, marks historians' high concern for reality and their unremitting pursuit of practical application; The development of practical science and technology, represented by The Complete Book of Agricultural Administration, Compendium of Materia Medica and Heavenly Creativeness, marks a new level of scientific and technological development in China. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, with the arrival of western missionaries, some scholars represented by Xu Guangqi were keenly aware of the backwardness and deficiency of China's science and technology culture in some aspects, and actively learned from the missionaries represented by Matteo Ricci, thus forming the climax of cultural exchange between China and the West, and a large number of cultural exchange achievements appeared.
5. The wind of scholar-officials daring to speak is prevalent. It is rare in the history of China that the literati in Ming Dynasty dared to give advice directly. It is mainly manifested in two aspects: First, there are countless ministers who dare to speak, such as Ru of Hong Wushi, Liu Qiu of Orthodox, Jiajing and Apocalypse. , is a famous suggestion.