ABSTRACT
The Ming Empire occupied a position in Eurasia and the wider world that was both preeminent and full of contradictions. In an era of great Eurasian empires the Ming refused to participate in the imperial competition and yet emerged as the biggest winner. The Ming was the most populous, wealthiest, and potentially most powerful polity of its time, and yet it had quite limited contact with other empires in Eurasia. Ming emperors were aware of their contemporaries in South Asia, West Asia, and Europe but they were too far away to pose a direct threat to Ming security. The most ambitious effort to repeat the Mongol feat was that of Timur, known in Europe as Tamerlane, who briefly conquered much of Central Asia and West Asia, raided into India, and died while preparing to invade China, leaving a wide swath of destruction in his wake. The Ming founder chose not to emulate the Mongol pattern of conquest.
