ABSTRACT
Improved maritime technology enabled individual humans at last to succeed in spanning the globe. The opening of new routes brought exciting adventures and encounters, but it also brought disasters. The new sea routes put China and India in easier contact with each other and with Europe. The Ming Empire of China, formed in the mid-fifteenth century by rebellious armies that defeated the Yuan Empire, caused and halted migration. The work of Christian missionaries in China yielded an exchange of learning between Chinese and European scholars but brought little expansion of Christianity in the long term. Hokkien merchants from China used Macao as a beachhead of their own, and also built beachheads in Manila, and in Batavia, the Dutch port on Java. The arrival of maize in China enabled farming on lands that had previously been marginal. The production of sugar in Brazil and the Caribbean led to the migration of millions of workers and brought other changes.
