ABSTRACT
The disease and warfare that had marked its founding generation was far in the past, and the long peace, disturbed only by a small number of localized revolts, ensured a sustained recovery. However, the fact remains that no amount of occasional dearth or natural disaster was sufficient to alter China's course of steady population growth. The essential increase in productivity resulted from a more extensive use of different crops and farming techniques that had fueled population growth in the past and would do so again in the future. Supplementing the internal regional trade upon which this specialized market system was based was a growing foreign trade. Seafaring merchants from Fujian Province plied trade routes to Southeast Asia, where they sought spices and sappanwood. The Ming dynasty began to face pressure on its northern frontier as well as on its southeastern coast, just as the controversies about jiangxue began to come to a head.
