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 Posted: Sat 11:19, 19 Mar 2011 Post subject: During the last years luxury watches cheap |
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During the last years of Wanli's reign and those of his two successors, an economic crisis developed that was centered around a sudden widespread lack of the empire's chief medium of exchange: silver.[link widoczny dla zalogowanych] The Protestant powers of the Dutch Republic and theKingdom of England staged frequent raids and acts of piracy against the Catholic-based empires of Spain and Portugal in order to weaken their global economic power.[153] Meanwhile, Philip IV of Spain (r. 1621–65) began cracking down on illegal smuggling of silver from Mexico and Peru across the Pacific towards China, in favor of shipping American-mined silver directly from Spain to Manila. In 1639, the new Tokugawa regime of Japan shut down most of its foreign trade with European powers, causing a halt of yet another source of silver coming into China. However, the greatest stunt to the flow of silver came from the Americas, while Japanese silver still came into China in limited amounts.[154] Some scholars even assert that the price of silver rose in the 17th century due to a falling demand for goods, not declining silver stocks.[155]
These events occurring at roughly the same time caused a dramatic spike in the value of silver and made paying taxes nearly impossible for most provinces. People began hoarding precious silver as there was progressively less of it,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych] forcing the ratio of the value of copper to silver into a steep decline. In the 1630s, a string of one thousand copper coins was worth an ounce of silver; by 1640 this was reduced to the value of half an ounce; by 1643 it was worth roughly one-third of an ounce.[140] For peasants this was an economic disaster, since they paid taxes in silver while conducting local trade and selling their crops with copper coins.[156]
In this early half of the 17th century, famines became common in northern China because of unusual dry and cold weather that shortened the growing season; these were effects of a larger ecological event now known as the Little Ice Age.[157] Famine, alongside tax increases, widespread military desertions, a declining relief system,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych] and natural disasters such as flooding and inability of the government to properly manage irrigation and flood-control projects caused widespread loss of life and normal civility.
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