The world has become a place filled with a great diversity of cultures. Each individual country slowly developed into a somewhat dependent society, all because of pre-modern events, even if those events did not connect to each other. There are various types of religions and ideas that have spread and changed every part of the world, such as the Silk Roads. IF it were not for the great divergence we would not have the society we currently have. If not for Ming China and centuries of xenophobia among its people and empire, our entire world today might have been ruled predominantly by China. Ming China in pre-modern times was not as populated and geographically large as it is today, but it was still quite large in both aspects, especially when compared to other empires of that era. About 1,000 of China's inhabitants worked for the government in some way. These people known as bureaucrats were highly educated and could read and write. Education helped the country to be smart in trade, foreign affairs and military tactics. Having most of the country educated in political terms also meant that their strong army would be intelligent enough to devise techniques for defending territory and invading surrounding lands. Hung-Wu, the first emperor of Ming China, created a very different type of national government. guard that differed from traditional ones. This new type of army called Wei-So resembled today's United States National Guard. These men were trained to become soldiers in case they were needed at any time for battle. Pensions would be given to them in exchange for their service. Heavy armies required large quantities of weapons, but more importantly they needed ships of considerable size to get around bodies of water. It's easy... middle of paper... China would most likely spread outside its borders and take control of every country. We have seen how other empires such as the Roman and Mongol ones also spread but had problems due to the lack of population and availability. For the Ming, population was not a problem. Their main problem was that they simply didn't bother dealing with other countries that posed no threat to them. All these examples can really show how amazing it is that we are not under Chinese rule today. Everyone should be grateful to the phobia carried out by Ming China for centuries. It is difficult to imagine how different the world would be if it were under China's rule. Luckily that didn't happen, otherwise we would all be a boring, similar society. Events like the xenophobic period in China might seem senseless and unimportant, but it was actually what influenced how history unfolded..