Qing conquest of the Ming

Qing conquest of the Ming
Decisive Battle of Shanhai Pass in 1644.
Date 1618-1683 Location Manchuria, China proper Result Ming dynasty falls Short-lived Shun dynasty falls Qing dynasty is formed
Belligerents
Qing dynasty	Ming dynasty Supported by: Northern Yuan dynasty (1618-1635) Chagatai Khanate (Yarkent Khanate) (1646-1650) Kumul Khanate Turfan Khanate	Shun dynasty Zhang Xianzhong's rebel army
Commanders and leaders
Nurhaci (WIA) Hong Taiji Dodo Dorgon Shunzhi Emperor Jirgalang Li Yongfang (defected from the Ming in 1618) Geng Zhongming (defected from the Ming in 1633) Kong Youde (defected from the Ming in 1633) Shang Kexi (defected from the Ming) Zu Dashou (defected from the Ming in 1642) Wu Sangui (defected from the Ming in 1644) Shi Lang (defected from the Ming) Zheng Zhilong (defected from the Ming) Meng Qiaofang (defected from the Ming)	Chongzhen Emperor Yuan Chonghuan Zhu Shichuan, Prince of Yanchang † Milayin (米喇印) † Ding Guodong (丁國棟)  † Shi Kefa Koxinga Li Dingguo Ou Guangchen Zhu Youlang, Prince of Gui Zhu Yuyue, Prince of Tang Zhu Yujian, Prince of Tang Zhu Yousong, Prince of Fu Zhu Yihai, Prince of Lu Zhu Shugui, Prince of Ningjing Supported by: Ligdan Khan Sa'id Baba Turumtay † Sultan Khan	Li Zicheng Ma Shouying Zhang Xianzhong
Strength
varies including Manchu, Mongol, and Han Bannermen Han Green Standard Army defectors (after 1644) by 1648, Han Chinese Bannermen were the majority (75%) of the Eight Banners with Manchus at a minority of only 16%.	varies	Shun dynasty army varies between 60,000 and 100,000 men Zhang Xianzhong's army - 100,000 men
Casualties and losses
varies	varies	unknown

The Qing conquest of the Ming, also known as the Ming–Qing transition and as the Manchu conquest of China, was a period of conflict between the Qing dynasty, established by Manchu clan Aisin Gioro in Manchuria (contemporary Northeastern China), and the Ming dynasty of China in the south (various other regional or temporary powers were also associated with events, such as the short-lived Shun dynasty). Leading up to the Qing conquest, in 1618, Aisin Gioro leader Nurhaci commissioned a document entitled the Seven Grievances, which enumerated grievances against the Ming and began to rebel against their domination. Many of the grievances dealt with conflicts against Yehe, which was a major Manchu clan, and Ming favoritism of Yehe. Nurhaci's demand that the Ming pay tribute to him to redress the seven grievances was effectively a declaration of war, as the Ming were not willing to pay money to a former tributary. Shortly afterwards, Nurhaci began to force the Ming out of Liaoning in southern Manchuria.

At the same time, the Ming dynasty was fighting for its survival against fiscal turmoil and peasant rebellions. On April 24, 1644, Beijing fell to a rebel army led by Li Zicheng, a former minor Ming official who became the leader of the peasant revolt, who then proclaimed the Shun dynasty. The last Ming emperor, the Chongzhen Emperor, hanged himself on a tree in the imperial garden outside the Forbidden City. When Li Zicheng moved against him, the Ming general Wu Sangui shifted his alliance to the Manchus. Li Zicheng was defeated at the Battle of Shanhai Pass by the joint forces of Wu Sangui and Manchu prince Dorgon. On June 6, the Manchus and Wu entered the capital and proclaimed the young Shunzhi Emperor as Emperor of China.

The Kangxi Emperor ascended the throne in 1661, and in 1662 his regents launched the Great Clearance to defeat the resistance of Ming loyalists in South China. He then fought off several rebellions, such as the Revolt of the Three Feudatories led by Wu Sangui in southern China, starting in 1673, and then countered by launching a series of campaigns that expanded his empire. In 1662, Zheng Chenggong founded the Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan, a pro-Ming dynasty state with a goal of reconquering China. However, the Kingdom of Tungning was defeated in the Battle of Penghu by Han Chinese admiral Shi Lang, who had also served under the Ming.

The fall of the Ming dynasty was largely caused by a combination of factors. Kenneth Swope argues that one key factor was deteriorating relations between Ming Royalty and the Ming Empire's military leadership.^[1] Other factors include repeated military expeditions to the North, inflationary pressures caused by spending too much from the imperial treasury, natural disasters and epidemics of disease. Contributing further to the chaos was a peasant rebellion in Beijing in 1644 and a series of weak emperors. Ming power would hold out in what is now southern China for years, though eventually would be overtaken by the Manchus.^[2]

Jurchen expansion

The Jianzhou Jurchen chief, Nurhaci, is retrospectively identified as the founder of the Qing dynasty. In 1616 he declared himself Khan. His unifying efforts gave the Jurchen the strength to assert themselves backed by an army consisting of majority Han defectors as well as Ming produced firearms. In 1618 he proclaimed Seven Grievances against the Ming and the Ming General Li Yongfang surrendered the city of Fushun in what is now Liaoning province in China's northeast, after Nurhaci gave him an Aisin Gioro princess in marriage and a noble title. The Princess was one of Nurhaci's granddaughters. In a series of successful military campaigns in Liaodong and Liaoxi (east and west of the Liao River), the Jurchens seized a number of Ming cities including Shenyang, which they made into the capital of their newly founded "Later Jin" dynasty, named after a Jurchen polity that had ruled over north China several centuries earlier.

The Chahar Mongols were fought against by Dorgon in 1628 and 1635.^[3]

Under the inspirational leader Yuan Chonghuan, the Ming used western artillery to defeat the Jin forces at the Battle of Ningyuan in 1626. Nurhaci was injured and died soon afterwards, but the Ming failed to seize the chance to counter-attack.^[4] The Jurchens' nemesis Yuan Chonghuan was soon purged in a political struggle, while under the leadership of the new khan Hong Taiji the Jurchens kept seizing Ming cities, defeated Joseon (Korea), a crucial ally of the Ming, in 1627 and 1636, and raided deep into China in 1642 and 1643.

After the Second Manchu invasion of Korea, Joseon Korea was forced to give several of their royal princesses as concubines to the Qing Manchu regent Prince Dorgon.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]} In 1650 Dorgon married the Korean Princess I-shun (義/願).^[13] The Princess' name in Korean was Uisun and she was Prince Yi Kaeyoon's (Kumrimgoon) daughter.^[14] Dorgon married two Korean princesses at Lianshan.^[15]

The Manchus are sometimes mistaken as nomadic people,^[16] when in fact they were not nomads,^[17][18] but instead were a sedentary agricultural people who lived in fixed villages, farmed crops, practiced hunting and mounted archery.

The fall of the Ming and the Qing takeover

The Ming faced several famines, floods, economic chaos, and rebellions. Li Zicheng rebelled in the 1630s in Shaanxi in the north, while a mutiny led by Zhang Xianzhong broke out in Sichuan in the 1640s. Many people were killed in this self-proclaimed emperor's reign of terror.

Just as Dorgon and his advisors were pondering how to attack the Ming, the peasant rebellions that were ravaging northern China were dangerously approaching the Ming capital Beijing. In February 1644, rebel leader Li Zicheng had founded the Shun dynasty in Xi'an and proclaimed himself king. In March his armies had captured the important city of Taiyuan in Shanxi. Seeing the progress of the rebels, on 5 April the Ming Chongzhen Emperor requested the urgent help of any military commandant in the Empire.^[19] But it was too late: on 24 April Li Zicheng breached the walls of Beijing, and the Emperor hanged himself the next day on a hill behind the Forbidden City.^[20] He was the last Ming emperor to reign in Beijing.

Soon after the emperor had called for help, powerful Ming general Wu Sangui had left his stronghold of Ningyuan north of the Great Wall and started marching toward the capital. On 26 April, his armies had moved through the fortifications of Shanhai Pass (the eastern end of the Great Wall) and were marching toward Beijing when he heard that the city had fallen.^[21] He returned to Shanhai Pass. Li Zicheng sent two armies to attack the Pass but Wu's battle-hardened troops defeated them easily on 5 May and 10 May.^[22] Then on 18 May, Li Zicheng personally led 60,000 of his troops out of Beijing to attack Wu.^[22] At the same time, Wu Sangui wrote to Dorgon to request the Qing's help in ousting the bandits and restoring the Ming dynasty.

Meanwhile, Wu Sangui's departure from the stronghold of Ningyuan had left all territory outside the Great Wall under Qing control.^[23] Two of Dorgon's most prominent Chinese advisors, Hong Chengchou and Fan Wencheng (范文程), urged the Manchu prince to seize the opportunity of the fall of Beijing to present themselves as avengers of the fallen Ming and to claim the Mandate of Heaven for the Qing.^[24] Therefore, when Dorgon received Wu's letter, he was already about to lead an expedition to attack northern China and had no intention to restore the Ming. When Dorgon asked Wu to work for the Qing instead, Wu had little choice but to accept.^[25]

After Wu formally surrendered to the Qing in the morning of 27 May, his elite troops charged the rebel army repeatedly, but were unable to break the enemy lines.^[26] Dorgon waited until both sides were weakened before ordering his cavalry to gallop around Wu's right wing to charge Li's left flank.^[27] Li Zicheng's troops were quickly routed and fled back toward Beijing.^[28] After their defeat at the Battle of Shanhai Pass, the Shun troops looted Beijing for several days until Li Zicheng left the capital on 4 June with all the wealth he could carry, one day after he had defiantly proclaimed himself Emperor of the Great Shun.^[29]

The conquest

Battle of Ningyuan, where Nurhaci was injured in defeat.

Under the reign of Dorgon––whom historians have variously called "the mastermind of the Qing conquest" and "the principal architect of the great Manchu enterprise"––the Qing subdued the capital area, received the capitulation of Shandong local elites and officials, and conquered Shanxi and Shaanxi, then turned their eyes to the rich commercial and agricultural region of Jiangnan south of the lower Yangtze River.^[30] They also wiped out the last remnants of rival regimes established by Li Zicheng (killed in 1645) and Zhang Xianzhong (Chengdu taken in early 1647). Finally they managed to kill claimants to the throne of the Southern Ming in Nanjing (1645) and Fuzhou (1646), and chased Zhu Youlang, the last Southern Ming emperor, out of Guangzhou (1647) and into the far southwestern reaches of China.

Han defectors

"The conquest of the Empire, after the Manchus had securely seated themselves in Peking, had to be undertaken largely with Chinese troops, simply “ stiffened ” a little with a Manchu regiment here and there." Journal of the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, NEW SERIES, VOL. XXX., p. 75^[31]

Han defectors played a massive role in the Qing conquest of China. Han Chinese Generals who defected to the Manchu were often given women from the Imperial Aisin Gioro family in marriage while the ordinary soldiers who defected were often given non-royal Manchu women as wives. The Manchu leader Nurhaci married one of his granddaughters to the Ming General Li Yongfang after he surrendered Fushun in Liaoning to the Manchu in 1618 and a mass marriage of Han Chinese officers and officials to Manchu women numbering 1,000 couples was arranged by Prince Yoto and Hongtaiji in 1632 to promote harmony between the two ethnic groups.^[32][33] Jurchen (Manchu) women married Han Chinese defectors in Liaodong.^[34] Aisin Gioro women were married to the sons of the Han Chinese Generals Sun Sike (Sun Ssu-k'o), Geng Jimao (Keng Chi-mao), Shang Kexi (Shang K'o-hsi), and Wu Sangui (Wu San-kuei).^[35]

Geng Zhongming, a Han bannerman, was awarded the title of Prince Jingnan, and his son Geng Jingmao managed to have both his sons Geng Jingzhong and Geng Zhaozhong become court attendants under Shunzhi and get married to Aisin Gioro women, with Haoge's (a son of Hong Taiji) daughter marrying Geng Jingzhong and Prince Abatai's (Hong Taiji) granddaughter marrying Geng Zhaozhong.^[36] Aisin Gioro women were offered to Mongols who defected to the Manchus.^[37]

Hong Taiji recognized that Ming Han Chinese defectors were needed by the Manchus in order to assist in the conquest of the Ming, explaining to other Manchus why he needed to treat the Ming defector General Hong Chengchou leniently.^[38]

The Qing differentiated between Han Bannermen and ordinary Han civilians. Han Bannermen were made out of Han Chinese who defected to the Qing up to 1644 and joined the Eight Banners, giving them social and legal privileges in addition to being acculturated to Manchu culture. So many Han defected to the Qing and swelled up the ranks of the Eight Banners that ethnic Manchus became a minority within the Banners, making up only 16% in 1648, with Han Bannermen dominating at 75% and Mongol Bannermen making up the rest.^[39][40][41] It was this multi-ethnic force in which Manchus were only a minority, which conquered China for the Qing.^[42] In 1644, China was invaded by an army that had only a fraction of Manchus, the invading army was multi-ethnic, with Han Banners, Mongols Banners, and Manchu Banners, the political barrier was between the commoners made out of Han Chinese (non bannermen) and the "conquest elite", made out of Han Chinese bannermen, nobles, and Mongols and Manchu, it was not ethnicity which was the factor.^[43]

It was Han Chinese Bannermen who were responsible for the successful Qing conquest of China, they made up the majority of governors in the early Qing and were the ones who governed and administered China after the conquest, stabilizing Qing rule.^[44] Han Bannermen dominated the post of governor-general in the time of the Shunzhi and Kangxi Emperors, and also the post of governors, largely excluding ordinary Han civilians from the posts.^[45]

The Qing showed that the Manchus valued military skills in propaganda targeted towards the Ming military to get them to defect to the Qing, since the Ming civilian political system discriminated against the military.^[46] The three Liaodong Han Bannermen officers who played a massive role in the conquest of southern China from the Ming were Shang Kexi, Geng Zhongming, and Kong Youde and they governed southern China autonomously as viceroys for the Qing after their conquests.^[47] Normally the Manchu Bannermen acted as only reserve forces while the Qing foremost used defected Han Chinese troops to fight as the vanguard during the entire conquest of China.^[48]

Among the Banners, gunpowder weapons like muskets and artillery were specifically wielded by the Chinese Banners.^[49] The "red coat cannon" were part of the Han army (Liaodong Han Chinese) serving the Qing.^[50]

The Liaodong Han Chinese military frontiersmen were prone to mixing and acculturating with (non-Han) tribesmen.^[51] The Mongol officer Mangui served in the Ming military and fought the Manchus, dying in battle against a Manchu raid.^[52][53][54] The Jurchen Manchus accepted and assimilated Han Chinese soldiers who defected.^[55] Liaodong Han Chinese transfrontiersmen soldiers acculturated to Manchu culture and used Manchu names. Manchus lived in cities with walls surrounded by villages and adopted Chinese style agriculture before the Qing conquest of the Ming.^[56] The Han Chinese transfrontismen abandoned their Han Chinese names and identities and Nurhaci's secretary Dahai might have been one of them.^[57]

A portrait of Hong Chengchou (1593–1665), a former Ming official who advised Dorgon to take advantage of the violent death of the Ming Chongzhen Emperor to present the Qing as the avengers of the Ming and to conquer all of China instead of raiding for loot and slaves.^[58]

There were too little ethnic Manchus to conquer China, so they responded by defeating and absorbing Mongols, but more importantly, adding Han Chinese to the Eight Banners.^[59] The Manchus had to create an entire "Jiu Han jun" (Old Han Army) due to the massive amount of Han Chinese soldiers which were absorbed into the Eight Banners by both capture and defection, Ming artillery was responsible for many victories against the Manchus, so the Manchus established an artillery corps made out of Han Chinese soldiers in 1641 and the swelling of Han Chinese numbers in the Eight Banners led in 1642 of all Eight Han Banners being created.^[60] It was defected Ming Han Chinese armies which conquered southern China for the Qing.^[61]

When Dorgon ordered Han civilians to vacate Beijing's inner city and move to the outskirts, he resettled the inner city with the Bannermen, including Han Chinese bannermen, later, some exceptions were made to allowing to reside in the inner city Han civilians who held government or commercial jobs.^[62]

The Qing relied on the Green Standard soldiers, made out of defected Han Chinese Ming military forces who joined the Qing, in order to help rule northern China.^[63] It was Green Standard Han Chinese troops who actively military governed China locally while Han Chinese Bannermen, Mongol Bannermen, and Manchu Bannermen who were only brought into emergency situations where there was sustained military resistance.^[64]

Manchu Aisin Gioro princesses were also married to Han Chinese official's sons.^[65]

The Manchu Prince Regent Dorgon gave a Manchu woman as a wife to the Han Chinese official Feng Quan,^[66] who had defected from the Ming to the Qing. The Manchu queue hairstyle was willingly adopted by Feng Quan before it was enforced on the Han population and Feng learned the Manchu language.^[67]

To promote ethnic harmony, a 1648 decree from Shunzhi allowed Han Chinese civilian men to marry Manchu women from the Banners with the permission of the Board of Revenue if they were registered daughters of officials or commoners or the permission of their banner company captain if they were unregistered commoners, it was only later in the dynasty that these policies allowing intermarriage were done away with.^[68][69] The decree was formulated by Dorgon.^[62]

When the Qing imposed the queue hairstyle on the general population, it was Han Chinese defectors who carried out massacres against people refusing to wear the queue. Li Chengdong, a Han Chinese general who had served the Ming but defected to the Qing,^[70] ordered his Han troops to carry out three separate massacres in the city of Jiading within a month, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths. At the end of the third massacre, there was hardly any living person left in this city.^[71] Jiangyin also held out against about 10,000 Qing Han Chinese troops for 83 days. When the city wall was finally breached on 9 October 1645, the Han Chinese Qing army led by the Han Chinese Ming defector Liu Liangzuo (劉良佐), who had been ordered to "fill the city with corpses before you sheathe your swords," massacred the entire population, killing between 74,000 and 100,000 people.^[72]

The Guangzhou massacre of Ming loyalist Han forces and civilians in 1650 by Qing forces, was entirely carried out by Han Chinese Bannerman led by Han Chinese Generals Shang Kexi and Geng Jimao.

The Manchus sent Han Bannermen to fight against Koxinga's Ming loyalists in Fujian.^[73] The Qing carried out a massive depopulation policy and seaban forcing people to evacuated the coast in order to deprive Koxinga's Ming loyalists of resources, this has led to a myth that it was because Manchus were "afraid of water". In Fujian, it was Han Bannermen who were the ones carrying out the fighting and killing for the Qing and this disproved the entirely irrelevant claim that alleged fear of the water on part of the Manchus had to do with the coastal evacuation and seaban.^[74] Even though a poem refers to the soldiers carrying out massacres in Fujian as "barbarian", both Han Green Standard Army and Han Bannermen were involved in the fighting for the Qing side and carried out the worst slaughter.^[75] 400,000 Green Standard Army soldiers were used against the Three Feudatories besides 200,000 Bannermen.^[76]

The Qing forces were crushed by Wu from 1673-1674.^[77] The Qing had the support of the majority of Han Chinese soldiers and Han elite against the Three Feudatories, since they refused to join Wu Sangui in the revolt, while the Eight Banners and Manchu officers fared poorly against Wu Sangui, so the Qing responded with using a massive army of more than 900,000 Han Chinese (non-Banner) instead of the Eight Banners, to fight and crush the Three Feudatories.^[78] Wu Sangui's forces were crushed by the Green Standard Army, made out of defected Ming soldiers.^[79]

Wu Sangui was a general of the Ming dynasty, who later defected to the Qing dynasty. However, his hopes to restore the former were dashed after he rebelled against the Kangxi Emperor.

Suppressing the bandits

Very soon after entering Beijing in June 1644, Dorgon despatched Wu Sangui and his troops to pursue Li Zicheng, the rebel leader who had driven the last Ming emperor to suicide, but had been defeated by the Qing in late May at the Battle of Shanhai Pass.^[80] Wu managed to engage Li's rearguard many times, but Li still managed to cross Gu Pass (故關) into Shanxi; Wu then broke pursuit to return to Beijing.^[81] Li Zicheng reestablished a power base in Xi'an (Shaanxi province), where he had declared the foundation of his Shun dynasty in February 1644.^[82] After repressing revolts against Qing rule in Hebei and Shandong in the Summer and Fall of 1644, in October of that year Dorgon sent several armies to root out Li Zicheng from his Shaanxi stronghold.^[83] Qing armies led by Ajige, Dodo, and Shi Tingzhu (石廷柱) won consecutive engagements against Shun forces in Shanxi and Shaanxi, forcing Li Zicheng to leave his Xi'an headquarters in February 1645.^[84] Li retreated through several provinces until he was killed in September 1645, either by his own hand or by a peasant group that had organized for self-defense in this time of rampant banditry.^[85]

In early 1646 Dorgon sent two expeditions to Sichuan to try to destroy Zhang Xianzhong's regime: the first expedition did not reach Sichuan because it was caught up against remnants; the second one, under the direction of Hooge (the son of Hong Taiji who had lost the succession struggle of 1643) reached Sichuan in October 1646.^[86] Hearing that a Qing army led by a major general was approaching, Zhang Xianzhong fled toward Shaanxi, splitting his troops into four divisions that were ordered to act independently if something were to happen to him.^[86] Before leaving, he ordered a massacre of the population of his capital Chengdu.^[86] Zhang Xianzhong was killed in a battle against Qing forces near Xichong in central Sichuan on 1 February 1647.^[87] Hooge then easily took Chengdu, but found it in a state of desolation he had not expected. Unable to find food in the countryside, his soldiers looted the area, killing resisters, and even resorted to cannibalism as food shortages grew acute.^[88]

Jiangnan

Portrait of Shi Kefa, who refused to surrender to the Qing in the defense of Yangzhou.

A few weeks after the Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide in Beijing in April 1644, some descendants of the Ming imperial house started arriving in Nanjing, which had been the auxiliary capital of the Ming dynasty.^[19] Agreeing that the Ming needed an imperial figure to rally support in the south, the Nanjing Minister of War Shi Kefa and the Fengyang Governor-general Ma Shiying (馬士英) agreed to form a loyalist Ming government around the Prince of Fu, Zhu Yousong, a first cousin of the Chongzhen Emperor who had been next in line for succession after the dead emperor's sons, whose fates were still unknown.^[89] The Prince was crowned as emperor on 19 June 1644 under the protection of Ma Shiying and his large war fleet.^[90] He would reign under the era name "Hongguang" (弘光). The Hongguang regime was ridden with factional bickering that facilitated the Qing conquest of Jiangnan, which was launched from Xi'an in April 1645.^[91] Greatly aided by the surrender of Southern Ming commanders Li Chengdong (李成東) and Liu Liangzuo (劉良佐), the Qing army took the key city of Xuzhou north of the Huai River in early May 1645, leaving Shi Kefa in Yangzhou as the main defender of the Southern Ming's northern frontiers.^[92]

A man in San Francisco's Chinatown around 1900. The Chinese habit of wearing a queue came from Dorgon's July 1645 edict ordering all men to shave their forehead and tie their hair into a queue like the Manchus.

Several contingents of Qing forces converged on Yangzhou on 13 May 1645.^[93] Shi Kefa's small force refused to surrender, but could not resist Dodo's artillery: on 20 May Qing cannon breached the city wall and Dodo ordered the "brutal slaughter" of Yangzhou's entire population, to terrorize other Jiangnan cities into surrendering to the Qing.^[94] On 1 June Qing armies crossed the Yangzi River and easily took the garrison city of Zhenjiang, which protected access to Nanjing.^[95] The Qing arrived at the gates of Nanjing a week later, but the Hongguang Emperor had already fled.^[95] The city surrendered without a fight on 16 June after its last defenders had made Dodo promise he would not hurt the population.^[96] Within less than a month, the Qing had captured the fleeing Ming emperor (he died in Beijing the following year) and seized Jiangnan's main cities, including Suzhou and Hangzhou; by then the frontier between the Qing and the Southern Ming had been pushed south to the Qiantang River.^[97]

On 21 July 1645, after the Jiangnan region had been superficially pacified, Dorgon issued "the most untimely promulgation of his career": he ordered all Chinese men to shave their forehead and to braid the rest of their hair into a queue just like the Manchus.^[98] The punishment for non-compliance was death.^[99] This policy of symbolic submission to the new dynasty helped the Manchus in telling friend from foe.^[100] For Han officials and literati, however, the new hairstyle was "a humiliating act of degradation" (because it breached a common Confucian directive to preserve one's body intact), whereas for common folk cutting their hair "was tantamount to the loss of their manhood."^[101] Because it united Chinese of all social backgrounds into resistance against Qing rule, the haircutting command "broke the momentum of the Qing conquest."^[102] The defiant population of Jiading and Songjiang was massacred by former Ming general Li Chengdong (李成東), respectively on August 24 and September 22.^[103] Jiangyin also held out against about 10,000 Qing troops for 83 days. When the city wall was finally breached on 9 October 1645, the Qing army led by Ming defector Liu Liangzuo (劉良佐), who had been ordered to "fill the city with corpses before you sheathe your swords," massacred the entire population, killing between 74,000 and 100,000 people.^[72] Hundreds of thousands of people were killed before all of China was brought into compliance.

The Southern Ming

A cannon cast in 1650 by the Southern Ming. (From the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence.)

Meanwhile, the Southern Ming had not been eliminated. When Hangzhou fell to the Qing on 6 July 1645, Prince of Tang Zhu Yujian, a ninth-generation descendant of Ming founder Zhu Yuanzhang managed to escape by land to the southeastern province of Fujian.^[104] Crowned as the Longwu Emperor in the coastal city of Fuzhou on 18 August, he depended on the protection of talented seafarer Zheng Zhilong (also known as "Nicholas Iquan").^[105] The childless emperor adopted Zheng's eldest son and granted him the imperial surname.^[106] "Koxinga," as this son is known to Westerners, is a distortion of the title "Lord of the Imperial Surname" (Guoxingye 國姓爺).^[106] In the mean time another Ming claimant, the Prince of Lu Zhu Yihai, had named himself regent in Zhejiang, but the two loyalist regimes failed to cooperate, making their chances of success even lower than they already were.^[107]

Portrait of Shang Kexi by Johan Nieuhof (1655). Shang recaptured Guangzhou from Ming loyalist forces in 1650 and organized a massacre of the city's population. He was one of the Three Feudatories who rebelled against the Qing in 1673.

In February 1646, Qing armies seized land west of the Qiantang River from the Lu regime and defeated a ragtag force representing the Longwu Emperor in northeastern Jiangxi.^[108] In May, they besieged Ganzhou, the last Ming bastion in Jiangxi.^[109] In July, a new Southern Campaign led by Prince Bolo sent Prince Lu's Zhejiang regime into disarray and proceeded to attack the Longwu regime in Fujian.^[110] On the pretext of relieving the siege of Ganzhou, the Longwu court left their Fujian base in late September 1646, but the Qing army caught up with them.^[111] Longwu and his empress were summarily executed in Tingzhou (western Fujian) on 6 October.^[112] After the fall of Fuzhou on 17 October, Zheng Zhilong surrendered to the Qing and his son Koxinga fled to the island of Taiwan with his fleet.^[112]

The Longwu Emperor's younger brother Zhu Yuyue, who had fled Fuzhou by sea, soon founded another Ming regime in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, taking the reign title Shaowu (紹武) on 11 December 1646.^[113] Short of official costumes, the court had to purchase robes from local theater troops.^[113] On 24 December, Prince of Gui Zhu Youlang established the Yongli (永曆) regime in the same vicinity.^[113] The two Ming regimes fought each other until 20 January 1647, when a small Qing force led by former Southern Ming commander Li Chengdong (李成東) captured Guangzhou, killing the Shaowu Emperor and sending the Yongli Emperor fleeing to Nanning in Guangxi.^[114] In May 1648, however, Li Chengdong mutinied against the Qing, and the concurrent rebellion of another former Ming general in Jiangxi helped the Yongli regime to retake most of southern China.^[115] This resurgence of loyalist hopes was short-lived. New Qing armies managed to reconquer the central provinces of Huguang (present-day Hubei and Hunan), Jiangxi, and Guangdong in 1649 and 1650.^[116] The Yongli Emperor fled to Nanning and from there to Guizhou.^[116] Finally on 24 November 1650, Qing forces led by Shang Kexi captured Guangzhou and massacred the city's population, killing as many as 70,000 people.^[117]

The northwest

Late in 1646, forces assembled by a Muslim leader known in Chinese sources as Milayin (米喇印) revolted against Qing rule in Ganzhou (Gansu). He was soon joined by another Muslim named Ding Guodong (丁國棟).^[118] Proclaiming that they wanted to restore the fallen Ming, they occupied a number of towns in Gansu, including the provincial capital Lanzhou.^[118] These rebels' willingness to collaborate with non-Muslim Chinese suggests that they were not only driven by religion, and were not aiming to create an Islamic state.^[118] To pacify the rebels, the Qing government quickly despatched Meng Qiaofang (孟喬芳), governor of Shaanxi, a former Ming official who had surrendered to the Qing in 1631.^[119] Both Milayin and Ding Guodong were captured and killed in 1648,^[119] and by 1650 the Muslim rebels had been crushed in campaigns that inflicted heavy casualties.^[120] The Muslim Ming loyalists were supported by the Muslim Chagatid Kumul Khanate and the Turfan Khanate and after their defeat, Kumul submitted to the Qing. Another Muslim rebel, Ma Shouying, was allied to Li Zicheng and the Shun dynasty.

Continuous campaigns against the Southern Ming

The flight of the Yongli Emperor––the last sovereign of the Southern Ming dynasty––from 1647 to 1661. The provincial and national boundaries are those of the People's Republic of China.

Though the Qing under Dorgon's leadership had successfully pushed the Southern Ming deep into southern China, Ming loyalism was not dead yet. In early August 1652, Li Dingguo, who had served as general in Sichuan under bandit king Zhang Xianzhong (d. 1647) and was now protecting the Yongli Emperor of the Southern Ming, retook Guilin (Guangxi province) from the Qing.^[121] Within a month, most of the commanders who had been supporting the Qing in Guangxi reverted to the Ming side.^[122] Despite occasionally successful military campaigns in Huguang and Guangdong in the next two years, Li failed to retake important cities.^[121] In 1653, the Qing court put Hong Chengchou in charge of retaking the southwest.^[123] Headquartered in Changsha (in what is now Hunan province), he patiently built up his forces; only in late 1658 did well-fed and well-supplied Qing troops mount a multipronged campaign to take Guizhou and Yunnan.^[123] In late January 1659, a Qing army led by Manchu prince Doni took the capital of Yunnan, sending the Yongli Emperor fleeing into nearby Burma, which was then ruled by King Pindale Min of the Toungoo dynasty.^[123] The last sovereign of the Southern Ming stayed there until 1662, when he was captured and executed by Wu Sangui, whose surrender to the Manchus in April 1644 had allowed Dorgon to start the Qing conquest of China.^[124]

Zheng Chenggong ("Koxinga"), who had been adopted by the Longwu Emperor in 1646 and ennobled by Yongli in 1655, also continued to defend the cause of the Southern Ming.^[125] In 1659, just as Shunzhi was preparing to hold a special examination to celebrate the glories of his reign and the success of the southwestern campaigns, Zheng sailed up the Yangtze River with a well-armed fleet, took several cities from Qing hands, and went so far as to threaten Nanjing.^[126] When the emperor heard of this sudden attack he is said to have slashed his throne with a sword in anger.^[126] But the siege of Nanjing was relieved and Zheng Chenggong repelled, forcing Zheng to take refuge in the southeastern coastal province of Fujian.^[127] Pressured by Qing fleets, Zheng fled to Taiwan in April 1661 and defeated the Dutch in the Siege of Fort Zeelandia, expelling them from Taiwan and setting up the Kingdom of Tungning.^[128] Zheng died in 1662. His descendants resisted Qing rule until 1683, when his grandson Zheng Keshuang surrendered Taiwan to the Kangxi Emperor after the Battle of Penghu.^[129] The Ming dynasty Princes who accompanied Koxinga to Taiwan were the Prince of Ningjing Zhu Shugui and Prince Zhu Hónghuán w:zh:朱弘桓, son of Zhu Yihai.

The Three Feudatories

Wu Sangui, Shang Kexi, and Geng Jimao, the "Three Feudatories", rebelled against the Kangxi Emperor. They dominated southern China, and Wu declared the "Zhou dynasty". However, their disunity destroyed them. Shang Zhixin and Geng surrendered in 1681 after a massive Qing counteroffensive, in which the Han Green Standard Army played the major role with the Bannermen taking a backseat.

Taiwan

Several Ming dynasty Princes accompanied Koxinga to Taiwan including the Prince of Ningjing Zhu Shugui and Prince Zhu Hónghuán (w:zh:朱弘桓), son of Zhu Yihai.

The Kangxi Emperor, the one who had crushed the Three Feudatories' revolt, began his own campaigns to expand his empire. In 1683 he dispatched Shi Lang with a fleet of 300 ships to take the Ming loyalist Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan in 1683 from the wealthy Zheng family. Koxinga's grandson Zheng Keshuang surrendered and was rewarded by the Qing Emperor with the title "Duke of Haicheng" (海澄公) and he and his soldiers were inducted into the Eight Banners.

The Qing sent the 17 Ming princes still living on Taiwan back to mainland China where they spent the rest of their lives.^[130]

The Qing used Koxinga's former rattan shield troops (藤牌营, Tengpaiying) who were placed in the Eight Banners against Russian Cossacks at Albazin.

Literature and thought

Shitao (1642–1707), who was related to the Ming imperial family, was one of many artists and writers who refused to give their allegiance to the Qing. Art historian Craig Clunas suggests that Shitao used a poem inscribed on this "Self-Portrait Supervising the Planting of Pines" (1674) to allude to the restoration of the Ming dynasty.^[131]

The defeat of the Ming dynasty posed practical and moral problems, especially for literati and officials. Confucian teachings emphasized Loyalty (忠 zhōng), but were good Confucians to be loyal to the fallen Ming or to the new power, the Qing? Some, like the painter Bada Shanren, a descendent of the Ming ruling family, became recluses. Others, like Kong Shangren, who claimed to be a descendent of Confucius, joined the new regime. Kong wrote a poignant drama, The Peach Blossom Fan, which explored the moral decay of the Ming in order to explain its fall. Poets whose lives bridged the transition between Ming poetry and Qing poetry are attracting modern academic interest.^[132] Some of the most important first generation of Qing thinkers were Ming loyalists, at least in their hearts, including Gu Yanwu, Huang Zongxi, and Fang Yizhi. Partly in reaction and to protest the laxity and excess of the late Ming, they turned to evidential learning, which emphasized careful textual study and critical thinking.^[133] Another important group in this transitional period were the "Three Masters of Jiangdong" – Gong Dingzi, Wu Weiye, and Qian Qianyi – who among other things contributed to a revival in the ci form of poetry.^[134]

Emperors, in order to legitimize their rule, encouraged Qing officials and literary figures to organize and appropriate the legacy of Chinese literature, producing anthologies and critical works. They also patronized the development of Manchu literature and the translation of Chinese classics into Manchu. Yet the phrase "defeat the Qing and restore the Ming" became a byword.

Aftermath

Dulimbai Gurun is the Manchu name for China (中國, Zhongguo; "Middle Kingdom").^{[135][136][137]} After conquering the Ming, the Qing identified their state as "China" (Zhongguo), and referred to it as "Dulimbai Gurun" in Manchu. The Qing equated the lands of the Qing state (including present day Manchuria, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Tibet and other areas as "China" in both the Chinese and Manchu languages, defining China as a multi ethnic state, rejecting the idea that China only meant Han areas, proclaiming that both Han and non-Han peoples were part of "China", using "China" to refer to the Qing in official documents, international treaties, and foreign affairs, and the "Chinese language" (Dulimbai gurun i bithe) referred to Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol languages, and the term "Chinese people" (中國人 Zhongguo ren ; Manchu: Dulimbai gurun i niyalma) referred to all Han, Manchus, and Mongol subjects of the Qing.^[138]

The Qing dynasty in 1820.

When the Qing conquered Dzungaria in 1759, they proclaimed that the new land was absorbed into "China" (Dulimbai Gurun) in a Manchu language memorial.^{[139][140][141]} The Qing expounded on their ideology that they were bringing together the "outer" non-Han Chinese like the Inner Mongols, Eastern Mongols, Oirats, and Tibetans together with the "inner" Han Chinese, into "one family" united in the Qing state, showing that the diverse subjects of the Qing were all part of one family, the Qing used the phrase "Zhongwai yijia" (中外一家) or "neiwei yijia" (內外一家, "interior and exterior as one family"), to convey this idea of "unification" of the different peoples.^[142] A Manchu language version of a treaty with the Russian Empire concerning criminal jurisdiction over bandits called people from the Qing as "people of the Central Kingdom (Dulimbai Gurun)".^{[143][144][145][146]} In the Manchu official Tulisen's Manchu language account of his meeting with the Torghut leader Ayuka Khan, it was mentioned that while the Torghuts were unlike the Russians, the "people of the Central Kingdom" (dulimba-i gurun 中國, Zhongguo) were like the Torghuts, and the "people of the Central Kingdom" referred to the Manchus.^[147]

The Kangxi Emperor in the traditional dress of a Manchu warrior.

The Kangxi Emperor used the Zheng family's knowledge of sea warfare to seize the town of Albazin on the Amur River from Russia in 1685, giving the Manchus control of all the area south of the river. By 1689, a peace treaty (Treaty of Nerchinsk) had been successfully signed between the Qing and the Russian court, which would last for about two centuries.

Finally, the Kangxi Emperor gambled on an invasion of the north. Galdan, leader of the Dzungar Khanate, prepared to unite the tribes of Mongolia to restore the Mongol Empire. The Chinese armies of 80,000 led by the Kangxi Emperor himself marched south of Ulaanbaatar to engage the Dzungars. In a brief engagement, the enemy units were pounded by cannon fire and routed. Galdan died one year later.

The Qing conquest of Mongolia completed the Kangxi Emperor's northern expedition. Before the emperor's death in 1722, he expanded his empire as far as the Tibetan capital of Lhasa. His successors campaigned further, taking over areas such as Qinghai and Xinjiang. By the end of the 18th century, the Qing dynasty had reached its largest territorial extent, considered one of the largest empires ever in history. In addition, many neighboring countries, such as Korea and Vietnam, were listed as its tributary states.

In 1725 the Yongzheng Emperor bestowed the hereditary title of Marquis on a descendant of the Ming dynasty Imperial family, Zhu Zhiliang, who received a salary from the Qing government and whose duty was to perform rituals at the Ming tombs, and was also inducted the Chinese Plain White Banner in the Eight Banners. Later the Qianlong Emperor bestowed the title Marquis of Extended Grace posthumously on Zhu Zhuliang in 1750, and the title passed on through twelve generations of Ming descendants until the end of the Qing dynasty.

The Qing dynasty had weakened after the mid-19th century with the growth of Anti-Qing sentiment among the populace, fueled by the idea that the Qing had inhibited Chinese industrialization, causing it to fall severely behind the West. The Wuchang Uprising of 1911 overthrew the Qing, and Puyi, the last reigning Manchu emperor, officially abdicated the following year. The new Chinese Republic was also established in the same year, ending the over two thousand years of imperial rule in Chinese history. In Guangzhou, the national monuments known as "The Muslim's Loyal Trio" are the tombs of Ming loyalist Muslims who were martyred while fighting in battle against the Qing in Guangzhou.^[148]

See also

• Manchuria under Ming rule
• Mongol invasion of China
• Dzungar–Qing War
• Qing dynasty in Inner Asia

Notes

Bibliography