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76-493: Shun dynasty (Li Zicheng) Xi dynasty (Zhang Xianzhong) Kingdom of Shu ( She-An Rebellion ) Evenk - Daur federation Supported by : Zhu Hengjia , Prince of Jingjiang   [REDACTED] Bombogor   [REDACTED] Manchu, Mongol, Han Bannermen Han Green Standard Army defectors (after 1644) Shun dynasty army varies between 60,000 and 100,000 men Zhang Xianzhong's army – 100,000 men 300,000 Yi fighters The transition from Ming to Qing (or simply

152-763: A guardian of the Ming border and a local representative of imperial Ming power. Upon the advice of an Erdeni, most likely a Chinese transfrontiersman, he proclaimed the Later Jin dynasty in 1616, named after the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty that had ruled over northern China several centuries earlier, and declared himself Khan . His efforts to unify Jurchen tribes gave the Jurchen the strength to assert themselves backed by an army consisting of majority Han Chinese defectors as well as Ming produced firearms. In 1618, Nurhaci openly renounced

228-402: A series of crises during the mid-17th century that were at once interrelated and strikingly similar to those occurring in other parts of the world at the same time. Frederic Wakeman argues that the crisis which destroyed the Ming dynasty was partly a result of the climatic change as well as China's already significant involvement in the developing world economy. Bureaucratic dishonesty worsened

304-508: A spate of popular revolts shook the foundations of most states in Europe and Asia. More wars took place around the world in the mid-17th century than in almost any other period of recorded history. The crises spread far beyond Europe; for example Ming China , the most populous state in the world, collapsed. China's Ming dynasty and Japan's Tokugawa shogunate had radically different economic, social, and political systems. However, they experienced

380-744: A term of geographic origin such as a toponym for their hala (clan name). The irregularities over Jurchen and Manchu clan origin led to the Qing trying to document and systemize the creation of histories for Manchu clans, including manufacturing an entire legend around the origin of the Aisin Gioro clan by taking mythology from the northeast. Nurhaci read the Chinese novels Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin , learning all he knew about Chinese military and political strategies from them. In February 1626,

456-705: A tribute of 100 horses, 100 tiger and leopard skins, 400 bolts of cotton, and 15,000 pieces of cloth was to be extracted and gifted to the Jin Khan. King Injo 's brother was sent to deliver this tribute. However, in later letters to the Joseon king, Hong Taiji would complain that the Koreans did not behave as if they had lost, and were not abiding by the terms of the agreement. Joseon merchants and markets continued to trade with Ming and actively aided Ming subjects by providing them with grain and rations. Hong Taiji rebuked them, saying that

532-483: Is complicated and significantly unproven; but Parker claimed that war, climate change and migration are the main factors that contributed to this population crisis. War ravaged Europe for almost the entirety of the century with no major state avoiding war in the 1640s. Some states saw very few years of peace; for example Poland only saw 27 years of peace, the Dutch Republic 14, France 11, and Spain only 3. An example of

608-623: The History of Ming that showed the Jurchens (Manchus) as subservient to the Ming dynasty, to hide their former subservient relationship to the Ming. The Veritable Records of Ming were not used to source the History of Ming because of this. Refusing to mention in the Mingshi that the Qing founders were Ming China's subjects was meant to avoid the accusation of rebellion. Han Chinese generals who defected to

684-591: The Dutch and founded the Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan , a Ming loyalist state with the goal of reunifying China. However, Tungning was defeated in 1683 at the Battle of Penghu by Han Chinese admiral Shi Lang , a former admiral under Koxinga. The Qing victory was overwhelmingly the result of the defection of the Ming dynasty's Liaodong military establishment and other defectors, with

760-695: The Jurchens in 1626, submitting to his rule for protection against the Khalkha Mongols and Chahar Mongols. Seven Khorchin nobles died at the hands of Khalkhas and Chahars in 1625. This started the Khorchin alliance with the Qing . The Chahar Mongols were fought against by Dorgon in 1628 and 1635. An expedition against the Chahar Mongols in 1632 was ordered to establish a trading post at Zhangjiakou . The Qing defeated

836-712: The Kangxi Emperor ascended the throne, 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 (Koxinga) drove out and defeated

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912-661: The Manchus were often given women from the imperial Aisin-Gioro family in marriage . Manchu Aisin-Gioro princesses were also married to Han Chinese officials' sons. The Manchu leader Nurhaci married one of his granddaughters ( Abatai 's daughter) to the Ming general Li Yongfang after he surrendered Fushun in Liaoning to the Manchus in 1618. The offspring of Li Yongfang received the "Third Class Baron" ( 三等子爵 ; sān děng zǐjué ) title. Li Yongfang

988-664: The Maunder Minimum and frequent, large spates of volcanism which acted to drop temperatures enough to cause crop failures in Europe. Crop failures were met with a wave of urban migration that perpetuated unsustainable urban populations and caused in some areas a Malthusian crisis . Although in some areas the early stages of the subsistence crises were not necessarily Malthusian in nature, the result usually followed this model of agricultural deficit in relation to population. Examples which have been given for general crisis and state breakdown during this period include: No consensus on

1064-636: The Ming-Qing transition ) or the Manchu conquest of China from 1618 to 1683 saw the transition between two major dynasties in Chinese history . It was a decades-long conflict between the emerging Qing dynasty , the incumbent Ming dynasty , and several smaller factions (like the Shun dynasty and Xi dynasty ). It ended with the consolidation of Qing rule, and the fall of the Ming and several other factions. The transition from

1140-572: The Pacific coast were subjugated as tributary tribes from 1599 to 1641. By summer 1621, the Ming's Liaodong fortress cities, Fushun , Shenyang , and Liaoyang , were all handed over to the Later Jin by traitors and defectors. Fushun's commander surrendered after a single attack when promised that his troops and their families would not be enslaved or forced to change any of their customs (including hairstyle), but rather given high office. Shenyang fell with

1216-606: The Shun dynasty . The last Ming emperor, the Chongzhen Emperor , hanged himself from the Zuihuai tree in the imperial garden outside the Forbidden City . When Li Zicheng moved against him, the Ming general Wu Sangui shifted his allegiance to the Qing. Li Zicheng was defeated at the Battle of Shanhai Pass by the joint forces of Wu Sangui and Manchu prince Dorgon . On 6 June, the mainly Han Chinese forces of Dorgon and Wu entered

1292-522: The Yuan dynasty as well. Hong Taiji was the eighth son of Nurhaci , whom he succeeded as the second ruler of the Later Jin dynasty in 1626. He organised imperial examinations to recruit scholar-officials from the Han Chinese , and adopted Chinese legal forms. He formed autonomous Han Chinese military colonies governed by Han Chinese officials, where Manchus were forbidden to trespass. Hong Taiji curtailed

1368-593: The "General Crisis" as a framework to explain Mainland Southeast Asia at this same time, failed to properly address the increased political and economic consolidation and high economic growth of the Southeast Asian mainland states (Siam, Burma, Vietnam) during the 17th through 19th centuries, whose trade connections with China have been argued as to have negated any possible effects of the European departure from

1444-457: The 17th century was an era of crisis, although they differed about the nature of this crisis. Today there are scholars who promote the crisis model, arguing it provides an invaluable insight into the warfare, politics, economics, and even art of the seventeenth century. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) focused attention on the massive horrors that wars could bring to entire populations. The 1640s in particular saw more state breakdowns around

1520-519: The French princes leading the Fronde (1648–1653) were horrified by the execution of Charles I in 1649, which they regarded as regicide ; unlike the majority of English rebels , they never became republicans . Victor Lieberman argued in 2003, later corroborated by Geoff Wade and Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit , that Anthony Reid 's "Age of Commerce" Thesis, using Maritime Southeast Asia during

1596-488: The Han Chinese population and he also learned the Manchu language . When Li Yongfang surrendered, he was given much higher status than under the Ming , and even allowed to keep his troops as retainers. Kong Youde , Shang Kexi and Geng Zhongming were also allowed to keep their personal armies. The warlord Shen Zhixiang, who had unlawfully taken over command of his deceased uncle Shen Shikui's troops as his private army,

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1672-909: The Han army ( Liaodong Han Chinese) serving the Qing. Ming officers who defected to the Qing were allowed to retain their previous military rank. The Qing received the defection of Shen Zhixiang in 1638. Among the other Han Chinese officers who defected to the Qing were Ma Guangyuan , Wu Rujie , Zu Dashou , Quan Jie , Geng Zhongming , Zu Zehong , Zu Zepu , Zu Zerun , Deng Changchun , Wang Shixian , Hong Chengchou , Shang Kexi , Liu Wuyuan , Zu Kefa, Zhang Cunren , Meng Qiaofang , Kong Youde , Sun Dingliao . Aristocratic and military ranks, silver, horses and official positions were given to Han Chinese defectors like Zhang Cunren , Sun Dingliao , Liu Wu , Liu Liangchen , Zu Zehong , Zu Zepu , Zu Kufa and Zu Zerun . Han Chinese defectors were primarily responsible for military strategy after 1631. So many Han defected to

1748-635: The Jin army crossed the Taedong River . By this time news of the invasion had reached the Ming court, which immediately dispatched a relief contingent to Joseon, slowing the Jurchen advance into Hwangju . King Injo then dispatched an envoy to negotiate a peace treaty, but by the time the messenger returned, Injo had already fled from Hanseong to Ganghwa Island in panic. The Khorchin Mongols allied with Nurhaci and

1824-468: The Jurchens besieged Ningyuan but suffered a defeat in which Nurhaci was mortally wounded. The Later Jin had lost at the Battle of Ningyuan the previous year and their khan Nurhaci died from his wounds afterwards. Peace negotiations with the Ming after the battle delayed an aggressive Ming response to the Jurchen loss, and the Ming general Yuan Chonghuan was busy fortifying the border garrisons and training new musketeers. The new khan Hong Taiji

1900-531: The Manchu Aisin-Gioro Prince Yolo was wedded to Geng Juzhong , who was another son of Geng Jingmao. Aisin-Gioro women were also offered to Mongols who defected to the Manchus . The Manchu Prince Regent Dorgon gave a Manchu woman as a wife to the Han Chinese official Feng Quan, who had defected from the Ming to the Qing. Feng Quan willingly adopted the Manchu queue hairstyle before it was enforced on

1976-507: The Manchu military playing a very minor role. The Manchus are sometimes described as a nomadic people, when in fact they were not nomads, but a sedentary agricultural people who lived in fixed villages, farmed crops, practiced hunting and mounted archery. Their main military formation was infantry wielding bows and arrows, swords, and pikes, while cavalry was kept in the rear. Manchus were living in cities with walls surrounded by villages and adopting Han Chinese -style agriculture well before

2052-522: The Ming dynasty. They subsequently sailed across Bohai Gulf and defected to the Jurchens en masse. During the mutiny, they purged thousands of Southern Chinese , suspecting them to be loyal to the Ming. Hong Taiji was reluctant to become Emperor of China. However, Han Chinese officials Ning Wanwo ( 寧完我 ), Fan Wencheng , Ma Guozhu ( 馬國柱 ), Zu Kefa ( 祖可法 ), Shen Peirui ( 沈佩瑞 ), and Zhang Wenheng ( 張文衡 ) urged him to declare himself as Emperor of China. On 14 May 1636, he accepted this advice, changing

2128-584: The Ming governor in an attempt to stop Li Zicheng. The Jianzhou Jurchen chief, Nurhaci , is retrospectively identified as the founder of the Qing dynasty . In 1589 the Ming dynasty appointed Nurhaci as paramount chieftain of the Yalu Region , believing that his tribe was too weak to gain hegemony over the larger Yehe and Hada. When the other tribes attacked him to check his power in 1591, he succeeded in defeating them and seized many of their warhorses. During much of his early life Nurhaci considered himself

2204-482: The Ming overlordship and proclaimed his Seven Grievances against the Ming and departed his capital of Hetu Ala with 20,000 men. The army attacked and captured Fushun , located on the Hun River about 10 kilometers east of Shenyang . The Hulun tribes, a powerful confederacy of Jurchen tribes, started recognizing the authority of Nurhaci by the beginning of the 17th century. In some cases, such as with Bujantai of

2280-538: The Ming to Qing was a decades-long period of conflict between: Leading up to the Qing, in 1618, the Later Jin khan Nurhaci commissioned a document entitled the Seven Grievances , which enumerated grievances against the Ming. Nurhaci, leader of the Jianzhou Jurchens , was originally a Ming vassal who officially considered himself a local representative of imperial Ming power, but he broke his relationship with

2356-588: The Ming with the establishment of the Later Jin dynasty in 1616 after he unified Jurchen tribes . Many of the grievances he presented dealt with conflicts against the Ming-backed Yehe clan of the Jurchens . 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 vassal. Shortly afterwards, Nurhaci rebelled against Ming rule in Liaoning . At

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2432-722: The Ming, explaining to other Manchus why he needed to treat the Ming defector general Hong Chengchou leniently. Hong Taiji understood that the Ming would not be easily defeated unless Han Chinese troops wielding musket and cannon were included in the army. Indeed, among the Banners , gunpowder weapons like muskets and artillery were specifically used by the Han Chinese Banners. The Manchus established an artillery corps made out of Han Chinese soldiers in 1641. The use of artillery by Han Bannermen may have led to them being known as "heavy" soldiers (ujen cooha). The " red coat cannon " were part of

2508-453: The Ming, requiring suppression, which was completed in 1629. In the early 1640s, mass rebellions led by many rebel leaders broke out in northwestern China's province of Shaanxi and spread throughout China in the 1640s. Major battles included the sacking of Fengyang by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong and a battle in Kaifeng which led to the deliberately engineered 1642 Yellow River flood by

2584-560: 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 Chinese Bannermen dominating at 75% and Mongol Bannermen making up the rest. It was this multi-ethnic force in which Manchus were only a minority, which unified China for the Qing. The Qing takeover was done by the multi-ethnic Han Chinese Banners, Mongol Banners, and Manchu Banners which made up

2660-525: The Qing conquest of the Ming, and there was an established tradition of Han Chinese-Manchu mixing before 1644. The Han Chinese soldiers on the Liaodong frontier often mixed with non-Han tribesmen and were largely acculturated to their ways. The Jurchen Manchus accepted and assimilated Han soldiers who went over to them, and Han Chinese soldiers from Liaodong often adopted and used Manchu names. Indeed Nurhaci 's secretary Dahai may have been one such individual. In

2736-472: The Qing military. In 1644, Ming China was invaded by an army that had only a fraction of Manchus, being multi-ethnic, with Han Chinese Banners, Mongol Banners, and Manchu Banners. The political barrier was between the commoners made out of non-bannermen Han Chinese and the "conquest elite", made out of Han Chinese bannermen, nobles, and Mongols and Manchu. Ethnicity was not the determining factor. Han Chinese (Nikan) bannermen used banners of black color and Nurhaci

2812-640: The Qing palace, forbidding them from public view, because they showed that the Manchu Aisin-Gioro family had been ruled by the Ming dynasty. In the Ming period, the Koreans of Joseon referred to the Jurchen-inhabited lands north of the Korean peninsula , above the rivers Yalu and Tumen , to be part of Ming China, as the "superior country" (sangguk), the name they used to refer to Ming China. The Qing deliberately excluded references and information from

2888-520: The Ula, chieftains would attempt to reassert their independence and war would break out, but the Jianzhou Jurchens would defeat and assimilate all the tribes eventually (Hada 1601, Hoifa 1607, Ula 1613, Yehe 1619). The powerful Yehe Jurchens under Gintaisi united with the forces of the Ming dynasty to combat the rise of Nurhaci but Gintaisi was defeated and died in 1619. The fur-trapping Warka peoples near

2964-674: The Yongchang Emperor of the Great Shun and left the capital the next day after setting the palace ablaze and ransacking the government offices. He may have intended to resume his Imperial claims later on by proclaiming his accession in the Forbidden City . After the death of the emperor, Shun remnants joined with the Southern Ming in Nanjing , while continuing to refer to Li as their "deceased emperor". The Shun dynasty weakened dramatically after

3040-542: The aid of Mongol Ming soldiers in the city; Liaoyang fell after traitors let down ropes for the Jurchens to climb the wall in the night. The Ming general Li Yongfang who surrendered the city of Fushun in what is now Liaoning province in China's northeast did so after Nurhaci gave him an Aisin Gioro princess in marriage and a noble title. The princess was one of Nurhaci's granddaughters. In April 1625, Nurhaci designated Shenyang

3116-706: The armies of the Mongol khan Ligdan , who was allied to the Ming , bringing an end to his rule over the Northern Yuan . The defeat of Ligdan Khan in 1634, in addition to winning the allegiance of the Southern Mongol hordes, brought a vast supply of horses to the Qing, while denying the same supply to the Ming. The Qing also captured the Great Seal of the Mongol Khans, giving them the opportunity to portray themselves as heirs of

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3192-508: The border towns but Joseon border garrisons were quickly defeated. The Jurchen army advanced into Uiju where Ming general Mao Wenlong was stationed, and Mao quickly fled with his men into the Bohai Sea . Next, the Jurchens attacked Anju . When it became clear that defeat was inevitable, the Anju garrisons committed suicide by blowing up their gunpowder storehouse. Pyongyang fell without a fight and

3268-548: The capital. The fall of the Ming dynasty was largely caused by a combination of factors. Scholars have argued that the fall of the Ming dynasty may have been partially caused by the droughts and famines caused by the Little Ice Age . Historian Kenneth Swope argues that one key factor was deteriorating relations between Ming royalty and the Ming Empire's military leadership . Other factors include repeated military expeditions to

3344-624: The death of Li Zicheng in 1645. The successors, his brother Li Zijing and nephew Li Guo, could not fight back and the dynasty ended in 1649 when Li Guo died in Nanning , Guangxi . After the Shun was created, Li Zicheng ordered the soldiers to kill the Ming remnants still existing in Beijing, resulting in strong rebellions from the forces of the Southern Ming. With the Shun ministers constantly fighting for power,

3420-539: The demands of the rebels did not challenge the legitimacy of the rulers, but sought restoration of customary norms". Upton claimed that very few actually challenged monarchy as an institution, although many nobles preferred a different dynasty with themselves in power (for example, the Portuguese Restoration War (1640–1668) simply sought to replace the House of Habsburg with the House of Braganza ). Almost all of

3496-413: The dynasty effectively lasted less than a year. Yǒngchāng (永昌) 1644–1646 The General Crisis Since the mid-20th century, some scholars have proposed widely different definitions, causes, events, periodisations and geographical applications of a 'General Crisis', disagreeing with each other in debates. Other scholars have rejected the various concepts of a General Crisis altogether, claiming there

3572-636: The fall of the Ming with the General Crisis affecting the Spanish Empire under Philip IV , the English Civil War and other polities. It took almost 40 more years after the fall of the Ming before all of China was securely united under Qing rule. By the mid-1600s, there were eleven emergent regimes which purported to be the authentic Ming. The Qing dated the founding of the dynasty to June 1644 but transitional warfare continued until 1683. In 1661,

3648-446: The food of Joseon should only be fed to Joseon subjects. Shun dynasty The Shun dynasty , officially the Great Shun , also known as Li Shun , was a short-lived dynasty of China that existed during the Ming–Qing transition . The dynasty was founded in Xi'an on 8 February 1644, the first day of the lunar year, by Li Zicheng , the leader of a large peasant rebellion , by proclaiming himself " emperor " ( 皇帝 ) instead of

3724-440: The frontier areas these became increasingly autonomous, and especially in Liaodong , where military service and command became hereditary and vassalage -like personal bonds of loyalty grew between officers, their subordinates and troops. This military caste gravitated toward the Jurchen tribal chieftains rather than the bureaucrats of the capital. The She-An Rebellion among the Yi people broke out in Sichuan in 1621 against

3800-407: The impact of war on demography in Europe is Germany, whose population was reduced by approximately 15% to 30% in the Thirty Years' War . Another factor for the demographic decline in Europe was the spate of climatic events that dramatically affected the food supply and caused major crop failure in the marginal farmland of Europe. During this period there was a drop of 1–2 °C, which coincides with

3876-424: The late Ming dynasty , Ming army units had become dominated by officers who would spend long periods of 10 or 12 years in command instead of the usual practice of constant rotation, and the Central Military Command had lost much of its control over regional armies. Zongdu Junwu , or Supreme Commanders, were appointed throughout the empire to oversee the fiscal and military affairs in the area of their jurisdiction. In

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3952-415: The name of his regime from Jin to Qing, and enthroning himself as Emperor of China in an elaborate Confucian ceremony. Hong Taiji's renaming of the Jurchens to Manchus was meant to hide the fact that the Jianzhou Jurchens were vassals of the Han Chinese . The Qing dynasty carefully hid the two original editions of the books of Qing Taizu Wu Huangdi Shilu and the Manzhou Shilu Tu (Taizu Shilu Tu) in

4028-405: The new capital city, which would hold that status until the Qing conquest of Beijing in 1644. In 1625, the Jurchens captured the port city of Lüshun , thus controlling the whole Liaodong peninsula . When the Jurchens were reorganized by Nurhaci into the Eight Banners , many Manchu clans were artificially created from groups of unrelated people who would found a new Manchu clan ( mukun ) using

4104-407: The new dynasty who would take over the preparation and planning of much of the war. From this episode onward, the transition ceased to be an inter-nation conflict between Chinese and Manchus but rather a civil war between Mukden and Beijing . Meanwhile, in the Ming, the Wuqiao mutiny broke out in 1631, led by Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming . Undersupplied and underpaid soldiers mutinied against

4180-403: 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 throughout the country 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 Qing forces. Other authors have linked

4256-523: The occurrence of a general crisis has been established amongst scholars. Some scholars contend that the arguments in favour of a 'general crisis' in the 17th century do not stand up under scrutiny. For example, Danish historian Niels Steensgaard (1978) pointed out that the Dutch Republic was enjoying an economic expansion – known as the Dutch Golden Age – at the time of the alleged crisis. Anthony F. Upton argued in 2001 that violent popular protests were endemic in European societies, and such violent unrest

4332-439: The permission of their banner company captain if they were unregistered commoners, and it was only later in the dynasty that these policies allowing intermarriage were done away with. The decree was formulated by Prince Dorgon . In the beginning of the Qing dynasty the Qing government supported Han Chinese defectors weddings to Manchu girls. Han Chinese Bannermen wedded Manchus and there was no law against this. The "Dolo efu" rank

4408-465: The power of the Manchu princes by relying on Han Chinese officials. He personally welcomed surrendered Ming commanders, eating side-by-side with them so as to build a rapport that was impossible with the Ming emperors. The Manchus, led by Prince Amin , expressed their displeasure at the situation by massacring the population of Qian'an and Yongping . Hong Taiji responded by arresting and imprisoning Amin, who later died in prison. He then implemented, on

4484-553: The problem. Moreover, the Qing dynasty 's success in dealing with the crisis made it more difficult for it to consider alternative responses when confronted with severe challenges from the West in the 19th century. The General Crisis overlaps fairly neatly with the Little Ice Age whose peak some authorities locate in the 17th century. Of particular interest is the overlap with the Maunder Minimum , El Niño events and an abnormal spate of volcanic activity. Climatologists such as David Rind and Jonathan Overpeck have hypothesised that

4560-430: The problems of 17th-century Europe as being social and economic in origin, an emphasis that Trevor-Roper would not concede. Instead, he theorised that the 'General Crisis' was a crisis of state and society, precipitated by the expansion of bureaucratic offices in the sixteenth century. Unlike the other two, Parker put an emphasis on climate change. Some historians such as Hobsbawm , Trevor-Roper, and Parker, have argued

4636-488: The region during the 17th and 18th centuries, therefore the region experienced a relatively calm 17th century in comparison to contemporary regions. In 2000, Denis Shemilt used the terms " Industrial Revolution " and especially "General Crisis" as examples of historiographical concepts that are easy to teach adolescent schoolchildren, as they can easily make generalisations about seemingly unconnected events when tasked to do so. However, it will be harder for them to challenge

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4712-418: The same time, the Ming dynasty was fighting for its survival against fiscal turmoil and peasant rebellions . Han Chinese officials urged Nurhaci's successor Hong Taiji to crown himself emperor , which he did in 1636, declaring the new Qing dynasty. On 24 April 1644, Beijing fell to a rebel army led by Li Zicheng , a former minor Ming official who became the leader of the peasant revolt and then proclaimed

4788-473: The three events are interlinked. Across the Northern Hemisphere, the mid-17th century experienced almost unprecedented death rates. Geoffrey Parker has suggested that environmental factors may have been in part to blame, especially the global cooling trend of this period. David D. Zhang et al provide a detailed analysis here. During this period there was a significant decline in populations particularly in Europe and China. The cause for this demographic decline

4864-517: The title " king " ( 王 ) before founding the dynasty. The capture of Beijing by the Shun forces in April 1644 marked the end of the Ming dynasty , but Li Zicheng failed to solidify his political and military control, and in late May 1644 he was defeated at the Battle of Shanhai Pass by the joint forces of Ming general Wu Sangui who defected to the Qing dynasty after the fall of the Ming dynasty, with Manchu prince Dorgon . When he fled back to Beijing in early June, Li finally proclaimed himself

4940-428: The urging of his Han Chinese advisors, Chinese-style Confucian education, and Ming-style government ministries. When Zhang Chun, a Ming commander, was captured but refused to defect, Hong Taiji personally served him with food to show his sincerity (Zhang still refused but was kept in a temple until his death). With the surrender of Dalinghe in 1631, the most capable army officers of the Ming became faithful followers of

5016-476: The validity of such a generalised concept once they have been exposed to it, because that requires gathering detailed knowledge of all local events associated with the generalisation, and then judging whether they reasonably match up with it, or "to criticize the General Crisis concept as a category mistake, a promiscuous lumping together of phenomena more different than similar". Therefore, historians need to be careful in constructing such generalised concepts, so that

5092-574: The very large number of Han Chinese soldiers absorbed into the Eight Banners by both capture and defection. 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. From 1618 to 1631 Manchus received Han Chinese defectors and their descendants became Han Bannermen and those killed in battle were commemorated as martyrs in biographies. Hong Taiji recognized that Ming defectors were needed in order to defeat

5168-429: The world than any previous or subsequent period. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , the largest state in Europe, temporarily disappeared . In addition, there were secessions and upheavals in several parts of the Spanish Empire . In Britain there were rebellions in every part of the Stuart monarchy ( Kingdom of England , Kingdom of Scotland , Kingdom of Ireland , and British America ). Political insurgency and

5244-532: Was "generally directed at specific local problems, and did not challenge the legitimacy of the established order". Although protests in the 1630s and 1640s "rose to unusual levels" in some regions, Upton wrote: "Historians have attempted to see in the wave of unrest a 'general crisis', and the debate on this continues. The main factors arguing against linkage are the reality that the disorders remained specific to local circumstances, even where they coincided in time: they did not coalesce into broader movements. Above all,

5320-401: Was arranged by Prince Yoto and Khan Hong Taiji in 1632 to promote harmony between the two ethnic groups. This policy, which began before the invasion of 1644, was continued after it. 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

5396-413: Was eager for a quick victory to consolidate his position as khan. By invading Joseon he also hoped to extract much-needed resources for his army and subjects, who had suffered in the war against the Ming. In 1627, Hong Taiji dispatched princes Amin , Jirgalang , Ajige , and Yoto to Joseon with 30,000 troops, under the guidance of Gang Hong-rip and Li Yongfang . The Jurchens met sharp resistance at

5472-505: Was given to husbands of Qing princesses. Geng Zhongming , a Han Chinese 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 the Shunzhi Emperor and married Aisin-Gioro women, with Prince Abatai 's granddaughter marrying Geng Zhaozhong and Haoge 's (a son of Hong Taiji ) daughter marrying Geng Jingzhong. A daughter of

5548-454: Was guarded by Han Chinese soldiers. Other banners became a minority compared to the Han Chinese (Nikan) Black Banner detachments during Nurhaci's reign. The Later Jin had forced Joseon to open markets near the borders because its conflicts with Ming had brought economic hardship and starvation to Jin subjects. Joseon was also forced to transfer suzerainty of the Warka tribe to Jin. Furthermore,

5624-434: Was no such generalised phenomenon connecting various events due to a lack of linkeages between the events and widely shared commonalities in their character, and that generalised historical concepts such as the 'General Crisis' may be unhelpful in education. There were various controversies regarding the "general crisis" thesis between historians. Some simply denied the existence of any such crisis. For instance, Hobsbawm saw

5700-512: Was the great-great-great-grandfather of Li Shiyao. The 4th daughter of Kangxi was wedded to Sun Cheng'en, son of the Han Chinese Sun Sike. Other Aisin-Gioro women married the sons of the Han Chinese generals Geng Jimao , Shang Kexi , and Wu Sangui . Meanwhile, the ordinary soldiers who defected were often given non-royal Manchu women as wives, and a mass marriage of Han Chinese officers and officials to Manchu women numbering 1,000 couples

5776-403: Was unable to attain recognition from the Ming court. He then proceeded to lead his forces to switch allegiance to the Qing , and they became critical assets to the Qing. There were too few ethnic Manchus to rule China , but they absorbed defeated Mongols , and, more importantly, added Han Chinese to the Eight Banners . The Manchus had to create an entire "Jiu Han jun" (Old Han Army) due to

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