The Four Regents of the Kangxi Emperor were nominated by the Shunzhi Emperor to oversee the government of the Qing dynasty during the early reign of the Kangxi Emperor before he came of age. The four were Sonin , Ebilun , Suksaha , and Oboi .
190-647: The Shunzhi Emperor died in 1661 and was succeeded by his six-year-old son, who was enthroned as the Kangxi Emperor . Before the Shunzhi Emperor died, he appointed four interior ministers – Sonin , Suksaha , Ebilun and Oboi – to assist the Kangxi Emperor as regents. This period of regency in the Qing dynasty was known as the "Four Regents period". The Kangxi Emperor only took full control of
380-572: A Moghul prince who ruled Turfan , had sent an embassy requesting the resumption of trade with China, which had been interrupted by the fall of the Ming dynasty. The mission was sent without solicitation, but the Qing agreed to receive it, allowing it to conduct tribute trade in Beijing and Lanzhou (Gansu). But this agreement was interrupted by a Muslim rebellion that engulfed the northwest in 1646 (see
570-709: 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 ). Proclaiming that they wanted to restore the Ming, they occupied a number of towns in Gansu, including the provincial capital Lanzhou . These rebels' willingness to collaborate with non-Muslim Chinese suggests that they were not only driven by religion. Both Milayin and Ding Guodong were captured and killed by Meng Qiaofang (孟喬芳; 1595–1654) in 1648, and by 1650
760-571: A queue identical to those of the Manchus. The punishment for non-compliance was death. This policy of symbolic submission helped the Manchus in telling friend from foe. For Han officials and literati, however, the new hairstyle was shameful and demeaning (because it breached a common Confucian directive to preserve one's body intact), whereas for common folk cutting their hair was the same as losing their virility . Because it united Chinese of all social backgrounds into resistance against Qing rule,
950-400: A battle after they were given a suspended death sentence it could be lifted. There were also rewards which led to good battlefield performance. There was a dearth of food supply. Families of gentry, Ming princes, soldiers, and officers not engaged in work numbered 300,000 which he had to support with food. 1,500 soldiers in one southern Fujian town put a strain on food supply. They tried to solve
1140-564: A centralized fashion. This brought him at loggerheads with the Longwu Emperor. Famine also struck after drought and corps failed all along the southeastern coastal region. This led to outbreaks of banditry. Ports under Zheng Zhilong's control were running out of raw silk due to the Yangzi river delta under attack by the Qing. The Longwu emperor wanted the take over Huguang and Jiangxi provinces which were major producers of rice to help boost
1330-668: A classic of Chinese literature . The upheaval of this period, sometimes referred to as the Ming–Qing cataclysm , has been linked to a decline in global temperature known as the Little Ice Age . With agriculture devastated by a severe drought, there was manpower available for numerous rebel armies. The fall of the Ming and the Qing conquest that followed was a period of catastrophic war and population decline in China. China experienced
1520-424: A fight on June 8, 1645. A detachment of Qing soldiers then captured the fleeing emperor on June 15, and he was brought back to Nanjing on June 18. The fallen emperor was later transported to Beijing, where he died the following year. The official history , written under Qing sponsorship in the eighteenth century, blames Ma's lack of foresight, his hunger for power and money, and his thirst for private revenge for
1710-614: A lack of righteousness. On April 24, 1644, Li's soldiers breached the walls of the Ming capital Beijing . The Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide the next day to avoid humiliation at their hands. Remnants of the Ming imperial family and some court ministers then sought refuge in the southern part of China and regrouped around Nanjing , the Ming auxiliary capital, south of the Yangtze River . Four different power groups thus emerged: In 1644, Muslim Ming loyalists in Gansu led by Muslim leaders Milayin (米喇印) and Ding Guodong (丁國棟) led
1900-705: A large number of Qing soldiers, but this only enraged those who survived. After the Yangzhou city fell in May 1645, the Manchus started a general massacre pillage and enslaved all the women and children in the notorious Yangzhou massacre . Nanjing was captured by the Qing on June 6 and the Hongguang Emperor was taken to Beijing and executed in 1646. The literati in the provinces responded to the news from Yangzhou and Nanjing with an outpouring of emotion. Some recruited their own militia and became resistance leaders. Shi
2090-571: A monopoly on Chinese silk and sold it at high prices to the Dutch. The Dutch obtained Tonkin silk by allying with the Trinh lords against the Nguyen Lords but it was not of consistent quality. The Dutch Bengal factory found Bengali white silk and started export to Japan in 1655. However the Chinese silk always outsold it and Koxinga's revenue was more than half of the 708,564 taels worth of products
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#17327662944072280-540: A navy because of a lack of money and time. The Shunzhi emperor was more open to negotiations after regent Dorgon died in 1652. A ceasefire was issued by Shunzhi in 1653 after negotiations were started. He then sent Koxinga edicts. The Qing used Zheng Zhilong to send messages to his son and monitored the communications during negotiations. Koxinga rejected offers by the Qin, saying to his father "since my father has erred in front, how can I follow your footsteps?" The Qing offered him
2470-402: A one-week siege. Dorgon's brother Prince Dodo then ordered the slaughter of Yangzhou's entire population . As intended, this massacre terrorized other Jiangnan cities into surrendering to the Qing. Indeed, Nanjing surrendered without a fight on 16 June after its last defenders had made Dodo promise he would not hurt the population. The Qing soon captured the Ming emperor (who died in Beijing
2660-415: A peace agreement was agreed on in 1649, and Milayan and Ding nominally pledged allegiance to the Qing and were given ranks as members of the Qing military. When other Ming loyalists in southern China made a resurgence and the Qing were forced to withdraw their forces from Gansu to fight them, Milayan and Ding once again took up arms and rebelled against the Qing. The Muslim Ming loyalists were then crushed by
2850-489: A period of extremely cold weather from the 1620s until the 1710s. Some modern scholars link the worldwide drop in temperature at this time to the Maunder Minimum , an extended period from 1645 to 1715 when sunspots were absent. Whatever the cause, the change in the climate reduced agricultural yields and cut state revenue. It also led to drought, which displaced many peasants. There were a series of peasant revolts in
3040-608: A permit from Koxinga. Chinese merchants at ports overseas paid fees and bough licenses from his agents. There were some ships outside of his control like northern Chinese ships, Chinese, Macanese, and Portuguese in Macao, and Guangzhou based ships of Geng Jimao and Shang Kexi, feudatories of the Qing. The Japanese market and East Asian trade saw a struggle between the Dutch East India Company and Zheng organization. Japanese merchants were allowed to buy silk directly after
3230-435: A plan to defeat the Chinese pirates by sending more than 300 girls who were beautiful singing girls and prostitutes with red handkerchiefs to go to the Chinese pirate junks on small boats. The Chinese pirates and northern Vietnamese (Tonkinese) girls had sex but the women then wet the gun barrels of the pirates ships with their handkerchiefs which they got wet. They then left in the same boats. The Trinh Lords navy then attacked
3420-511: A reprimand for his accepting bribes did not reassure the Manchu elite, which saw eunuch power as a degradation of Manchu power. The Thirteen Offices would be eliminated (and Wu Liangfu executed) by Oboi and the other regents of the Kangxi Emperor in March 1661 soon after the Shunzhi Emperor's death. In 1646, when Qing armies led by Bolo had entered the city of Fuzhou, they had found envoys from
3610-463: A resurgence of Ming loyalist resistance, but by 1661 his armies had defeated the Qing's last enemies, Koxinga and the Prince of Gui , both of whom would succumb the following year. The Shunzhi Emperor died at the age of 22 of smallpox , a highly contagious disease that was endemic in China, but against which the Manchus had no immunity . He was succeeded by his third son who assumed the throne as
3800-454: A revolt in 1646 against the Qing during the Milayin rebellion in order to drive the Qing out and restore Zhu Shichuan, Prince of Yanchang to the throne as the emperor. The Muslim Ming loyalists were supported by Hami's Sultan Sa'id Baba (巴拜汗) and his son Turumtay (土倫泰). The Muslim Ming loyalists were joined by Tibetans and Han Chinese in the revolt. After fierce fighting, and negotiations,
3990-616: A scene of this visit carved in the Potala Palace in Lhasa , which he had started building in 1645. Meanwhile, north of the Manchu homeland, adventurers Vassili Poyarkov (1643–46) and Yerofei Khabarov (1649–53) had started to explore the Amur River valley for Tzarist Russia . In 1653 Khabarov was recalled to Moscow and replaced by Onufriy Stepanov , who assumed command of Khabarov's Cossack troops. Stepanov went south into
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#17327662944074180-506: A ship in 1651 for violating orders. Shi Lang defected to the Qing after breaking out of the ship. Shi Lang's family was then executed by Koxinga. Koxinga then started the build up his organization and strengthening it and going through formal rituals to pay allegiance to the Yongli Emperor. Koxinga's underlings were people who used to work for his father and his family. They were very experienced at trading and sailing and familiar with
4370-443: A united bloc of Chinese merchants under one leader. They served to balance against the Dutch. The Tokugawa bakufu gave asylum to Ming refugees, and allowed into Nagasaki to trade "only those Chinese merchants under anti-[Qing] auspices" after the Manchu invasion since the majority of Japanese were pro-Ming and supported Koxinga. A fake uncle-nephew protocol was used by Ietsuna according to Chinese accounts with Koxinga. Xiamen received
4560-483: A young northern Chinese who was fluent in Manchu. The "Six Edicts" ( Liu yu 六諭) that the Shunzhi Emperor promulgated in 1652 were the predecessors to the Kangxi Emperor's " Sacred Edicts " (1670): "bare bones of Confucian orthodoxy" that instructed the population to behave in a filial and law-abiding fashion. In another move toward Chinese-style government, the sovereign reestablished the Hanlin Academy and
4750-467: 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. 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 . The last sovereign of
4940-606: The Eight Banners . In 1629 he led an incursion to the outskirts of Beijing, during which he captured Chinese craftsmen who knew how to cast Portuguese cannon. In 1635 Hong Taiji renamed the Jurchens the " Manchus ", and in 1636 changed the name of his polity from "Later Jin" to " Qing ". After capturing the last remaining Ming cities in Liaodong, by 1643 the Qing were preparing to attack the struggling Ming dynasty, which
5130-605: The Grand Secretariat in 1658. These two institutions based on Ming models further eroded the power of the Manchu elite and threatened to revive the extremes of literati politics that had plagued the late Ming, when factions coalesced around rival grand secretaries. To counteract the power of the Imperial Household Department and the Manchu nobility, in July 1653 the Shunzhi Emperor established
5320-500: The Hanlin Academy , and limited membership in the Deliberative Council of Princes and Ministers to Manchus and Mongols. The regents also adopted aggressive policies toward the Qing's Chinese subjects: they executed dozens of people and punished thousands of others in the wealthy Jiangnan region for literary dissent and tax arrears, and forced the coastal population of southeast China to move inland in order to starve
5510-551: The Holy Roman Empire , for guidance on matters ranging from astronomy and technology to religion and government. In late 1644, Dorgon had put Schall in charge of preparing a new calendar because his eclipse predictions had proven more reliable than those of the official astronomer . After Dorgon's death Schall developed a personal relationship with the young emperor, who called him "grandfather" ( mafa in Manchu). At
5700-533: The Kangxi Emperor and went on to reign for sixty years. Because fewer documents have survived from the Shunzhi era than from later eras of the Qing dynasty, this era is a relatively little-known period of Qing history. In the 1580s, when China was ruled by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), a number of Jurchen tribes lived in Manchuria . In a series of campaigns from the 1580s to the 1610s, Nurhaci (1559–1626),
5890-653: The Manchu language ), both to distinguish his family from other Gioro lines and to allude to an earlier dynasty that had been founded by Jurchens, the Jin ("golden") dynasty that had ruled northern China from 1115 to 1234. In 1616 Nurhaci formally announced the foundation of the "Later Jin" dynasty , effectively declaring his independence from the Ming. Over the next few years he wrested most major cities in Liaodong from Ming control. His string of victories ended in February 1626 at
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6080-494: The Qiantang River and proceeded to Fujian from a land route that went through northeastern Jiangxi and mountainous areas in northern Fujian. Protected by General Zheng Hongkui, on July 10 he proclaimed his intention to become regent of the Ming dynasty, a title that he formally received on July 29, a few days after reaching Fuzhou . He was enthroned as emperor on August 18, 1645. Most Nanjing officials had surrendered to
6270-560: The Qing banners , in hope of using them to annihilate the Shun forces. Ming loyalists fled to Nanjing , where they enthroned Zhu Yousong as the Hongguang Emperor, marking the start of the Southern Ming. The Nanjing regime lasted until 1645, when Qing forces captured Nanjing. Zhu fled before the city fell, but was captured and executed shortly thereafter. Later figures continued to hold court in various southern Chinese cities, although
6460-466: The Qing conquest , but had now become entrenched rulers of enormous domains in southern China. The civil war (1673–1681) tested the loyalty of the new Qing subjects, but Qing armies eventually prevailed. Once victory had become certain, a special examination for "eminent scholars of broad learning" ( Boxue hongru 博學鴻儒) was held in 1679 to attract Chinese literati who had refused to serve the new dynasty. The successful candidates were assigned to compile
6650-749: The Ryūkyū Kingdom , Annam , and the Spanish in Manila . These tributary embassies that had come to see the now fallen Longwu Emperor of the Southern Ming were forwarded to Beijing, and eventually sent home with instructions about submitting to the Qing. The King of the Ryūkyū Islands sent his first tribute mission to the Qing in 1649, Siam in 1652, and Annam in 1661, after the last remnants of Ming resistance had been removed from Yunnan , which bordered Annam. Also in 1646 sultan Abu al-Muhammad Haiji Khan ,
6840-630: The Sungari River , along which he exacted " yasak " (fur tribute) from native populations such as the Daur and the Duchers , but these groups resisted because they were already paying tribute to the Shunzhi Emperor ("Shamshakan" in Russian sources). In 1654 Stepanov defeated a small Manchu force that had been despatched from Ningguta to investigate Russian advances. In 1655 another Qing commander,
7030-586: The Taiwan -based Kingdom of Tungning run by descendants of Koxinga . After the Kangxi Emperor managed to imprison Oboi in 1669, he reverted many of the regents' policies. He restored institutions his father had favored, including the Grand Secretariat , through which Chinese officials gained an important voice in government. He also defeated the rebellion of the Three Feudatories , three Chinese military commanders who had played key military roles in
7220-480: The Toungoo dynasty . The last sovereign of the Southern Ming stayed there until 1662, when he was captured and executed by Wu Sangui , whose surrender to the Qing in April 1644 had allowed Dorgon to start the Qing conquest of Ming . In the late summer of 1664, Li Lai-heng and his remaining followers were surrounded on one of these mountains. Unable to escape, Li gave orders to build a fire and then threw himself into
7410-474: The civil examinations for selecting government officials be reestablished. From then on they were held regularly every three years as under the Ming. In the very first palace examination held under Qing rule in 1646, candidates, most of whom were northern Chinese, were asked how the Manchus and Han Chinese could be made to work together for a common purpose. The 1649 examination inquired about "how Manchus and Han Chinese could be unified so that their hearts were
7600-624: The era names of Shaowu ( 紹武 ) and Yongli . Short of official costumes, the Shaowu court had to purchase robes from local theater troops. The two Ming regimes fought each other until 20 January 1647, when a small Qing force led by Li Chengdong captured Guangzhou, killed the Shaowu Emperor, and sent the Yongli court fleeing to Nanning in Guangxi . In May 1648, however, Li mutinied against
7790-475: The official history of the fallen Ming dynasty. The rebellion was defeated in 1681, the same year the Kangxi Emperor initiated the use of variolation to inoculate children of the imperial family against smallpox. When the Kingdom of Tungning finally fell in 1683, the military consolidation of the Qing regime was complete. The institutional foundation laid by Dorgon, and the Shunzhi and Kangxi emperors allowed
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7980-533: The siege of Ningyuan , where Ming commander Yuan Chonghuan defeated him with the help of recently acquired Portuguese cannon . Probably wounded during the battle, Nurhaci died a few months later. Nurhaci's son and successor Hong Taiji (1592–1643) continued his father's state-building efforts: he concentrated power into his own hands, modeled the Later Jin's government institutions on Chinese ones, and integrated Mongol allies and surrendered Chinese troops into
8170-478: The " Longwu Emperor " Zhu Yujian, Prince of Tang—a ninth-generation descendant of Ming founder Zhu Yuanzhang —and one in Zhejiang around "Regent" Zhu Yihai , Prince of Lu. But the two loyalist groups failed to cooperate, making their chances of success even lower than they already were. In July 1646, a new Southern Campaign led by Prince Bolo sent Prince Lu's Zhejiang court into disarray and proceeded to attack
8360-643: The "Righteous Emperor" ( yi huangdi 義皇帝). On the same day of mid-January 1651, however, several officers of the White Banners led by former Dorgon supporter Ubai arrested Dorgon's brother Ajige for fear he would proclaim himself as the new regent; Ubai and his officers then named themselves presidents of several Ministries and prepared to take charge of the government. Meanwhile, Jirgalang , who had been stripped of his title of regent in 1647, gathered support among Banner officers who had been disgruntled during Dorgon's rule. In order to consolidate support for
8550-553: The "barbarian" (Japanese) custom. This may have referred to sepukku. Koxinga referred to the queue order, saying "no person, wise or stupid, is willing to become a slave with a head that looks like a fly" and he wanted revenge against the Qing for the death of his mother. Koxinga was conflicted by filial piety and loyalty but never allowed himself to be used and used others. He gained control over thousands of men after originally having only 300. Koxinga's uncles Zheng Zhiwan and Zheng Hongkui pledged allegiance to him and his revenue came from
8740-464: The "hair cutting command" of 1645, which forced all Qing male subjects to shave their forehead and braid their remaining hair into a queue resembling that of the Manchus . After Dorgon's death on the last day of 1650, the young Shunzhi Emperor started to rule personally. He tried, with mixed success, to fight corruption and to reduce the political influence of the Manchu nobility. In the 1650s, he faced
8930-561: The Banner officers who gave Jirgalang their support, and Jirgalang appointed them to the Council of Deliberative Princes to reward them. On 1 February, Jirgalang announced that the Shunzhi Emperor, who was about to turn thirteen, would now assume full imperial authority. The regency was thus officially abolished. Jirgalang then moved to the attack. In late February or early March 1651 he accused Dorgon of usurping imperial prerogatives: Dorgon
9120-527: The Chinese pirate fleet which was unable to fire back with their wet guns. The Chinese pirate fleet, originally 206 junks, was reduced to 50–80 junks by the time it reached South Vietnam 's Quang Nam and the Mekong delta . The Chinese pirates having sex with north Vietnamese women may also have transmitted a deadly epidemic from China which ravaged the Tonkin regime of north Vietnam. French and Chinese sources say
9310-611: The Dongli firm while leader of the revenue office after 1657 and his predecessors Hong Xu had the Xuyuan firm. Thousands of silver taels annually were gained through trade by Chen Yonghua. Koxinga also employed official merchants who worked for him like Zheng Tai, an adopted son of his family. Travel distance and vessel size were factors in the price of Koxinga's permits which he sold to people who wanted to engage in overseas commerce like when Zheng Zhilong ruled. Private loans ere given out by
9500-656: The Dutch ship Urk was blown to Kyushu in Japan by a storm. The Chinese sprang out and filed a case at the magistrates in Nagasaki on 23 August to the bakufu in Edo. They won the case and Japan threatened to kick out the Dutch if they attacked Japan bound junks and forced the Dutch to pay compensation to Chen. A silver tael payment of 20,000 was ordered by Japan to be paid to Chen by the Dutch in 1661. The Revenue Officer in Xiamen after 1657
9690-785: The Dutch sold in Japan annually. Dutch Taiwan exchanged silver for gold from China brought by Zheng junks. Cloth and silk from India were bought with this gold by the Dutch. Spanish Manila used American silver to buy porcelain and silk from the Zheng which were taken to the Americas and the Philippines. Dutch were not allowed to trade in Manila. The Zheng sent the silver to China or to buy products in Taiwan, Philippines, Southeast Asian islands, Vietnam, Cambodian and Siam. Timber and rice were bought by
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#17327662944079880-597: The European rulers of the colonies and Koxinga. The Revenue Office received reports from the family and patronage networks which synthesized them with the traditional bureaucracy of China. Koxinga created an economic unity of Chinese in Southeast Asia, Japan, and in the Qing. His five sea firms used its navy to escort merchants who bought his permits to avoid Dutch attacks on their ships. In China their relatives would be punished and fined if they were trading without
10070-557: The Forbidden City at the age of twenty-two. The Manchus feared smallpox more than any other disease because they had no immunity to it and almost always died when they contracted it. By 1622 at the latest, they had already established an agency to investigate smallpox cases and isolate sufferers to avoid contagion . During outbreaks, royal family members were routinely sent to "smallpox avoidance centers" ( bidousuo 避痘所) to protect themselves from infection. The Shunzhi Emperor
10260-679: The Longwu regime in Fujian. Zhu Yujian was caught and summarily executed in Tingzhou (western Fujian) on 6 October. His adoptive son Koxinga fled to the island of Taiwan with his fleet. Finally in November, the remaining centers of Ming resistance in Jiangxi province fell to the Qing. In late 1646 two more Southern Ming monarchs emerged in the southern province of Guangzhou , reigning under
10450-546: The Manchu 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. Only later in the dynasty were these policies allowing intermarriage rescinded. Under the reign of Dorgon—whom historians have variously called "the mastermind of the Qing conquest" and "the principal architect of
10640-399: The Manchu prince to seize this opportunity to present themselves as avengers of the fallen Ming and to claim the Mandate of Heaven for the Qing. The last obstacle between Dorgon and Beijing was Ming general Wu Sangui , who was garrisoned at Shanhai Pass at the eastern end of the Great Wall . Himself caught between the Manchus and Li Zicheng's forces, Wu requested Dorgon's help in ousting
10830-408: The Ming had no prime minister. So when a young ruler retreated to the inner court to enjoy the company of his concubines, power devolved to the eunuchs . Only the eunuchs had access to the inner court, but the eunuch cliques were distrusted by the officials who were expected to carry out the emperor's decrees. Officials educated at the Donglin Academy were known for accusing the eunuchs and others of
11020-530: The Ming throne (including descendants of the last Ming emperor) should be executed along with their supporters. On 7 June, just two days after entering the city, Dorgon issued special proclamations to officials around the capital, assuring them that if the local population accepted to shave their forehead, wear a queue, and surrender, the officials would be allowed to stay at their post. He had to repeal this command three weeks later after several peasant rebellions erupted around Beijing, threatening Qing control over
11210-524: The Ming. Samurai and daimyo were to be subjected to full scale mobilization and attack routes along the coast of China were planned by the Tokugawa shogunate. It was the Qing take over of Fuzhou in 1646 which caused the plans to be cancelled. Further requests came between 1645 and 1692. Food and financial shortage led to abandonment of the Jiangxi-Fujian and Zhejiang-Fujian mountain passes by Zheng Zhilong because he could not afford to pay salaries or feed his soldiers all over Fujian. His soldiers were sent to guard
11400-432: The Mongol Minggadari (d. 1669), defeated Stepanov's forces at fort Kumarsk on the Amur, but this was not enough to chase the Russians. In 1658, however, Manchu general Šarhūda (1599–1659) attacked Stepanov with a fleet of 40 or more ships that managed to kill or capture most Russians. This Qing victory temporarily cleared the Amur valley of Cossack bands, but Sino-Russian border conflicts would continue until 1689, when
11590-400: The Muslim rebels had been crushed in campaigns that inflicted heavy casualties. Dorgon's unexpected death on 31 December 1650 during a hunting trip triggered a period of fierce factional struggles and opened the way for deep political reforms. Because Dorgon's supporters were still influential at court, Dorgon was given an imperial funeral and was posthumously elevated to imperial status as
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#173276629440711780-537: The Prince of Lu gave up his titles under Koxinga's pressure. Koxinga sent him to Penghu and did not reinstate his titles in 1659 when the Yongli emperor ordered that they be. The Tingzhou Hakka Liu Guoxuan, former Zhangzhou vice-garrison commander for the Qing, and the former Taizhou military commander for the Qing, northern Chinese Ma Xin defected to Koxinga's side. They rose to high ranks under Koxinga over his own Minnanese people because Koxinga held all power over them since they had no local base because they could not speak
11970-472: The Princes of Gui and Tang in exchange for tax exemption, more land around Macao and conversions to Catholicism. The Empress dowager, the two Empresses and the crown prince converted to Catholicism, and the Jesuit missionaries carried letters to the Pope and the Portuguese asking for aid. Li Chengdong suppressed more loyalist resistance in Guangdong in 1647, but mutinied against the Qing in May 1648 because he resented having been named only regional commander of
12160-408: The Qing considered them to be pretenders. The Nanjing regime lacked the resources to pay and supply its soldiers, who were left to live off the land and pillaged the countryside. The soldiers' behavior was so notorious that they were refused entry by those cities in a position to do so. Court official Shi Kefa obtained modern cannons and organized resistance at Yangzhou . The cannons mowed down
12350-503: The Qing dynasty in 1683 and was rewarded by the Kangxi Emperor with the title Duke of Hanjun 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. Zheng Zhilong wrote "Grand Strategy for ordering the country". He argued that for the Southern Ming to retake the country, they should do it through regional military commanders all across China's provinces and not in
12540-418: The Qing forces alongside the peasant armies in southwestern China prior to his capture in Myanmar in 1662. The Prince of Ningjing , in the Kingdom of Tungning (based in present-day Tainan , Taiwan ) claimed to be the rightful successor to the throne of Ming until 1683, although he lacked real political power. The end of the Ming and the subsequent Nanjing regime are depicted in The Peach Blossom Fan ,
12730-401: The Qing sovereign to Christianity was crushed when the Shunzhi Emperor became a devout follower of Chan Buddhism in 1657. The emperor developed a good command of Chinese that allowed him to manage matters of state and to appreciate Chinese arts such as calligraphy and drama. One of his favorite texts was "Rhapsody of a Myriad Sorrows" ( Wan chou qu 萬愁曲), by Gui Zhuang (歸莊; 1613–1673), who
12920-406: The Qing to erect an imperial edifice of awesome proportion and to turn it into "one of the most successful imperial states the world has known." Ironically, however, the prolonged Pax Manchurica that followed the Kangxi consolidation made the Qing unprepared to face aggressive European powers with modern weaponry in the nineteenth century. Although only nineteen imperial consorts are recorded for
13110-444: The Qing with 100,000 of them, including Milayin, Ding Guodong, and Turumtay killed in battle. The Confucian Hui Muslim scholar Ma Zhu (1640–1710) served with the Southern Ming loyalists against the Qing. Zhu Yu'ai, Prince of Gui was accompanied by Hui refugees when he fled from Huguang to the Burmese border in Yunnan and as a mark of their defiance against the Qing and loyalty to the Ming, they changed their surname to "Ming". When
13300-457: The Qing, and the concurrent rebellion of another former Ming general in Jiangxi helped Yongli to retake most of south China. 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. The Yongli emperor had to flee again. Finally on 24 November 1650, Qing forces led by Shang Kexi captured Guangzhou and massacred
13490-400: The Qing, but some followed the Prince of Tang in his flight to Fuzhou. In Fuzhou, the Prince of Tang was under the protection of Zheng Zhilong , a Chinese sea trader with exceptional organizational skills who had surrendered to the Ming in 1628 and recently been made an earl by the Hongguang emperor. Zheng Zhilong and his Japanese wife Tagawa Matsu had a son, Zheng Sen . The pretender, who
13680-738: The Qing. The Ming regarded there to be two oceans, the Western Ocean and Eastern Ocean. Koxinga's firms had a fleet for each ocean made out of 60 ships, 12 junks per the 5 firms. Southeast Asia, Cambodia, Batavia, and Siam were traded with the Western Ocean Fleet, and Philippines, Dutch Taiwan, and Japan were traded with the Eastern Ocean Fleet. The junks operated in defensive quads of five or four and had cannons for defense. They two different fleets sometimes overlapped when going back. Koxinga's relative Zheng Tai owned
13870-682: The Qing. To prepare for the arrival of this " living Buddha ," the Shunzhi Emperor ordered the building of the White Dagoba ( baita 白塔) on an island on one of the imperial lakes northwest of the Forbidden City, at the former site of Qubilai Khan 's palace. After more invitations and diplomatic exchanges to decide where the Tibetan leader would meet the Qing emperor, the Dalai Lama arrived in Beijing in January 1653. The Dalai Lama later had
14060-512: The Satsuma and Mito domains. 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, proclaiming the era of Shaowu (紹武) on 11 December 1646. Short of official costumes, the court had to purchase robes from local theater troupes. On 24 December, Zhu Youlang, Prince of Gui established
14250-454: The Shunzhi Emperor had really named these four Manchu nobles as regents, because they and Empress Dowager Zhaosheng clearly tampered with the emperor's testament before promulgating it. The emperor's will expressed his regret about his Chinese-style ruling (his reliance on eunuchs and his favoritism toward Chinese officials), his neglect of Manchu nobles and traditions, and his headstrong devotion to his consort rather than to his mother. Though
14440-491: The Shunzhi Emperor had supposedly expressed regret for abandoning Manchu traditions gave authority to the nativist policies of the Kangxi Emperor's four regents . Citing the testament, Oboi and the other regents quickly abolished the Thirteen Eunuch Bureaus. Over the next few years, they enhanced the power of the Imperial Household Department , which was run by Manchus and their bondservants , eliminated
14630-540: The Shunzhi Emperor in the Aisin-Gioro genealogy made by the Imperial Clan Court , burial records show that he had at least thirty-two of them. There were two empresses in his reign, both relatives of his mother. He had a total of fourteen children, but only four sons (Fuquan, Xuanye, Changning, and Longxi) and one daughter (Princess Gongque) lived to be old enough to marry. Unlike later Qing emperors,
14820-478: The Shunzhi Emperor was enthroned as emperor of China in Beijing . From 1643 to 1650, political power lay mostly in the hands of the prince regent Dorgon. Under his leadership, the Qing conquered most of the territory of the fallen Ming dynasty , chased Ming loyalist regimes deep into the southwestern provinces, and established the basis of Qing rule over China proper despite highly unpopular policies such as
15010-482: The Shunzhi Emperor 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 . When the emperor heard of this sudden attack he is said to have slashed his throne with a sword in anger. But the siege of Nanjing
15200-554: The Shunzhi Emperor's six daughters died in infancy or childhood, they all appear in the Aisin-Gioro genealogy. Empress Southern Ming The Southern Ming ( Chinese : 南明 ; pinyin : Nán Míng ), also known in historiography as the Later Ming ( simplified Chinese : 后明 ; traditional Chinese : 後明 ; pinyin : Hòu Míng ), officially the Great Ming (Chinese: 大明 ; pinyin: Dà Míng ),
15390-409: The Southern Ming stayed there until 1662, when he was captured and executed by Wu Sangui, the former Ming general whose surrender to the Manchus in April 1644 had allowed Dorgon to start the Qing conquest of China . 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. In 1659, just as
15580-606: The Southern Ming, retook Guilin (Guangxi province) from the Qing. Within a month, most of the commanders who had been supporting the Qing in Guangxi reverted to the Ming side. Despite occasionally successful military campaigns in Huguang and Guangdong in the next two years, Li failed to retake important cities. In 1653, the Qing court put Hong Chengchou in charge of retaking the southwest. Headquartered in Changsha (in what
15770-516: The Tartars to pacify the bandits," that is, to seek cooperation with Qing military forces in order to annihilate rebel peasant militia led by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong . Because Ma was the emperor's main supporter, he started to monopolize the royal court's administration by reviving the functions of the remaining eunuchs. This resulted in rampant corruptions and illegal dealings. Moreover, Ma engaged in intense political bickering with Shi, who
15960-710: The Thirteen Offices ( 十三衙門 ), or Thirteen Eunuch Bureaus, which were supervised by Manchus, but manned by Chinese eunuchs rather than Manchu bondservants . Eunuchs had been kept under tight control during Dorgon's regency, but the young emperor used them to counter the influence of other power centers such as his mother the Empress Dowager and former regent Jirgalang. By the late 1650s eunuch power became formidable again: they handled key financial and political matters, offered advice on official appointments, and even composed edicts. Because eunuchs isolated
16150-529: The Tokugawa Bakufu on how his son Koxinga rose through the ranks of the Ming military and asked for ten slaves and ...... in waiting and Shichizaemon to be allowed to come to China from Japan to help take care of his wife Tagawa Matsu. Although the requests were rejected officially by the bakufu, a lot of Japanese in the Tokugawa government privately supported going to war against the Manchus and support
16340-821: The Warehouse for Nourishing the Country. In Qing areas there were branch offices conducting trade for Koxinga's five Mountain Firms. One branch office was in Beijing, and Nanjing and Suzhou had the other three which were run by assistant managers, reporting to Zeng Dinglao, chief manager at its Hangzhou headquarters. They pretended to be normal stores which trading foreign products and sending to Xiamen porcelain and silk while in Qing controlled areas. Zheng organization used gold plated bronze talleys and flag tokens for its spies, using both Buddhist monks and merchants in these firms for its spying activities. They reported on army movements by
16530-558: The Western Sea Fleet and Eastern Sea Fleet reported to the five sea firms, trust, wisdom, propriety, righteousness, benevolence, reporting to the five mountain firms, earth, fire, water, wood, gold, reporting to the warehouse for nourishing the country, which reported to the Celestial Pier (Koxinga himself) or his generals and relatives who reported to the revenue office. Pass system was under the warehouse for benefiting
16720-729: The Xiamen Warehouse for Benefiting the People. The five Sea Firms lent out ships for rent and Zheng agents also provided cargo space on their ships for a fee to private merchants. Japan bound Zheng Tai's dongli vessels also carried Celestial Pier products from Koxinga. Private businesses were also engaged in by official merchants. There was a major Southeast Asia and Japan based diaspora of Chinese with Ming loyalists and traders among them. There were official representatives of Koxinga, agents, and private traders among them. They sold permits and bought products for Koxinga and communicated between
16910-427: The Yongli (永曆) regime in the same vicinity. The two Ming regimes fought each other until 20 January 1647, when a small Qing force led by former Southern Ming commander Li Chengdong (李成棟) captured Guangzhou, causing the Shaowu Emperor to commit suicide, and sending the Yongli emperor fleeing to Nanning in Guangxi . The Portuguese in Macao provided military aid in the form of cannons to the two courts established by
17100-463: The Yongli Emperor was the Zheng's overlord the Zheng organization itself could have equal diplomatic relations unlike the Ming with its tributary system placing itself at the top. Enemy states were treated as vassals as an insult by Koxinga in preparation for war. The Tokugawa Shogun Ietsuna received a diplomatic message of congratulations from Koxinga in 1651. The Zheng organization allied with Shogun Ietsuna. They were familiar with Japanese rules and were
17290-452: The Yongli Emperor, Prince Zhu Youlang. Koxinga's goals were a Ming dynasty retaking control over China with himself as an autonomous feudal lord in control of Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Fujian on the coastal southeastern area. This may have been similar to the Tokugawa bakufu which controlled Japan while the emperor reigned and he was referred to as a feudatory by his followers and himself with the title "Generalissimo Who Summons and Quells" which
17480-525: The Zhejiang regime of Prince Lu into disarray and proceeded to attack the Longwu regime in Fujian. Zheng Zhilong, the Longwu emperor's main military defender, fled to the coast. On the pretext of relieving the siege of Ganzhou in southern Jiangxi, the Longwu court left their base in northeastern Fujian in late September 1646, but the Qing army caught up with them. Longwu and his empress were summarily executed in Tingzhou (western Fujian) on 6 October. After
17670-457: The Zheng and so were rhinoceros horns, ivory, and sappanwood to be brought to Japan and China, while deerskins, spices, pepper, and sugar were bought by both the Dutch and Zheng. The Western Ocean received 20 or 16 vessels by the Zheng each year. Violent Dutch efforts to try to undercut Zheng's organization were countered by Koxinga with alliances and diplomacy. The violence of the VOC was dampened by
17860-539: The Zheng network from Dutch violence through its law. Japanese Nagasaki magistrates received cases involving Dutch attacks on Koxinga ships, with Koxinga receiving help from his brother Shichizaemon in filing the cases. At the Malay peninsula around Johor, Chen Zhenguan, a Zheng agent whose junk was headed to Japan, was attacked by several Dutch ships in June 1657. The Dutch were heading for Taiwan with Chen's crew as prisoners but
18050-430: The anti-Qing resistance. A separate command chain was kept by Zhang Huangyan and Zhang Mingzhen and the military men and merchants were looked down upon by the elites. There were regional rivalries between Koxinga's Minnan followers and the Zhejiang followers of the two Zhangs. The Prince of Lu was also treated as their real ruler by the Zhejiang gentry leaders while Yongli was officially regarded as their emperor. In 1652
18240-470: The bandits and restoring the Ming. When Dorgon asked Wu to work for the Qing instead, Wu had little choice but to accept. Aided by Wu Sangui's elite soldiers, who fought the rebel army for hours before Dorgon finally chose to intervene with his cavalry, the Qing won a decisive victory against Li Zicheng at the Battle of Shanhai Pass on 27 May. Li's defeated troops looted Beijing for several days until Li left
18430-471: The capital on 4 June with all the wealth he could carry. After six weeks of mistreatment at the hands of rebel troops, the Beijing population sent a party of elders and officials to greet their liberators on 5 June. They were startled when, instead of meeting Wu Sangui and the Ming heir apparent, they saw Dorgon, a horseriding Manchu with his shaved forehead, present himself as the Prince Regent. In
18620-559: The capital region. Dorgon greeted the Shunzhi Emperor at the gates of Beijing on 19 October 1644. On 30 October the six-year-old monarch performed sacrifices to Heaven and Earth at the Altar of Heaven . The southern cadet branch of Confucius ' descendants who held the title Wujing boshi 五經博士 and the sixty-fifth generation descendant of Confucius to hold the title Duke Yansheng in the northern branch both had their titles reconfirmed on 31 October. A formal ritual of enthronement for Fulin
18810-412: The cause of the emperor's death, rumors soon started to circulate that he had not died but in fact retired to a Buddhist monastery to live anonymously as a monk , either out of grief for the death of his beloved consort, or because of a coup by the Manchu nobles his will had named as regents. These rumors seemed not so incredible because the emperor had become a fervent follower of Chan Buddhism in
19000-520: The city on June 5 and accepted the title "protector of the state" the next day. Prodded by some court officials, the Prince of Fu immediately begin to consider ascending the throne. The prince had a problematic reputation in terms of Confucian morality, so some members of the Donglin faction suggested the Prince of Lu as an alternative. Other officials noted that the Prince of Fu, as next in line by blood,
19190-409: The city when they contracted smallpox—the young monarch still succumbed to that illness. The emperor's last will , which was made public on the evening of 5 February, appointed four regents for his young son: Oboi , Soni , Suksaha , and Ebilun , who had all helped Jirgalang to purge the court of Dorgon's supporters after Dorgon's death on the last day of 1650. It is difficult to determine whether
19380-500: The city's population, killing as many as 70,000 people. Meanwhile, in October 1646, Qing armies led by Hooge (the son of Hong Taiji who had lost the succession struggle of 1643) reached Sichuan, where their mission was to destroy the kingdom of bandit leader Zhang Xianzhong . Zhang was killed in a battle against Qing forces near Xichong in central Sichuan on 1 February 1647. Also late in 1646 but further north, forces assembled by
19570-451: The coast. He started negotiations with the Qing and the Shunzhi Emperor officially appointed him as ruler over Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang as "King of Three Provinces". However it asked Zhilong to come to Beijing to meet Shunzhi. Zheng Zhilong refused to go because he most likely though it was a trap. Zheng Zhilong commanded his army not to fight against the Qing as they took over Fuzhou after coming into Fujian in 1646. The Longwu emperor
19760-542: The commercial network of his father Zheng Zhilong. He rallied in Anhai on the coast. Koxinga did not recognize the Prince of Lu as the Emperor and instead continued to use the reign title of the Longwu emperor in contrast to other coastal southeastern warlords. There was hostility between the prince of Lu and Longwu during their reigns and he did not want to have a powerful authority figure with him. He later pledged allegiance to
19950-633: The corruption and influence-peddling that was rife in the bureaucracy, and that many moralistic officials from the north attributed to the existence of southern literary clubs and to the decline of classical scholarship. During his short reign, the Shunzhi Emperor encouraged Han Chinese to participate in government activities and revived many Chinese-style institutions that had been either abolished or marginalized during Dorgon's regency. He discussed history, classics , and politics with grand academicians such as Chen Mingxia (see previous section) and surrounded himself with new men such as Wang Xi (王熙; 1628–1703),
20140-482: The dialects of coastal Fujian, where they were not born in. They were familiar with infantry war on land and knew how to fight the Qing. Most of his labor, taxpayers, sailors, and infantry troops were local Fujian coastal people. The Qing and Ming dynasty were based on the continent and stymied the activities of the coast while shipbuilding, cash cropping, sea trade, salt, and fishing were stimulated by Koxinga's rule. Koxinga, from his Jinmen and Xiamen island bases, went on
20330-405: The emperor assume personal rule ahead of schedule. The Kangxi Emperor thus formally took over the reins of power in a ceremony on August 25, a month after Sonin's death. Following this, Kangxi issued an imperial decree to reduce the power of the three surviving regents, stating that their roles had been reduced to that of assisting ministers (佐政大臣). However even after officially taking full control of
20520-438: The emperor fell into dejection for months, until he contracted smallpox on 2 February 1661. On 4 February 1661, officials Wang Xi (王熙, 1628–1703; the emperor's confidant ) and Margi (a Manchu) were called to the emperor's bedside to record his last will. On the same day, his seven-year-old third son Xuanye was chosen to be his successor, probably because he had already survived smallpox. The emperor died on 5 February 1661 in
20710-526: The emperor had intended, Feng Quan's return only intensified factional strife. In several controversies at court in 1653 and 1654, the southerners formed one bloc opposed to the northerners and the Manchus. In April 1654, when Chen Mingxia spoke to northern official Ning Wanwo ( 寧完我 ; d. 1665) about restoring the style of dress of the Ming court, Ning immediately denounced Chen to the emperor and accused him of various crimes including bribe-taking, nepotism , factionalism, and usurping imperial prerogatives. Chen
20900-513: The emperor had often issued self-deprecating edicts during his reign, the policies his will rejected had been central to his government since he had assumed personal rule in the early 1650s. The will as it was formulated gave "the mantle of imperial authority" to the four regents, and served to support their pro-Manchu policies during the period known as the Oboi regency , which lasted from 1661 to 1669. Because court statements did not clearly announce
21090-542: The emperor in burial—suggests that the Shunzhi Emperor's death was not staged. After being kept in the Forbidden City for 27 days of mourning, on 3 March 1661 the emperor's corpse was transported in a lavish procession to Jingshan 景山 (a hillock just north of the Forbidden City), after which a large amount of precious goods were burned as funeral offerings. Only two years later, in 1663, was the body transported to its final resting place. Contrary to Manchu customs at
21280-513: The emperor in the two Yellow Banners (which had belonged to the Qing monarch since Hong Taiji) and to gain followers in Dorgon's Plain White Banner, Jirgalang named them the "Upper Three Banners" ( shang san qi 上三旗; Manchu: dergi ilan gūsa ), which from then on were owned and controlled by the emperor. Oboi and Suksaha , who would become regents for the Kangxi Emperor in 1661, were among
21470-551: The entire population, killing between 74,000 and 100,000 people. These massacres ended armed resistance against the Qing in the Lower Yangtze. A few committed loyalists became hermits , hoping that for lack of military success, their withdrawal from the world would at least symbolize their continued defiance against foreign rule. After the fall of Nanjing, two more members of the Ming imperial household created new Southern Ming regimes: one centered in coastal Fujian around
21660-510: The fall of Fuzhou on 17 October, Zheng Zhilong defected to the Qing but his son Koxinga continued to resist. Through Zheng networks, the Southern Ming continued to enjoy a privileged diplomatic position vis-a-vis Tokugawa Japan, who exempted Southern Ming ships from the ban on exports of weapons and strategic materials, and from the ban on Japanese wives of Southern Ming Chinese men remaining in Japan. The Zheng were also able to recruit Japanese troops, particularly from their strongest sympathizers,
21850-716: The fall of the Nanjing court. Zhu Changfang, Prince of Lu , declared himself regent in 1645, but surrendered the next year. In 1644, Zhu Yujian was a ninth-generation descendant of Zhu Yuanzhang who had been put under house arrest in 1636 by the Chongzhen emperor. He was pardoned and restored to his princely title by the Hongguang emperor. When Nanjing fell in June 1645, he was in Suzhou en route to his new fiefdom in Guangxi . When Hangzhou fell on July 6, he retreated up
22040-557: The father of one of the " Three Feudatories " who would rebel against the Qing in 1673 – captured Guangzhou after a ten-month siege and massacred the city's population, killing as many as 70,000 people. Though the Qing under the leadership of Prince Regent Dorgon (1612–1650) 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
22230-780: The flames. Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong), son of Zheng Zhilong , was awarded with the titles: Marquis of Weiyuan , Duke of Zhang , and Prince of Yanping by the Yongli Emperor . Koxinga then decided to take Taiwan from the Dutch. He launched the Siege of Fort Zeelandia , defeating the Dutch and driving them out of Taiwan. He then established the Kingdom of Tungning on the site of the former Dutch colony. The Ming princes who accompanied Koxinga to Taiwan were Zhu Shugui , Prince of Ningjing and Zhu Honghuan, son of Zhu Yihai , Prince of Lu. Koxinga's grandson Zheng Keshuang surrendered to
22420-405: The following year) and seized Jiangnan's main cities, including Suzhou and Hangzhou ; by early July 1645, the frontier between the Qing and the Southern Ming had been pushed south to the Qiantang River . On 21 July 1645, after Jiangnan had been superficially pacified, Dorgon issued a most inopportune edict ordering all Chinese men to shave their forehead and to braid the rest of their hair into
22610-577: The functions of offices. His headquarters was based in Siming, the new name for Xiamen. The Zheng organization started the Six offices as a regional variation of the central Ming Six Boards with the Yongli emperor's permission, they were personnel, military, revenue, punishment, rites, and works. Yongli court held civil service exams in southwest China where Koxinga sent students to after they were educated at his Xiamen-based Confucian academy. A total of 200 junks in
22800-541: The government in May 1669. In the initial stage of the regency, the four regents oversaw the government together and provided assistance towards each other in accordance with the Shunzhi Emperor 's dying wishes. They continued the war against resistance forces loyal to the Ming dynasty (the dynasty before the Qing dynasty). In April 1662, the last ruler of the Southern Ming dynasty , the Yongli Emperor ,
22990-645: The government, the Kangxi Emperor found it difficult to curb Oboi's growing influence. In 1669, with help from Grand Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang , the Kangxi Emperor had Oboi arrested and stripped off his position of power. Since then, the Kangxi Emperor began taking personal control of the government. Ebilun was dismissed from office and Oboi's clique disbanded. This marked the end of the Four Regents period. Shunzhi Emperor The Shunzhi Emperor (15 March 1638 – 5 February 1661), also known by his temple name Emperor Shizu of Qing , personal name Fulin ,
23180-547: The great Manchu enterprise"—the Qing subdued almost all of China and pushed loyalist " Southern Ming " resistance into the far southwestern reaches of China. After repressing anti-Qing revolts in Hebei and Shandong in the Summer and Fall of 1644, Dorgon sent armies to root out Li Zicheng from the important city of Xi'an ( Shaanxi province), where Li had reestablished his headquarters after fleeing Beijing in early June 1644. Under
23370-431: The hair cutting command greatly hindered the Qing conquest. The defiant population of Jiading and Songjiang was massacred by former Ming general Li Chengdong (李成東; d. 1649), respectively on 24 August and 22 September. 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; d. 1667) massacred
23560-473: The height of his influence in 1656 and 1657, Schall reports that the Shunzhi Emperor often visited his house and talked to him late into the night. He was excused from prostrating himself in the presence of the emperor, was granted land to build a church in Beijing, and was even given imperial permission to adopt a son (because Fulin worried that Schall did not have an heir), but the Jesuits' hope of converting
23750-510: The inlets and harbors of the coast of Minnan where they grew up and were merchants and military men. One of them was a pirate partner of Zhilong, Hong Xu. Wang Zhongxiao and Li Maochun, who were gentry of Minnan, and Xu Fuyuan, a bureaucrat in the Ming government were among the number of people in Koxinga's organization. Prince of Ningjing Zhu Shugui, the prince of Lu and other Ming princes came in 1652 with Zhang Huangyan and Zhang Mingzhen, part of
23940-561: The last paragraph of the "Conquest of China" section above). Tribute and trade with Hami and Turfan, which had aided the rebels, were eventually resumed in 1656. In 1655, however, the Qing court announced that tributary missions from Turfan would be accepted only once every five years. In 1651 the young emperor invited to Beijing the Fifth Dalai Lama , the leader of the Yellow Hat Sect of Tibetan Buddhism , who, with
24130-463: The late 1650s, even letting monks move into the imperial palace. Modern Chinese historians have considered the Shunzhi Emperor's possible retirement as one of the three mysterious cases of the early Qing. But much circumstantial evidence—including an account by one of these monks that the emperor's health greatly deteriorated in early February 1661 because of smallpox, and the fact that a concubine and an Imperial Bodyguard committed suicide to accompany
24320-491: The late Ming, culminating in a revolt led by Li Zicheng which captured Beijing in 1644. Ming ideology emphasized authoritarian and centralized administration, referred to as "imperial supremacy" or huángjí . However, comprehensive central decision-making was beyond the technology of the time. The principle of uniformity meant that the lowest common denominator was often selected as the standard. The need to implement change on an empire-wide basis complicated any effort to reform
24510-504: The laws of Tokugawa Japan. A new system of diplomatic relations was implemented by Koxinga with modifications to the tributary system used by Ming China. Japan and other maritime states with relations with Zheng organization were not previously part of the Ming system. He used "mutual dispatch of embassies according to a calendar of diplomatic ritual, cordial encounters, and equivalent treatment of these foreign rulers through regulation and practice." sizing up relations by power and status. Since
24700-585: The leader of the Jianzhou Jurchens , unified most Jurchen tribes under his rule. One of his most important reforms was to integrate Jurchen clans under flags of four different colors—yellow, white, red, and blue—each further subdivided into two to form an encompassing social and military system known as the Eight Banners . Nurhaci gave control of these Banners to his sons and grandsons. Around 1612, Nurhaci renamed his clan Aisin Gioro ("golden Gioro" in
24890-601: The lower Yangtze River , where in June 1644 a Ming imperial prince had established a regime loyal to the Ming. Factional bickering and numerous defections prevented the Southern Ming from mounting an efficient resistance. Several Qing armies swept south, taking the key city of Xuzhou north of the Huai River in early May 1645 and soon converging on Yangzhou , the main city on the Southern Ming's northern line of defense. Bravely defended by Shi Kefa , who refused to surrender, Yangzhou fell to Manchu artillery on 20 May after
25080-523: The majority of imports at 70% being silver. Taels numbering 1,513,93 were profit out of the 2,350,386 taels Koxinga received from trading with Japan. Most of the Japanese products were used for his military or currency. They were also exported to Vietnam's civil war in Quang Nam and Tonkin. The Dutch tried to get a Chinese coastal base but could not, trying to get Chinese silk for themselves. The Zheng had
25270-527: The maritime ban (after which was passed, they would not be allowed to leave Japan), but a lot of Japanese women who were married to Chinese men like Tagawa Matsu remained in Japan and did not leave when the ban was enacted. The Tokugawa allowed them to stay unlike how they violently ejected the Japanese wives and children of Europeans. After the ban was first passed five years elapsed until Zheng requested his Japanese wife Tagawa be allowed to come to China and they were unsure if they would let her come in violation of
25460-648: The maritime ban. The Tokugawa Shogunate decided to allow Tagawa Matsu, his Japanese wife to violate the ban, leave Japan and reunite with him in China. Zheng Zhilong and one of his underlings, Zhou Ghezhi, both had connections to daimyo and the bakufi after living in Japan. Zhou Hezhi sent a letter on the first request for help and the next one was sent to the Kyto-based Japanese Emperor and the Edo-based Tokugawa Shogun along with gifts from Zheng Zhilong. Zheng Zhilong informed
25650-479: The midst of this upheaval, Dorgon installed himself in the Wuying Palace ( 武英殿 ), the only building that remained more or less intact after Li Zicheng had set fire to the palace complex on 3 June. Banner troops were ordered not to loot; their discipline made the transition to Qing rule "remarkably smooth." Yet at the same time as he claimed to have come to avenge the Ming, Dorgon ordered that all claimants to
25840-479: The military help of Khoshot Mongol Gushri Khan , had recently unified religious and secular rule in Tibet . Qing emperors had been patrons of Tibetan Buddhism since at least 1621 under the reign of Nurhaci , but there were also political reasons behind the invitation. Namely, Tibet was becoming a powerful polity west of the Qing, and the Dalai Lama held influence over Mongol tribes, many of which had not submitted to
26030-422: The monarch from the bureaucracy, Manchu and Chinese officials feared a return to the abuses of eunuch power that had plagued the late Ming. Despite the emperor's attempt to impose strictures on eunuch activities, the Shunzhi Emperor's favorite eunuch Wu Liangfu (吳良輔; d. 1661), who had helped him defeat the Dorgon faction in the early 1650s, was caught in a corruption scandal in 1658. The fact that Wu only received
26220-428: The money from permits sold in Japan. To make it so he would take most of the trade he sold a maximum annually of 10 new permits. Payment of permits was enforced by Japanese Nagasaki magistrates. Zheng agents received custody of Wang Yunsheng after he tried using a 10 year old expired permit in Nagasaki in 1653. Wang was pardoned by Koxinga after Koxinga's brother Shichizaemon asked him to. The Japanese bakufu helped protect
26410-481: The names of the Shunzhi Emperor's sons did not include a generational character. Before the Qing court moved to Beijing in 1644, Manchu women used to have personal names, but after 1644 these names "disappear from the genealogical and archival records". Imperial consorts were usually known by their titles and the name of their patrilineal clan, while imperial daughters were given a title and rank by which they then became known only after their betrothal. Although five of
26600-541: The new emperor, but decided that Dorgon and Jirgalang (a nephew of Nurhaci who controlled the Bordered Blue Banner) would act as the five-year-old child's regents . Fulin was officially crowned emperor of the Qing dynasty on 8 October 1643; it was decided that he would reign under the era name "Shunzhi." Because the Shunzhi reign is not well documented, it constitutes a relatively little-known period of Qing history. On 17 February 1644, Jirgalang, who
26790-439: The news of the Chongzhen emperor's death reached Nanjing in May 1644, the fate of the heir apparent was still unknown. But court officials quickly agreed that an imperial figure was necessary to rally loyalist support. In early June, a caretaker government led by the Prince of Fu was created. By the time he arrived in the vicinity of Nanjing, the prince could already count on the support of both Ma Shiying and Shi Kefa. He entered
26980-536: The offensive, killing Zhejiang and Fujiang Qing governor-general Chen Jin, blockading Quanzhou, and taking over most of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou's counties in 1652. He controlled crucial coastal strips and islands on the Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang coast where maritime trade occurred. The Yongli court was earlier regarded as more threatening by the Qing but now their attention was turned to the southeast coast by Koxinga's victories. The Qing were in no way ready to build
27170-416: The other regents (taking advantage of Ebilun 's indecisiveness) and sidelining Suksaha during discussions, especially on issues concerning the welfare of the Eight Banners . By 1667, when Sonin realised that he did not have long to live, he attempted to restore balance to the regency and neutralise Oboi's rapidly expanding power clique. He wrote a memorial to the 14-year-old Kangxi Emperor , requesting that
27360-648: The people which reported to private merchants which reported to the revenue office. Officials and gentry made up the workers in most offices which were only symbolic since Koxinga's forces mostly engaged in military occupation. Koxinga's mercantile followers and family made up the Revenue and Military offices. Trade and economic activity was controlled by the Revenue Office. Koxinga had 10 firms which sold and purchased products for his Celestial Pier company, which relied on funding from silver deposits with interest from
27550-543: The place of honor north of the palace, followed by the White Banners east, the Red Banners west, and the Blue Banners south. This distribution accorded with the order established in the Manchu homeland before the conquest and under which "each of the banners was given a fixed geographical location according to the points of the compass." Despite tax remissions and large-scale building programs designed to facilitate
27740-475: The pressure of Qing armies, Li was forced to leave Xi'an in February 1645, and he was killed—either by his own hand or by a peasant group that had organized for self-defense in this time of rampant banditry—in September 1645 after fleeing though several provinces. From newly captured Xi'an, in early April 1645 the Qing mounted a campaign against the rich commercial and agricultural region of Jiangnan south of
27930-921: The problem by looting Qing controlled prefectures for grain and raided Zhejiang, Guangdong, and Fujian 44 times in 1649–1660. Zheng forbade .... of women and said the rich should be plundered first by his soldiers. "Voluntary offers", "donations" and bullion and grain tax were extracted from people he ruled by Koxinga. The payments were taken to Xiamen via Haicheng port. 750,000 taels were paid by Quanzhou while 1,080,000 tales were paid by Zhangzhou in 1654. In Quanzhou and Zhangzhou his own fields were subject to intensified farming and in eastern Guangdong more farms were started by his soldiers. Koxinga seized more land during negotiations through military force and talks to take over independent militias and more land surrounding Jinmen and Xiamen. Administrative government offices were founded in 1654 by Koxinga. He officially titled them as Ming extensions but he also created new offices or changed
28120-566: The province he had conquered. The concurrent rebellion of another former Ming general in Jiangxi helped the Yongli regime to retake most of southern China, leaving the Qing in control of only a few enclaves in Guangdong and southern Jiangxi. But 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. The Yongli emperor fled to Nanning and from there to Guizhou . On 24 November 1650, Qing forces led by Shang Kexi –
28310-517: The queue could trigger revolt in his army if he conceded. Koxinga rejected the queue order and said that he would accept the same status of Korea, maintaining their hair and clothing and to "adopt the Qing calendar ... if not for the sake of the land and its mortals, then to bend on behalf of my father." if the Qing wanted him to agree to the 4 prefectures deal. Koxinga also said that if the Qing gave him what they offered to his father, total control of Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Fujiand, he would agree to adopt
28500-616: The queue. Negotiations were then terminated by the Qing after this counter-offer was rejected. European clothes were worn by Ma Xin when he fought. Koxinga held horseback riding and archery practice for coastal troops and naval practice for inland troops during training when they were not fighting. Confucian education and a stipend were provided for family of officers who died by the "Hall for Nourishing Descendants" in Xiamen. Koxinga implemented severe punishments and discipline for disobeying orders and other wrongs, like beatings, poisoning, forced suicide, and decapitation. If one of his underlings won
28690-662: The reins of government, the Shunzhi Emperor issued an edict announcing that he would purge corruption from officialdom. This edict triggered factional conflicts among literati that would frustrate him until his death. One of his first gestures was to dismiss grand academician Feng Quan (馮銓; 1595–1672), a northern Chinese who had been impeached in 1645 but was allowed to remain in his post by Prince Regent Dorgon. The Shunzhi Emperor replaced Feng with Chen Mingxia (ca. 1601–1654), an influential southern Chinese with good connections in Jiangnan literary societies. Though later in 1651 Chen
28880-408: The same and they worked together without division." Under the Shunzhi Emperor's reign, the average number of graduates per session of the metropolitan examination was the highest of the Qing dynasty ("to win more Chinese support"), until 1660 when lower quotas were established. To promote ethnic harmony, in 1648 an imperial decree formulated by Dorgon allowed Han Chinese civilians to marry women from
29070-494: The same mother), and Hong Taiji's eldest son Hooge —started to vie for the throne. With his brothers Dodo and Ajige , Dorgon (31 years old) controlled the Plain and Bordered White Banners , Daišan (60) was in charge of the two Red Banners, whereas Hooge (34) had the loyalty of his father's two Yellow Banners. The decision about who would become the new Qing emperor fell to the Deliberative Council of Princes and Ministers , which
29260-452: The signature of the Treaty of Nerchinsk fixed the borders between Russia and the Qing. 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
29450-679: The silk allotment guild was ended by the bakufu in 1655 In 1650-1662 Nagasaki annually received 50 Chinese ships most of which bought Koxinga passes or were his ships. They sold books, medicine, porcelain, textiles, gold, and silk. Koxinga brought animal hides from Southeast Asia, and gold and silk from Quang Nam Nguyen lord Vietnam and Tonkin Trinh Lord Vietnam. 1,563,259 silver taels worth of products were imported every year by Japan from Koxinga. Yongli coins and weapons required copper which Koxinga imported from Japan. He also imported resin, tar, cannons, muskets, armor, swords, knives, with
29640-632: The southern Ming. Zhilong refused to expand out of Fujian to keep his control over the movement. Zheng tried to solve the problem by extorting and taxation and then seeking aid from Tokugawa Japan. He tried to solve the problem by extorting and taxation and then seeking aid from Tokugawa Japan. Sekisai Ugai said that Zheng Zhilong's brother had 1,000 musket armed Japanese mercenaries. The Tokugawa shogun received two requests for samurai mercenaries and weapons in Nagasaki in 1645-1646 from Zheng Zhilong. The Tokugawa Bakufu originally urged Japanese women who were married to Chinese men, to leave Japan when they enacted
29830-422: The southwest. 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. 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
30020-432: The status of Geng Jimao and Shang Kexi's Guangdong feudatories. He had to pay customs duties to the Qing while maintaining control of his maritime trading organization, the Qing would appoint civil officials in the four prefectures of Huizhou, Chaozhou, Quanzhou, and Zhangzhou which he would take control of while he would still command his army. The Qing ordered him to adopt the queue if he wanted to receive this deal. Adopting
30210-476: The system, leaving administrators helpless to respond in an age of upheaval. Civil servants were selected by an arduous examination system which tested knowledge of classic literature. While they might be adapt at citing precedents from the Zhou dynasty of righteous and unrighteous behavior, they were rarely as knowledgeable when it came to contemporary economic, social, or military matters. Unlike previous dynasties,
30400-400: The time and was nice to him before he was not executed but he was scared and went into retirement, giving up control over his troops to Koxinga. He died in 1654 after living on an island for the rest of his life. Shi Lang had warned that Xiamen could be subjected to attack so Shi Lang's arrogance and habit of disobeying orders grew. Koxinga responded by jailing his brother, his father, and him on
30590-464: The time, had first been the wife of another Manchu noble. She gave birth to a son (the Shunzhi Emperor's fourth) in November 1657. The emperor would have made him his heir apparent, but he died early in 1658 before he was given a name. The Shunzhi Emperor was an open-minded emperor and relied on the advice of Johann Adam Schall von Bell , a Jesuit missionary from Cologne in the Germanic parts of
30780-639: The time, which usually dictated that a deceased person should be cremated, the Shunzhi Emperor was buried. He was interred in what later came to be known as the Eastern Qing Tombs , 125 kilometers (75 miles) northeast of Beijing, one of two Qing imperial cemeteries. His tomb is part of the Xiao ( 孝 ) mausoleum complex (known in Manchu as the Hiyoošungga Munggan), which was the first mausoleum to be erected on that site. The fake will in which
30970-466: The transition, in 1648 many Chinese civilians still lived among the newly arrived Banner population and there was still animosity between the two groups. Agricultural land outside the capital was also marked off ( quan 圈) and given to Qing troops. Former landowners now became tenants who had to pay rent to their absentee Bannermen landlords. This transition in land use caused "several decades of disruption and hardship." In 1646, Dorgon also ordered that
31160-403: The two Yellow Banners faction and Suksaha was kept in check by Sonin , and the four regents managed to maintain a relatively peaceful and efficient working relationship. However the dynamics of the regency began shifting as Sonin's health gradually deteriorated due to old age. As Sonin took more time off to recuperate, Oboi started monopolising state power by making decisions without consulting
31350-545: The two regimes failed to cooperate, making their chances of success even lower than they already were. 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. In May of that year Qing forces besieged Ganzhou , the last Ming bastion in Jiangxi. In July, a new Southern Campaign led by Manchu Prince Bolo sent
31540-539: The young monarch deposed his new Empress in 1653. The following year Xiaozhuang arranged another imperial marriage with her Khorchin Mongol clan, this time matching her son with her own grand-niece. Though Fulin also disliked his second empress (known posthumously as Empress Xiaohuizhang ), he was not allowed to demote her. She never bore him children. Starting in 1656, the Shunzhi Emperor lavished his affection on Consort Donggo , who, according to Jesuit accounts from
31730-520: Was Zheng Tai, who also had been to Nagasaki and dealt with commerce related to Japan. The Ming loyalist Chinese pirate Yang Yandi (Dương Ngạn Địch) and his fleet sailed to Vietnam to leave the Qing dynasty in March 1682, first appearing off the coast of Tonkin in northern Vietnam. According to the Vietnamese account, Vũ Duy Chí (武惟志), a minister of the Vietnamese Lê dynasty came up with
31920-548: Was a capable military leader but looked uninterested in managing state affairs, willingly yielded control of all official matters to Dorgon. After an alleged plot by Hooge to undermine the regency was exposed on 6 May of that year, Hooge was stripped of his title of Imperial Prince and his co-conspirators were executed. Dorgon soon replaced Hooge's supporters (mostly from the Yellow Banners) with his own, thus gaining closer control of two more Banners. By early June 1644, he
32110-494: Was a close friend of anti-Qing intellectuals Gu Yanwu and Wan Shouqi (萬壽祺; 1603–1652). "Quite passionate and attach[ing] great importance to qing (love)," he could also recite by heart long passages of the popular Romance of the Western Chamber . In September 1660, Consort Donggo , the Shunzhi Emperor's favourite consort, suddenly died as a result of grief over the loss of a child. Overwhelmed with grief,
32300-565: Was affiliated with the Donglin movement . This displacement of troops facilitated the Qing capture of Yangzhou. This resulted in the Yangzhou massacre and the death of Shi in May 1645. It also led directly to the demise of the Nanjing regime. After the Qing armies crossed the Yangtze River near Zhenjiang on June 1, the emperor fled Nanjing. Qing armies led by the Manchu prince Dodo immediately moved toward Nanjing, which surrendered without
32490-410: Was also dismissed on charges of influence peddling, he was reinstated in his post in 1653 and soon became a close personal advisor to the sovereign. He was even allowed to draft imperial edicts just as Ming Grand Secretaries used to. Still in 1653, the Shunzhi Emperor decided to recall the disgraced Feng Quan, but instead of balancing the influence of northern and southern Chinese officials at court as
32680-418: Was an imperial dynasty of China and a series of rump states of the Ming dynasty that came into existence following the Jiashen Incident of 1644. Peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng who founded the short-lived Shun dynasty captured Beijing and the Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide. The Ming general Wu Sangui then opened the gates of the Shanhai Pass in the eastern section of the Great Wall to
32870-437: Was childless, adopted Zheng Zhilong's eldest son Zheng Sen, granted him the imperial surname, and gave him a new personal name: Chenggong . The name Koxinga is derived of his title "lord of the imperial surname" ( guóxìngyé ). In October 1645, the Longwu Emperor heard that another Ming pretender, Zhu Yihai, Prince of Lu , had named himself regent in Zhejiang , and thus represented another center of loyalist resistance. But
33060-402: Was clearly the safer choice. In any case, the so-called "righteousness" faction was not keen to risk a confrontation with Ma, who arrived in Nanjing with a large fleet on June 17. The Prince of Fu was crowned as the Hongguang emperor on June 19. It was decided that the next lunar year would be the first year of the Hongguang reign. The Hongguang court proclaimed that its goal was "to ally with
33250-440: Was crumbling under the combined weight of financial bankruptcy, devastating epidemics, and large-scale bandit uprisings fed by widespread starvation. When Hong Taiji died on 21 September 1643 without having named a successor, the fledgling Qing state faced a possibly serious crisis. Several contenders—namely Nurhaci's second and eldest surviving son Daišan , Nurhaci's fourteenth and fifteenth sons Dorgon and Dodo (both born to
33440-518: Was demoted from "Prince Regent" to "Assistant Uncle Prince Regent" ( Fu zheng shuwang 輔政叔王). In June 1645, Dorgon eventually decreed that all official documents should refer to him as "Imperial Uncle Prince Regent" ( Huang shufu shezheng wang 皇叔父攝政王), which left him one step short of claiming the throne for himself. One of Dorgon's first orders in the new Qing capital was to vacate the entire northern part of Beijing to give it to Bannermen , including Han Chinese Bannermen. The Yellow Banners were given
33630-537: Was directly disobeyed Koxinga's orders, while Koxinga was on his way to help the Yongli emperor. Because the uncles had their own command chain in their armies and they were of the older generation than Koxinga they decided they had the right to violate standing orders Koxinga's men forced him to turn back after they heard what happened to their homes and families in Xiamen so he returned. Zheng Zhiwan and his staff were executed by Koxinga and his own army absorbed Zhiwan's troops. Because Zheng Hongkui sided with Koxinga most of
33820-535: Was either killed or escaped and was never again found as he tried to escape to Jiangxi. The Qing invited Zheng Zhilong to a banquet for negotiations. His son Koxinga and brother Zheng Hongkui cried and beseeched Zheng Zhilong not to go. He had 500 war junks and army which he could still use to rule. They also knew of the queue order. Tagawa Matsu was ..... by the Manchus according to one account and she committed suicide. One confused Chinese account said that Koxinga cut out his mother's intestines and washed them, following
34010-585: Was executed by strangulation on 27 April 1654. In November 1657, a major cheating scandal erupted during the Shuntian provincial-level examinations in Beijing. Eight candidates from Jiangnan who were also relatives of Beijing officials had bribed examiners in the hope of being ranked higher in the contest. Seven examination supervisors found guilty of receiving bribes were executed, and several hundred people were sentenced to punishments ranging from demotion to exile and confiscation of property. The scandal, which soon spread to Nanjing examination circles, uncovered
34200-402: Was found guilty and all his posthumous honors were removed. Jirgalang continued to purge former members of Dorgon's clique and to bestow high ranks and nobility titles upon a growing number of followers in the Three Imperial Banners, so that by 1652 all of Dorgon's former supporters had been either killed or effectively removed from government. On 7 April 1651, barely two months after he seized
34390-434: Was held on 8 November, during which the young emperor compared Dorgon's achievements to those of the Duke of Zhou , a revered regent from antiquity. During the ceremony, Dorgon's official title was raised from "Prince Regent" to "Uncle Prince Regent" ( Shufu shezheng wang 叔父攝政王), in which the Manchu term for "Uncle" ( ecike ) represented a rank higher than that of imperial prince. Three days later Dorgon's co-regent Jirgalang
34580-493: Was in firm control of the Qing government and its military. In early 1644, just as Dorgon and his advisors were pondering how to attack the Ming , peasant rebellions were dangerously approaching Beijing . On 24 April of that year, rebel leader Li Zicheng breached the walls of the Ming capital, pushing the Chongzhen Emperor to hang himself on a hill behind the Forbidden City . Hearing the news, Dorgon's Chinese advisors Hong Chengchou and Fan Wencheng (范文程; 1597–1666) urged
34770-424: Was killed by Wu Sangui on the orders of the four regents. Within the next two years the Qing government had suppressed all anti-Qing armed forces within China. The Qing dynasty then moved on to a stable development phase as the society and economy had been badly devastated by war. The four regents devised policies to aid in the recovery and development of China. During the early years of the regency, tension between
34960-426: Was lionized and there was a wave of hopeless sacrifice by loyalists who vowed to erase the shame of Nanjing. By late 1646, the heroics had petered out and the Qing advance had resumed. Notable Ming "pretenders" held court in Fuzhou (1645–1646), Guangzhou (1646–1647), and Anlong (1652–1659). The Yongli Emperor was the last and also the longest reigning Emperor of the dynasty (1646–1662) and managed to fight against
35150-411: Was now protecting the Yongli emperor, retook Guilin ( Guangxi province) from the Qing. Within a month, most of the commanders who had been supporting the Qing in Guangxi reverted to the Ming side. Despite occasional successful military campaigns in Huguang and Guangdong in the next two years, Li failed to retake important cities. In 1653, the Qing court put Hong Chengchou in charge of retaking
35340-495: Was particularly fearful of the disease, because he was young and lived in a large city, near sources of contagion. Indeed, during his reign at least nine outbreaks of smallpox were recorded in Beijing, each time forcing the emperor to move to a protected area such as the "Southern Park" (Nanyuan 南苑), a hunting ground south of Beijing where Dorgon had built a "smallpox avoidance center" in the 1640s. Despite this and other precautions—such as rules forcing Chinese residents to move out of
35530-442: Was relieved and Zheng Chenggong repelled, forcing Zheng to take refuge in the southeastern coastal province of Fujian. Pressured by Qing fleets, Zheng fled to Taiwan in April 1661 but died that same summer. His descendants resisted Qing rule until 1683, when the Kangxi Emperor successfully took the island. After Fulin came to rule on his own in 1651, his mother the Empress Dowager Zhaosheng arranged for him to marry her niece, but
35720-497: Was similar to the "barbarian-quelling generalissimo" title of the shogun. The Chinese mufu (tent government) was the model for the bakufu in Japan. Koxinga was an idealist who fought for restoring the Ming before 1651 but the disaster at Xiamen changed his tactics. Koxinga's uncles Zheng Hongkui and Zheng Zhiwan had allowed the Qing to attack and pillage Xiamen without a fight after the Qing threatened they would harm Zheng Zhilong and his family who were under house arrest in Beijing. This
35910-438: Was the Manchus' main policymaking body until the emergence of the Grand Council in the 1720s. Many Manchu princes argued that Dorgon, a proven military leader, should become the new emperor, but Dorgon refused and insisted that one of Hong Taiji's sons should succeed his father. To recognize Dorgon's authority while keeping the throne in Hong Taiji's descent line, the members of the council named Hong Taiji's ninth son, Fulin, as
36100-414: Was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty , and the first Qing emperor to rule over China proper . Upon the death of his father Hong Taiji , a committee of Manchu princes chose the 5-year-old Fulin as successor. The princes also appointed two co-regents: Dorgon , the 14th son of Nurhaci , and Jirgalang , one of Nurhaci's nephews, both of whom were members of the Qing imperial clan . In November 1644,
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