Southern Ming

Great Ming
大明 (Chinese)
*Dà Míng* (Pinyin)
Great Ming 大明 (Chinese); Dà Míng (Pinyin)
1644–1662
	Various regimes of the Southern Ming, November 1644
Status	Rump state of the Ming dynasty
Capital	Yingtian (1644–1645); Tianxing (1645–1646); Guangzhou (1646); Zhaoqing (1646); ;
Government	Monarchy
Emperor
• 1644–1645	Hongguang Emperor
• 1645–1646	Longwu Emperor
• 1646–1647	Shaowu Emperor
• 1646–1662	Yongli Emperor
Historical era	Transition from Ming to Qing
• Li Zicheng captured Beijing	1644
• Hongguang Emperor enthroned in Nanjing	1644
• Death of Yongli Emperor	1662
Preceded by	Succeeded by
	Ming dynasty
Qing dynasty
Kingdom of Tungning
Today part of	People's Republic of China; Republic of China; Myanmar

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), 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 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 the Qing considered them to be pretenders.^[1]

The Nanjing regime lacked the resources to pay and supply its soldiers, who were left to live off the land and pillaged the countryside.^{[note 1]} The soldiers' behavior was so notorious that they were refused entry by those cities in a position to do so.^[3] Court official Shi Kefa obtained modern cannons and organized resistance at Yangzhou. The cannons mowed down 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 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 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.^{[note 2]}

The end of the Ming and the subsequent Nanjing regime are depicted in The Peach Blossom Fan, a classic of Chinese literature. The upheaval of this period, sometimes referred to as the Ming–Qing cataclysm, has been linked^{[citation needed]} 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.

^ See The Oxford History of Historical Writing: 1400–1800 (2011) by Jose Rabasa, p. 37.
^ The Cambridge History of China: The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, pt. 1, p. 645).
^ Wakeman, Volume 1, p. 354.
^ Xing Hang (2017), "The Zheng state on Taiwan", Conflict and commerce in maritime East Asia: The Zheng family and the shaping of the modern world, c. 1620–1720, Cambridge University Press, pp. 146–175, doi:10.1017/CBO9781316401224.007, ISBN 978-1-107-12184-3.
^ Tonio Andrade; Xing Hang (2016), "Koxinga and his maritime kingdom", Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai: Maritime East Asia in Global History, 1550–1700, University of Hawaii Press, pp. 348–350, ISBN 978-0824852771, retrieved 2021-07-11.

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[1] See The Oxford History of Historical Writing: 1400–1800 (2011) by Jose Rabasa, p. 37.

[2] The Cambridge History of China: The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, pt. 1, p. 645).

[4] Wakeman, Volume 1, p. 354.

[5] Xing Hang (2017), "The Zheng state on Taiwan", Conflict and commerce in maritime East Asia: The Zheng family and the shaping of the modern world, c. 1620–1720, Cambridge University Press, pp. 146–175, doi:10.1017/CBO9781316401224.007, ISBN 978-1-107-12184-3.

[6] Tonio Andrade; Xing Hang (2016), "Koxinga and his maritime kingdom", Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai: Maritime East Asia in Global History, 1550–1700, University of Hawaii Press, pp. 348–350, ISBN 978-0824852771, retrieved 2021-07-11.

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