The Ming Dynasty: A History of China

The Ming Dynasty: A History of China, PART THREE, sweeps you across the entire span of the last great native dynasty. From the rise of the peasant-turned-emperor Zhu Yuanzhang (the Hongwu Emperor) to the twilight of the Chongzhen Emperor, this book traces a tale of ambition, splendor, and disintegration. You will stand amid the battles that shook the realm — the fall of Fushun, Nurhaci's declaration in the Seven Grievances, and the crushing Ming defeat at Sarhu — moments that opened the way for the Manchus to surge up from the northeast. Within these pages you will encounter unforgettable characters who shaped the Ming's fate. The Wanli Emperor, gifted yet increasingly withdrawn; the short-lived Taichang Emperor, whose sudden death sent the court reeling; and the notorious eunuch Wei Zhongxian, whose rise — aided by the influential Ke Shi (Madam Ke) — turned palace politics into a grim drama of power and corruption. You will meet the six gentlemen of the Donglin movement, moralists who stood defiantly for principle in an age of rot, and General Yuan Chonghuan, whose steadfast defense at Ningyuan made him a legend — and, in the end, a tragic hero. As the Ming dynasty staggered under new pressures, the Jurchen chieftains Nurhaci and Hong Taiji welded together the force that would one day be crowned the Qing. Inside a collapsing court, Emperor Chongzhen fought a losing battle against betrayal, famine and rebellion — until Li Zicheng marched beneath the banner of the Great Shun and seized Beijing. The fall of the capital, and the clash at Shanhai Pass — where Ming general Wu Sangui turned to the Manchus to stave off Li's rebels — irrevocably altered China's destiny and set the stage for a global shift. Yet Beijing's fall did not finish the story. In the south, stubborn loyalists kept the Ming flame alive: emperors like the Hongguang claimant and tenacious commanders such as Li Dingguo — and figures of more ambiguous fate like Sun Kewang — continued to resist.