By the early 17th century, China's Ming Dynasty was in pronounced decline. Riven by factional struggles, a lack of money, and widespread corruption, the dynasty was a shadow of its former self. Obsessed with the threat posed by the increasingly belligerent Jurchen tribesmen on the northern border, the Ming missed threats closer to home. It wasn't the Jurchen who would bring about the downfall of the Ming.
Rebel Leader Li Zicheng and the Ming Dynasty
Li Zicheng – violent, uneducated – was from the forbidding rural hinterland of Shaanxi Province. Once an ironmonger's apprentice, he joined the army in 1630. The Ming dynasty's financial woes meant the army didn't receive promised supplies, and Li was one of many soldiers who mutinied and took to the hills to become one more band of roving bandits who were terrorising the countryside at the time.
Unlettered he may have been, but Li soon proved himself a commanding personality and a shrewd tactician, emerging as a leader, his territory centring on Hubei Province. By 1634, his merry band of bandits had become a rebel army, entering into a sometimes fractious alliance with other rebel armies, such as that led by Zhang Xianzhong.
In 1642 Li captured Luoyang and then Kaifeng and Xi'an, renaming the latter Chang'an, its name during the Tang dynasty.
Li Zicheng takes Beijing
It was in spring 1644 that Li Zicheng launched a major attack on Beijing, leading an army hundreds of thousands strong into the city without opposition. Reports vary on the exact sequence of events, but it is known that Chongzhen, the last Ming emperor, hanged himself, while Li's soldiers looted the city.
Reports of a threatening army led by General Wu Sangui prompted Li to leave Beijing in pursuit. General Wu was faced with a choice – throw in his lot with the rebel leader, or ally himself with the Jurchen. The latter were already on the move, taking advantage of the power vacuum and the general chaos.
General Wu chose the Jurchen (who had recently adopted the name Manchu). He defeated Li's army at Shanhaiguan, the massive gateway in the Great Wall nearest to the sea. The first battle in defence of the Great Wall was fought not against attackers from without, but against Chinese attackers from within. To add to the irony, when the Jurchen-Manchu arrived, they passed through unopposed.
Li returned to Beijing, where he declared himself emperor before fleeing to the west with what remained of his army and what booty they could carry.
So it was that the Manchus entered Beijing on 6 June 1644, proclaiming a new dynasty, the Qing (pronounced Ching), and promising to avenge the last Ming emperor. This meant they had to hunt down the anti-Ming rebels, and Li Zicheng was their first target. He had fled south-west, towards Xi'an. In the spring of 1645, Qing forces closed in on Li, forcing him out of Xi'an and along the Han river. He was finally cornered y the pursuing Manchus in the mountains on the northern border of Jiangxi province, where he died.
Sources differ on the manner of his death – he either committed suicide, or was beaten to death by peasants from whom he was trying to steal food. It was an ignominous end for a would-be emperor.
Sources
- Jonathan D Spence, The Search for Modern China, Second Edition (W V Norton & Co, 1999)
- John Keay, China: A History (Harper Press, 2008)
Paris Franz - Paris Franz is a London-based freelance journalist, specialising in the arts, history and travel.
