I hadn't really thought I would begin a new timeline. As I was researching about the Southern Ming, I was reading on one of the Ming imperial claimants, the Prince of Fu, and I came across how he narrowly escaped death after Li Zicheng took Luoyang. As I was reading about that, I came across how Li Zicheng was injured in the eye in his next major battle, the first siege of Kaifeng. I thought that was a great point of divergence, and one that nobody else had discussed. So therefore, I present a timeline where Li Zicheng was killed by that arrow during the siege of Kaifeng, thus giving the Ming Dynasty time to survive.
The name of the title comes from the name of the Ming Dynasty, Da Ming, which means Great Brightness.
Great and Lasting Brightness: Tales of a Surviving Ming
It is surely a surprise to later observers that the Ming Dynasty (明朝) managed to survive the era of Chongzhen (崇禎). The era name meant “Sublime Fortune,” but entailed a period of chaos. Droughts, famines, floods, epidemics, invasions, and rebellions all devastated the country. The Ming hold on the Mandate of Heaven seemed precipitously lost in the seven years of drought between 1637 and 1643. It seems a near miracle that the Ming not only managed to survive this period, but actually managed to flourish afterwards. Today, the Chongzhen period is not seen in the greatest light. A period of natural disaster is usually a negative portent of Heaven, and it continued to be a period of government corruption and sloth. However, the Chongzhen era was not the last Ming era, and that alone testifies to the benevolence of Heaven, the hard work and effort of the government, or both. It seems that the baptism under fire of the Ming Dynasty allowed the dynasty to survive but rebound. It was an act that had repercussions on all of East Asia and would spread around the world. It was a story that began with an arrow.
The Chongzhen Emperor's name at birth was Zhu Youjian (朱由檢). He came to the throne in 1628 at the age of seventeen following the death of his illiterate and incompetent older brother, who had died without children. Disasters ravaged China shortly afterwards, though no personal fault of the Emperor. A cold spell was first, followed by famines. Locusts and drought spread largely from the north to south, moving from the Yellow River Plain to the mouth of the Yangzi River. Following the drought was a wave of disease. And following the disease were more locusts. It was not the first period of trouble that the Ming had encountered, but it was the worst turmoil that China had seen during Yuan Dynasty.
During most of the 1630s, a rebel named Li Zicheng (李自成) had first begun to make a name for himself under the command of Gao Yingxiang (高迎祥), the Dashing King. After Gao's death, Li took the title of Dashing King, without specifically claiming to be king of anything. It was not a time of success for the rebel. The pressure of Ming generals Hong Chengchou (洪承疇) and Sun Chuanting (孫傳庭) proved too great, and he was isolated in Shaanxi (陝西) until 1640. Until 1639, the situation looked rather secure as well: Li Zicheng was trapped in Shaanxi, while Zhang Xianzhong (張獻忠) had accepted an imperial amnesty. But the threats remained: the two major rebel leaders remained very much alive, while the Manchus attacked Shandong and withdrew voluntarily. When Zhang rebelled again, Li followed suit. In 1640, with a mere 50 men, Li emerged in Henan (河南) once more. At first glance, Li would have seemed like a spent force posing little threat to the Ming armies which had defeated him. Li had not yet proclaimed a new dynasty, claiming to be loyal to the Ming and rebelling only against the corrupt princes and officials who had cheated the people.
When Zhang rebelled again, he managed to escape from Shaanxi into Sichuan (四川), where the Ming authorities were too slow to stop him. Zhang aimed for the city of Xiangyang (襄陽). Li had managed to gather up an army of refugees and set his sights on the city of Luoyang (洛陽). The Ming Dynasty, granted only a moment's respite from rebels in 1639, was once again plagued by war across the realm. In every sense, it had snatched a defeat from the jaws of victory, failing to take advantage of its superiority over Li and Zhang. Had the two rebels been crushed that summer, China could have been spared substantial chaos. Issues of corruption and infighting hampered the Ming government's ability to maneuver, and its poorly-controlled troops were little better than rebels in regards to their quality.
By the late Ming, the wealth of the imperial princes had grown massive, with state coffers and lands going to feeding a parasitic stratum of imperial relatives. Whether living in poverty or luxury, these imperial relations were ultimately sustained by government funds. As descendants of the imperial clan, they were largely banned from taking the government examinations or partaking in trade, being restrained to their palaces and banned from travel. Notable princes were installed at major cities, though they did not rule them in any feudal manner. The Prince of Fu (福王) was resident in Luoyang, a former Chinese imperial capital, in the year when Li Zicheng and his army attacked it in 1641.
The Prince of Fu was Zhu Changxun (朱常洵), who was the uncle of the Chongzhen Emperor. This prince had no popularity though, due to his corrupt and greedy nature. His massive palace in Luoyang, with its singing retinues and abundant supplies, was funded through the lands expropriated from commoners. The government troops defending Luoyang and the prince were paid little. It came as no surprise that mutiny government troops quickly murdered their superiors and let Li's soldiers into the city. Zhu Changxun was caught and executed, though his son succeeded in escaping. When the rebels entered Luoyang, they discovered that the Prince of Fu had a hundred thousand piculs (石) of grain and hundreds of thousands of taels (兩) of silver in his reserves. Ironically, Ming troops had betrayed him because they were not being paid.
The next city to be targeted was another Henan city and former capital of China, Kaifeng (開封). However, Kaifeng had walls from Song (宋) and Jin (金) that were still standing. Perhaps more importantly, Kaifeng had a resident prince who was much more forthcoming in finances. This man was the Prince of Zhou (周王), and is perhaps the unsung hero of this story. Unlike the Prince of Fu, whose father was the grandfather of the Chongzhen Emperor, the Prince of Zhou was a much more distant relation. The Prince of Zhou and the Chongzhen Emperor were of the same generation and their last common ancestor was Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋), who lived from 1328 to 1398, over two centuries prior. The Princes of Zhou had been installeded in Kaifeng since the lifetime of Zhu Yuanzhang, who had been the first Emperor of the Ming. The Prince of Zhou, Zhu Gongxiao (朱恭枵), lived well. His estate was constructed on the former Song palaces, with terraces, waterfalls, and lakes. The Prince had at his possession tens of thousands of taels of silver. Unlike his distant relation, the Prince of Fu, the Prince of Zhou lacked the greed or complacency which paved the way for Luoyang's fall. He offered up his silver to the people of the city in return for service. The going price was fifty taels for a rebel head, thirty for other body parts, and ten for captives. In Ming times, one tael of silver was equal to about an ounce in weight, which was no small sum given it cost a landlord 12 taels to hire one agricultural worker. A soldier who managed to take a rebel's arm or leg would literally be paid the yearly wages of ten agricultural workers. The officials in charge of Kaifeng, such as Gao Mingheng (高名衡) and Huang Shu (黃澍), thus found themselves in charge of a reasonable military force, even if its members were more interested in the resident prince's silver than the defense of the country.
In 1641, Li Zicheng and his men besieged Kaifeng. The assault began on March 22. Li had around 3,000 cavalry and 30,000 men, and faced a reasonably organized defense in Kaifeng. The resulting siege lasted only a short period of time, as the defenders rained arrows on Li's army. It went poorly for rebel forces. For example, they attempted to hide in pits under the city walls, but this went poorly. Rebel troops failed to breach the wall, tunnel under it, or climb over it. On March 27, an arrow fired by Chen De (陳德) hit Li Zicheng in his left eye. The arrow instantly shattered his skull and killed him. After the death of their leader, the rebel forces withdrew that day. The remnants of Li Zicheng's soldiers fragmented into their own petty armies before 1641 was over.