Dorozhand

Banned
XV Century - The great trading fleets of Zheng He, who mapped and opened political ties with the whole Indian Ocean from Malacca to East Africa, are deemed a gargantuan waste of state revenues by conservative officials and all future voyages are scrapped. The Ming Empire turns towards a road of isolationism and security in defense, choosing to uphold traditional disdain for trade activities due to the social strife that capitalism creates while the state chooses to abide in the safety of the Hongwu Emperor's rigidly stratified proto-fascist economic apparatus.

Late XVI Century - Once defined by its ambitious, politically active emperors of great personal power, the dynasty comes under the rule of several generations of personally and politically weak, inactive emperors culminating in the long and ruinous reign of the inept Wanli Emperor.

1616 - Jurchen chieftain Nurhaci unifies the Jurchen people, calling himself Khan of the Later Jin and occupying regions of China's northern periphery.

1627 - The Chongzhen Emperor of Ming becomes head of a state whose long isolation had bred problems now quickly coming home to roost. To make matters worse, he sees political enemies everywhere and purges his military officers at a time when talent is most needed in the field. Upholding outdated policies out of a lack of criticism, he does nothing to alleviate the economic woes of the peasantry nor the soldiery, who are getting paid with dangerous infrequency.

1630 - Li Zicheng, a shepherd from Shaanxi with distant Tangut ancestry, enters into history after being freed from a feared creditor's shackles by a spontaneous mob who declared him their leader. Obliging to lead them, he organized them into a rebel army, obtained weapons, and began fighting the Ming government as a powerful western warlord.

  • Though this was the official version of Emperor Gaozu's initial rise to power that found its way into the Great Dai's official History of Shun compiled in 1690, which sought to posthumously solidify the Yongyuan Emperor's historical image as a philanthropic revolutionary in line with Neo-Mohist ethics emerging in the northern states at the time, the truth is much hazier. He likely began his career as a small-time bandit and around 1630 joined a rebel or proto-revolutionary organization. His original and famous epithet, the Dashing King, may even have been borrowed from a fallen comrade. He plainly developed his ideals early, however, as the emperor's Commentaries on the Great Ming suggest that he was well acquainted with the sorrows of the poor in Shaanxi and from an early stage cultivated popularity and resistance to feudalism with his program of radical land reform. His Commentaries and Admonitions served as a core inspiration for the Guzi's rejection of Confucian morality.


1630s - Li becomes very popular after leading his people to several victories in the field against imperial forces and promulgating an official policy of radical land and tax reform. Within the decaying Ming edifice, the "Dashing King" ignites the first spark of a revolution. During this period, Li develops many fast loyalties between him and his fighting comrades, forming the base of a general staff.

Among them is Gao Guiying, who meets Li as a fugitive anti-Ming partisan when he takes shelter in her father's home. When Li left, Gao followed him- or at least so the story goes.

  • With her influence, the army assumes a developed revolutionary structure, deliberately subverting the social values of the Ming. Women, facing increasing oppression in Chinese society, emerge in unprecedented numbers to join in an army of class struggle. Gao organizes these female soldiers into a cohesive corps under her command, while Li commands the male soldiers.

1636 - Hong Taiji, successor of Nurhaci, declares himself Emperor of the Great Qing, heralding the grander ambitions of the Manchu state.

Sept, 1642 - The Ming governor of Kaifeng attempts to break Li's siege of the city by breaking the levees holding back the Yellow River. Instead he destroys nearly the entire city, killing 300,000 of its 380,000 residents. Following this cataclysm, the Ming's ability to wage war against Li becomes completely inadequate due to Ming forces' concentration in the north fighting the Manchu.

Oct, 1642 - After taking Xiangyang, Li calls himself King of Shun for the first time.

Oct-Nov, 1643 - Li defeats Ming field marshal Sun Chuanting, who dies in heavy fighting at the protracted Battle of Tongguan. Tongguan is a major victory for the Shun and major blow for the Ming.

Dec, 1643 - Hong Taiji, the Tiancong Emperor of Great Qing, dies. A succession crisis unfolds as a faction of the court in Shenyang led by Jirgalang enthrones the young prince Fulin as the Shunzhi Emperor, while the Manchu generals assume the claim of the proven military leader Dorgon, who in Jinzhou takes up the dragon robes as the Chongde Emperor before having received word of Fulin's enthronement.

Jan, 1644 - The Chongde Emperor of Qing occupies Jinzhou and points south for the winter. The Qing empire rests in a state of civil war.

Feb, 1644 - The young prince Hooge exhorts the Manchu banners to march on Jinzhou immediately to destroy the rebel Dorgon. Still in the cold of late winter, the assembled army marches south with haste. On the 20th they arrive, cold and with fewer numbers due to starvation and desertion, to do battle. In defeat, Hooge and Jirgalang lie dead. Fulin is deposed and sent to live as a monk.

March, 1644 - In rage at the clans who had abandoned and betrayed him by making Fulin emperor without his knowledge, Dorgon rides north as the weather warms and razes Shenyang, making Jinzhou the capital of the Qing state. In the process, numerous families are wiped out. At the end of the month, the now undisputed Chongde Emperor rides south with the forces of all the remaining Manchu clans to take advantage of chaos brewing in China.

Apr, 1644 - Li Zicheng and the rebel army defeat the last Ming defenses in Hebei and enter the city of Beijing, capital of the Ming Empire. The Chongzhen Emperor of Ming commits suicide while the rest of his immediate family is killed.

  • This event is noted as a very bloody one by contemporary writers; the Shun troops spared nothing from the rage in their hearts and the silver in their eyes. They were an army of half-bandits half-idealists who had followed a speaker of freedom across all of the falling earth to reach this point; the very place from which the nobles and scholars and eunuchs and kleptocrats all weaved their entangling web of misery and subjugation. This was their chance to do whatever they would to them; to show them a piece of their mind.
Apr, 1644 - One of Li Zicheng's first acts as emperor is an edict officially ending the imperial service of the eunuchs, reflecting a personal hatred of them on the part of the emperor, the pragmatic threat that the emperor observed in their historical control over the imperial institution, as well as a general resentment of their role in perpetuating the ancient absolutist system that had collapsed.

May, 1644 - The Ming general Wu Sangui opens the gate of the Great Wall to the Qing, under the leadership of the Chongde Emperor himself. The combined army sets off for Shanhai Pass, while Li Zicheng leads his own forces to do the same. Li knows that Wu will be coming for him at the pass despite that they had been allies until the Battle of Beijing because of the disappearance during that chaos of Wu's favorite concubine, Chen Yuanyuan. Li seemed bitterly aware that Wu would blame him personally for this.

  • The subsequent battle at Shanhai Pass was closely fought and perhaps Li Zicheng's most impressive martial achievement. Elite Shun infantry lines hardened by years of campaigning held against repeated Ming assaults, while the Manchu cavalry was slowed down as a heavy rain drenched the field. They were unable to make it to the point of crisis in time to swing the outcome, as in the end Wu's right flank broke and ran with the onslaught of the storm. With Ming lines in disarray, the Shun pikes were able to secure the gates from the Manchu horsemen who in vain abandoned the desperate Ming traitors to make a break for Beijing. With the whole Ming-Qing army surrounded, Li then committed his own formidable heavy cavalry forces to deny a breakout attempt and destroy both enemies in detail.


Jun, 1644 - Li returns to Beijing victorious and in a position of great power, having for the moment thrown the Qing state into turmoil with the death of the Chongde Emperor, who was killed after being taken prisoner. Now with ambitions greater than those of a warlord, and a revolution growing around his ideals, Li saw before him a road to ruling all of China. Li at last orders the formal ceremonies carried out to proclaim himself Emperor of Great Shun with the era of Yongyuan to begin on the new year of 1645. Gao Guiying becomes Empress, residing in Beijing with the Emperor and working to implement a state, progressively opening new positions to diverse candidates and filling ministries with the unprejudiced and forwards-thinking revolutionaries.

  • The emperor's era name of Yǒngyuán, or "perpetual source" reflects his aim not just to tap the intellectual well of the whole society in his search for administrators, as had been the idea of the examination system, but to take hold of that source to extract its full potential.

Jun, 1644 - The Ming southern court in Nanjing is shocked and dismayed at the news of the Chongzhen Emperor's suicide. After an anxious period of waiting in vain for any sign of the emperor's designated heir, they accept the suggestion of prominent Ming loyalist Ma Shiying that the Prince of Fu be enthroned as the Hongguang Emperor. Resistance is organized around the Nanjing court while Shi Kefa defends Yangzhou and Ma procures naval support.
 
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Kaze

Banned
Well-written. Will Empress Gao have a son and heir to succeed him? What of Tibet, Taiwan, and Turkmenistan? There were some Ming hold outs in all of these lands.
 
I wonder what's happening in Korea right now. Also, have you ever read "The Silver Knight", BTW? It also has the Shun taking over China.
 

Kaze

Banned
In OTL - Hyojong of Joseon (3 July 1619 – 23 June 1659) was the seventeenth king of the Joseon Dynasty of Korea from 1649 to 1659. He is best known for his plan for expedition to Manchu Qing dynasty and his campaigns against the Russian Empire by the request of Qing dynasty. His plan for the northern expedition was never put into action since he died before the campaign started.

So without the Qing at his back - he might think about annexing Manchuria.
 

Dorozhand

Banned
I wonder what's happening in Korea right now. Also, have you ever read "The Silver Knight", BTW? It also has the Shun taking over China.

I'll have to check it out. This TL owes a great deal to YLi's Sweet Wormwood. Though it is unfinished, I would recommend it to anyone.

I'll get to what's going down in Korea soon.
 
Isn't Joseon Korea still recovering from the two Manchu invasions at this point? Not exactly a state capable of weathering any further invasions, let alone launching one. Plus, Injo's court's not going to be too pleased by the Ming getting removed by usurpers. Still not very fun times for Korea, either way.

Although Prince Sohyeon (introduced to Christianity during his time in Qing Beijing) not getting offed and ascending would be interesting.
 

Kaze

Banned
They had recovered somewhat and his plan for the northern expedition was never put into action since the King died before the campaign started. Robbed of leadership, the Koreans could not play their hand and played for time. I have started a thread on this vary purpose to suggest the Koreans could still play a hand in the Ming collapse.
 
But why would the Joseon help bring down the Ming? Most of the court supported the Ming, even after the Qing conquest, hence Hyojong's plan to attack the Manchu.
 

Dorozhand

Banned
XV Century - The great trading fleets of Zheng He, who mapped and opened political ties with the whole Indian Ocean from Malacca to East Africa, are deemed a gargantuan waste of state revenues by conservative officials and all future voyages are scrapped. The Ming Empire turns towards a road of isolationism and security in defense, choosing to uphold traditional disdain for trade activities due to the social strife that capitalism creates while the state chooses to abide in the safety of the Hongwu Emperor's rigidly stratified proto-fascist economic apparatus.

Late XVI Century - Once defined by its ambitious, politically active emperors of great personal power, the dynasty comes under the rule of several generations of personally and politically weak, inactive emperors culminating in the long and ruinous reign of the inept Wanli Emperor.

1616 - Jurchen chieftain Nurhaci unifies the Jurchen people, calling himself Khan of the Later Jin and occupying regions of China's northern periphery.

1627 - The Chongzhen Emperor of Ming becomes head of a state whose long isolation had bred problems now quickly coming home to roost. To make matters worse, he sees political enemies everywhere and purges his military officers at a time when talent is most needed in the field. Upholding outdated policies out of a lack of criticism, he does nothing to alleviate the economic woes of the peasantry nor the soldiery, who are getting paid with dangerous infrequency.

1630 - Li Zicheng, a shepherd from Shaanxi with distant Tangut ancestry, enters into history after being freed from a feared creditor's shackles by a spontaneous mob who declared him their leader. Obliging to lead them, he organized them into a rebel army, obtained weapons, and began fighting the Ming government as a powerful western warlord.

  • Though this was the official version of Emperor Gaozu's initial rise to power that found its way into the Great Dai's official History of Shun compiled in 1690, which sought to posthumously solidify the Yongyuan Emperor's historical image as a philanthropic revolutionary in line with Neo-Mohist ethics emerging in the northern states at the time, the truth is much hazier. He likely began his career as a small-time bandit and around 1630 joined a rebel or proto-revolutionary organization. His original and famous epithet, the Dashing King, may even have been borrowed from a fallen comrade. He plainly developed his ideals early, however, as the emperor's Commentaries on the Great Ming suggest that he was well acquainted with the sorrows of the poor in Shaanxi and from an early stage cultivated popularity and resistance to feudalism with his program of radical land reform. His Commentaries and Admonitions served as a core inspiration for the Guzi's rejection of Confucian morality.


1630s - Li becomes very popular after leading his people to several victories in the field against imperial forces and promulgating an official policy of radical land and tax reform. Within the decaying Ming edifice, the "Dashing King" ignites the first spark of a revolution. During this period, Li develops many fast loyalties between him and his fighting comrades, forming the base of a general staff.

Among them is Gao Guiying, who meets Li as a fugitive anti-Ming partisan when he takes shelter in her father's home. When Li left, Gao followed him- or at least so the story goes.

  • With her influence, the army assumes a developed revolutionary structure, deliberately subverting the social values of the Ming. Women, facing increasing oppression in Chinese society, emerge in unprecedented numbers to join in an army of class struggle. Gao organizes these female soldiers into a cohesive corps under her command, while Li commands the male soldiers.

1636 - Hong Taiji, successor of Nurhaci, declares himself Emperor of the Great Qing, heralding the grander ambitions of the Manchu state.

Sept, 1642 - The Ming governor of Kaifeng attempts to break Li's siege of the city by breaking the levees holding back the Yellow River. Instead he destroys nearly the entire city, killing 300,000 of its 380,000 residents. Following this cataclysm, the Ming's ability to wage war against Li becomes completely inadequate due to Ming forces' concentration in the north fighting the Manchu.

Oct, 1642 - After taking Xiangyang, Li calls himself King of Shun for the first time.

Oct-Nov, 1643 - Li defeats Ming field marshal Sun Chuanting, who dies in heavy fighting at the protracted Battle of Tongguan. Tongguan is a major victory for the Shun and major blow for the Ming.

Dec, 1643 - Hong Taiji, the Tiancong Emperor of Great Qing, dies. A succession crisis unfolds as a faction of the court in Shenyang led by Jirgalang enthrones the young prince Fulin as the Shunzhi Emperor, while the Manchu generals assume the claim of the proven military leader Dorgon, who in Jinzhou takes up the dragon robes as the Chongde Emperor before having received word of Fulin's enthronement.

Jan, 1644 - The Chongde Emperor of Qing occupies Jinzhou and points south for the winter. The Qing empire rests in a state of civil war.

Feb, 1644 - The young prince Hooge exhorts the Manchu banners to march on Jinzhou immediately to destroy the rebel Dorgon. Still in the cold of late winter, the assembled army marches south with haste. On the 20th they arrive, cold and with fewer numbers due to starvation and desertion, to do battle. In defeat, Hooge and Jirgalang lie dead. Fulin is deposed and sent to live as a monk.

March, 1644 - In rage at the clans who had abandoned and betrayed him by making Fulin emperor without his knowledge, Dorgon rides north as the weather warms and razes Shenyang, making Jinzhou the capital of the Qing state. In the process, numerous families are wiped out. At the end of the month, the now undisputed Chongde Emperor rides south with the forces of all the remaining Manchu clans to take advantage of chaos brewing in China.

Apr, 1644 - Li Zicheng and the rebel army defeat the last Ming defenses in Hebei and enter the city of Beijing, capital of the Ming Empire. The Chongzhen Emperor of Ming commits suicide while the rest of his immediate family is killed.

  • This event is noted as a very bloody one by contemporary writers; the Shun troops spared nothing from the rage in their hearts and the silver in their eyes. They were an army of half-bandits half-idealists who had followed a speaker of freedom across all of the falling earth to reach this point; the very place from which the nobles and scholars and eunuchs and kleptocrats all weaved their entangling web of misery and subjugation. This was their chance to do whatever they would to them; to show them a piece of their mind.
Apr, 1644 - One of Li Zicheng's first acts as emperor is an edict officially ending the imperial service of the eunuchs, reflecting a personal hatred of them on the part of the emperor, the pragmatic threat that the emperor observed in their historical control over the imperial institution, as well as a general resentment of their role in perpetuating the ancient absolutist system that had collapsed.

May, 1644 - The Ming general Wu Sangui opens the gate of the Great Wall to the Qing, under the leadership of the Chongde Emperor himself. The combined army sets off for Shanhai Pass, while Li Zicheng leads his own forces to do the same. Li knows that Wu will be coming for him at the pass despite that they had been allies until the Battle of Beijing because of the disappearance during that chaos of Wu's favorite concubine, Chen Yuanyuan. Li seemed bitterly aware that Wu would blame him personally for this.

  • The subsequent battle at Shanhai Pass was closely fought and perhaps Li Zicheng's most impressive martial achievement. Elite Shun infantry lines hardened by years of campaigning held against repeated Ming assaults, while the Manchu cavalry was slowed down as a heavy rain drenched the field. They were unable to make it to the point of crisis in time to swing the outcome, as in the end Wu's right flank broke and ran with the onslaught of the storm. With Ming lines in disarray, the Shun pikes were able to secure the gates from the Manchu horsemen who in vain abandoned the desperate Ming traitors to make a break for Beijing. With the whole Ming-Qing army surrounded, Li then committed his own formidable heavy cavalry forces to deny a breakout attempt and destroy both enemies in detail.


Jun, 1644 - Li returns to Beijing victorious and in a position of great power, having for the moment thrown the Qing state into turmoil with the death of the Chongde Emperor, who was killed after being taken prisoner. Now with ambitions greater than those of a warlord, and a revolution growing around his ideals, Li saw before him a road to ruling all of China. Li at last orders the formal ceremonies carried out to proclaim himself Emperor of Great Shun with the era of Yongyuan to begin on the new year of 1645. Gao Guiying becomes Empress, residing in Beijing with the Emperor and working to implement a state, progressively opening new positions to diverse candidates and filling ministries with the unprejudiced and forwards-thinking revolutionaries.

  • The emperor's era name of Yǒngyuán, or "perpetual source" reflects his aim not just to tap the intellectual well of the whole society in his search for administrators, as had been the idea of the examination system, but to take hold of that source to extract its full potential.

Jun, 1644 - The Ming southern court in Nanjing is shocked and dismayed at the news of the Chongzhen Emperor's suicide. After an anxious period of waiting in vain for any sign of the emperor's designated heir, they accept the suggestion of prominent Ming loyalist Ma Shiying that the Prince of Fu be enthroned as the Hongguang Emperor. Resistance is organized around the Nanjing court while Shi Kefa defends Yangzhou and Ma procures naval support.

Jul-Nov, 1644 - The conservative King of Korea, who swore fealty to Hong Taiji in 1636 after a Manchu invasion, is overthrown in a coup instigated by Crown Prince Sohyeon after Manchu troops desert the peninsula entirely to return to their homeland upon news of the disaster at Shanhaiguan. The old king is given the temple name Jeonjong, while Sohyeon will be known as King Hongjo. The young new king drives out the last Manchu forces from the country, formally swears fealty to the Emperor of Shun, and after purging elements of the state that had supported his father launched a military expedition across the Yalu River with a Korean army numbering 80,000.

  • King Hongjo's expedition brought vast new territories under Joseon rule, as the army took control of a strip of cities from Jinzhou to Siping with minimal resistance, swiftly filling in the void left by the imploding Qing. Being a powerful early ally for the Yongyuan Emperor, he did nothing to oppose this move, seeing the remaining Manchu as now being Korea's problem and the Korean state at any rate as an effective rearguard for his southern campaigns.

Aug, 1644 - The Yongyuan Emperor works to consolidate his rule over northern China, recreate a state bureaucracy and forge alliances with the Mongol tribes while he entrusts a formidable army to general Hao Yaoqi, which works to solidify the Shun frontier north of Yangzhou in preparation for an eventual attack. At the same time, general Liu Zongmin works to pacify the remains of the devastated Sichuan valley, filling the void left by the omnicidal state of Xi founded and ended by Zhang Xianzhong.

  • The extent of the damage done to Sichuan by Zhang was noted by contemporary writers with great horror. Though the exact body count is disputed, it is certain that the population of the Sichuan valley plummeted a great deal during the Ming-Shun lapse. How much was due precisely to Zhang's actions and how much was contributed to the whole by the various conquering armies that marched over the region later on is also disputed. At any rate, the Great Xi regime experienced a period of swift internal implosion with rumors of a reign of insanity going on within as the King suddenly ordered his soldiers to turn on the people.

1645-47 - The Hongguang court only ever exerts control over the lower Yangze, Fujian, and the Huai. Other Zhu princes of the royal clan manage to migrate southwards ahead of the Shun and rally conservatives to their banners. No less than five others declare themselves the new emperor in various parts of south China during the following two years in Guangdong, Yunnan, Formosa, Hunan, and Hubei.

Apr, 1645 - To make matters worse for the Southern Ming, Zuo Liangyu turns on the Nanjing court after the extent of Ma Shiying's corruption is revealed to him. He backs the Prince of Lu, who is enthroned as the Shaowen Emperor in Wuchang. Zuo marches eastward to occupy Nanjing, while Ma Shiying orders Shi Kefa to strip Yangzhou of its defenses in order to stop Zuo. Civil war ensues.

Feb, 1646 - The Great Shun launches an invasion of Hubei and Hunan which captures the regions following their exodus by Zuo and the Shaowen Emperor for fronts further east.

Mar, 1646 - Zuo and the Shaowen Emperor capture Nanjing and execute Ma Shiying along with most of his government and the people of Nanjing. The Hongguang Emperor flees southwards and finds sanctuary in Formosa before dying in 1649.

Jun, 1646 - Shun general Liu Zongmin marches his army to the Gulf of Tonkin, captures Guangzhou and divides the Southern Ming in half.

Feb, 1647 - Yangzhou finally falls to a full-scale assault led by Hao Yaoqi and Empress Gao which leads to the capture of Nanjing and most of south China, marking the traditional date of the country's unification under the Great Shun and the solidification of the Yongyuan Emperor's mandate. However, Ming holdouts continue to resist in Yunnan, in exile in Dai Viet, and in isolated pockets elsewhere throughout the Shun dynasty's existence and continue to persist and even briefly revive after the dynasty's fall.

1648 - In year three of Yongyuan, the Emperor issues a series of groundbreaking edicts which comprehensively dismantle and rebuild China's bureaucratic system by establishing a network of Imperial Academies to replace the traditional civil service examination system wholesale. The academies (Xueyuan 学院) are state-funded societies of literati and workers paid to disseminate their skills to those willing to learn. These institutions function to educate everyone nearby, and those who attain high acclaim are selected to fill state ministries. Over the next few years, the replenishment of China's management structures accelerates rapidly.

  • The Emperor devised this plan as a means to recruit large quantities of competent ministers quickly to replace the devastated Ming bureaucratic system in order to run the country on an effective basis. However, the Edicts on Public Literacy stand out as perhaps the greatest and most lasting legacy of the Shun dynasty. Li Zicheng kicked off a vast engine of knowledge and work by mass-cultivating the intellectual life of the cities, and in connecting the peasantry to the quickly expanding and diversifying world of the Hanzi written word, he helped to bring about an early class consciousness between the two groups; likely a formative factor in China's communist tradition. And as he also helped bring about the development of a proletariat by opening the floodgates for foreign commerce, he can in a way be credited with laying the foundations of Chinese Modernism, though the sustained trauma of the period seems to have vastly accelerated social movements.
 
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