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 Upholding outdated policies out of a lack of criticism, he does nothing to alleviate the economic woes of the peasantry nor the soldiery, who are getting paid with dangerous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.