What if the barbarians that conquered the Ming were Japanese?
- Thread starter gabbieridey
- Start date
Typho
Banned
On this topic, how exactly did the Manchus Conquer the Ming, when they were much more dispersed tribes. Why is the Ming so weak to weak outside invaders.
Ming was already becoming weaker and incompetent through 16th and 17th century, good times before Manchu Invasion. And I think that there was already other revolts against Ming.
The Ming was fatally weakened by that time, with Li Zicheng's uprising being the last straw. The Manchus then exploited the faltering loyalties of Ming commanders like Wu Sangui to turn them to their side. Wu Sangui, in particular, had garrisoned the Great Wall, and opted to let them through due to the futility of resisting them and the rewards promised to him in exchange for his defection, including getting even with Li Zicheng for abusing his family. Neither the Manchus nor the Mongols before them could ever hope to conquer China without the aid of the native population, at minimum.
On top of what @Lalli and @Remitonov have said, the Manchu had long standing ties with the Ming dynasty and spent decades prior to 1644 unifying, bribing Ming military leaders, trading with Ming merchants, and undermining Ming rule throughout Northeast Asia. They invaded the Joseon dynasty of Korea twice to ensure it would not side with the Ming in the event of a fullscale invasion and create a second front, conquered the Mongols, and took the Liaodong peninsula more than a decade before 1644. When Li Zicheng's rebellion took the capital and the emperor took his own life, the Manchu already dominated the entirety of Northeast Asia and could leverage that consolidation of power, along with their Chinese defectors, to sweep up the disorganized Ming remnants in the south.