WThe Ming dynasty continued to improve on gunpowder weapons from the Yuan and Song dynasties. During the early Ming period larger and more cannons were used in warfare. In the early 16th century Turkish and Portuguese breech-loading swivel guns and matchlock firearms were incorporated into the Ming arsenal. In the 17th century Dutch culverin were incorporated as well and became known as hongyipao. At the very end of the Ming dynasty, around 1642, Chinese combined European cannon designs with indigenous casting methods to create composite metal cannons that exemplified the best attributes of both iron and bronze cannons. While firearms never completely displaced the bow and arrow, by the end of the 16th century more firearms than bows were being ordered for production by the government, and no crossbows were mentioned at all.
WThe military of the Ming dynasty was the military apparatus of China from 1368 to 1644. It was founded in 1368 during the Red Turban Rebellion by the Ming founder Zhu Yuanzhang. The military was initially organised along largely hereditary lines and soldiers were meant to serve in self-sufficient agricultural communities. They were grouped into guards (wei) and battalions (suo), otherwise known as the wei-suo system. This hereditary guard battalion system went into decline around 1450 and was discarded in favor of mercenaries a century later.
WThe Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by Han Chinese. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, numerous rump regimes ruled by remnants of the Ming imperial family—collectively called the Southern Ming—survived until 1662.
WThis is a timeline of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) from the rise of the Hongwu Emperor to the rise and establishment of the Qing dynasty.
WYunnan under Ming rule saw the continuation of the tusi system instituted during the Yuan dynasty, increasing centralization, and Han migration into Yunnan.
WThe Qing dynasty, officially the Great Qing, was the last imperial dynasty of China. It was established in 1636, and ruled China proper from 1644 to 1912. It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The multiethnic Qing empire lasted for almost three centuries and formed the territorial base for modern China. It was the fourth largest empire in world history in terms of territorial size.
WMichał Piotr Boym was a Polish Jesuit missionary to China, scientist and explorer. He was an early Western traveller within the Chinese mainland, and the author of numerous works on Asian fauna, flora and geography. The first European Chinese dictionary, published in 1670, is attributed to Boym.
WThe Chinese Rites controversy was a dispute among Roman Catholic missionaries over the religiosity of Confucianism and Chinese rituals during the 17th and 18th centuries. The debate discussed whether Chinese ritual practices of honoring family ancestors and other formal Confucian and Chinese imperial rites qualified as religious rites and were thus incompatible with Catholic belief. The Jesuits argued that these Chinese rites were secular rituals that were compatible with Christianity, within certain limits, and should thus be tolerated. The Dominicans and Franciscans, however, disagreed and reported the issue to Rome.
WThe Dzungar–Qing Wars (1687–1757) were a decades-long series of conflicts that pitted the Dzungar Khanate against the Qing dynasty of China and their Mongolian vassals. Fighting took place over a wide swath of Inner Asia, from present-day central and eastern Mongolia to Tibet, Qinghai, and Xinjiang regions of present-day China. Qing victories ultimately led to the incorporation of Outer Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang into the Qing Empire that was to last until the fall of the dynasty in 1911–1912, and the genocide of much of the Dzungar population in conquered areas.
WThe history of the missions of the Jesuits in China is part of the history of relations between China and the Western world. The missionary efforts and other work of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, between the 16th and 17th century played a significant role in continuing the transmission of knowledge, science, and culture between China and the West, and influenced Christian culture in Chinese society today.
WThe Kunyu Quantu, or Full Map of the World, was a map of the world developed by Jesuit father Ferdinand Verbiest during his mission in China in 1674. A copy is in the Hunterian Museum.
WThe late Ming peasant rebellions (明末民變) were a series of peasant revolts during the last decades of the Ming dynasty lasting from 1628–1644. They were caused by natural disasters in Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Henan. At the same time, the She-An Rebellion and Jurchen invasions forced the Ming government to cut funding for the postal service, which resulted in the mass unemployment of men in the provinces hit hard by natural disasters. Unable to cope with three major crises at the same time, the Ming dynasty collapsed in 1644.
WThe Southern Ming, officially the Great Ming, was a series of dynastic rump states ruled by the Zhu clan in southern China following the Ming dynasty's collapse in 1644. The Ming dynasty ended when Shun forces led by Li Zicheng captured Beijing and the last Ming emperor Chongzhen committed suicide. The Ming general Wu Sangui then opened the gates of the Shanhai Pass in the eastern section of the Great Wall to the multi-ethnic Qing banners, in hope of using them to annihilate the Shun forces. Ming loyalists fled to Nanjing, where they enthroned Zhu Yousong as the Hongguang Emperor, marking the start of the Southern Ming. The Nanjing regime lasted until 1645, when Qing forces captured Nanjing. Later, a series of pretenders held court in various southern Chinese cities.
WThe Ming tombs are a collection of mausoleums built by the emperors of the Ming dynasty of China. The first Ming emperor's tomb is located near his capital Nanjing. However, the majority of the Ming tombs are located in a cluster near Beijing and collectively known as the Thirteen Tombs of the Ming Dynasty. They are located within the suburban Changping District of Beijing Municipality, 42 kilometers (26 mi) north-northwest of Beijing's city center. The site, on the southern slope of Tianshou Mountain, was chosen based on the principles of feng shui by the third Ming emperor, the Yongle Emperor. After the construction of the Imperial Palace in 1420, the Yongle Emperor selected his burial site and created his own mausoleum. The subsequent emperors placed their tombs in the same valley.
WOros Niru was a Manchu military unit of Qing dynasty China. It consisted of Russian Cossacks that were captured during the border conflicts between the Russian empire and Qing China. Formally, this niru was known as the 17th niru of the 4th jalan of the Manju Gusa ejen of Bordered Yellow Banner(鑲黃旗滿洲都統第四參領第十七佐領).
WThe Revolt of the Three Feudatories, also known as the Rebellion of Wu Sangui, was a rebellion in China lasting from 1673 to 1681 in the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) during the early reign of the Kangxi Emperor. The revolt was led by the three lords of the fiefdoms in Yunnan, Guangdong and Fujian provinces against the Qing central government. These hereditary titles had been given to prominent Han Chinese defectors who had helped the Manchu conquer China during the transition from Ming to Qing. The feudatories were supported by Zheng Jing's Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan, which sent forces to invade Mainland China. Additionally, minor Han military figures like Wang Fuchen and the Chahar Mongols also revolted against Qing rule. After the last remaining Han resistance was put down, the former princely titles were abolished.
WAndrius Rudamina, S.J. was the first Lithuanian Jesuit missionary in China.
WThe Selden Map of China is an early seventeenth-century map of East Asia formerly owned by the legal scholar and maritime theorist John Selden. It shows a system of navigational routes emanating from a point near the cities of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou in Fujian Province, from which a principal route goes goes northeast towards Nagasaki and southwest towards Hoi An, then Champa, and then on to Pahang, and then with another route heading past Penghu towards a point northwest of Manila. The map, largely unseen and forgotten since the eighteenth century, was rediscovered in 2008 by the historian Robert Batchelor. Batchelor recognized the significance of the system of routes depicted on the map. As the earliest surviving Chinese merchant map of East Asia, it has been recognized as one of the Treasures of the Bodleian. The map itself has no title, and the "Selden Map of China" was chosen by David Helliwell as curator of Chinese collections at the Bodleian. The Chinese title 東西洋航海圖 has been proposed by Chen Jiarong.
WThe Shanhai Yudi Quantu is a Ming dynasty Chinese map published in 1609 in the leishu encyclopedia Sancai Tuhui.
WThe Sino-Dutch conflicts were a series of conflicts between the Ming dynasty of China and the Dutch East India Company over trade and land throughout the 1620s, 1630s, and 1662. The Dutch were attempting to compel China to accede to their trade demands, but the Chinese defeated the Dutch forces.
WJan Mikołaj Smogulecki (1610–1656), of the Grzymała coat of arms, was a Polish nobleman, politician, missionary, scholar and Jesuit credited with introducing logarithms to China.
WTaiwan under Qing rule refers to the rule of the Qing dynasty over Formosa from 1683 to 1895. The Qing court sent an army led by general Shi Lang and annexed Taiwan in 1683. It was governed as Taiwan Prefecture of Fokien Province (Fujian) until the declaration of Fokien-Taiwan Province in 1887. Qing rule over Taiwan ended when Taiwan was ceded to Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895. There were more than a hundred rebellions during the Qing period. The frequency of rebellions, riots, and civil strife in Qing Taiwan led to this period being referred to by historians as “Every three years an uprising, every five years a rebellion.”
WThe transition from Ming to Qing, Ming–Qing transition, or the Manchu unification of China from 1618 to 1683 saw the transition between two major dynasties in Chinese history. It was the decades-long conflict between the emergent Qing dynasty (清朝), the incumbent Ming dynasty (明朝), and several smaller factions in China. It ended with the rise of the Qing, the fall of the Ming and other factions, and the unification of Outer Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Taiwan under the Qing Empire.
WThe Yangzhou massacre in May, 1645 in Yangzhou, China, refers to the mass killings of innocent civilians in Yangzhou by Manchu and defected northern Chinese soldiers, commanded by the Manchu general Dodo.
WYuegang was a seaport situated at the estuary of the Jiulong River near Zhangzhou in Fujian, China. Known as a smuggling hub since the early Ming dynasty, Yuegang rose to prominence in the 16th century as the Ming government cracked down on other hubs of private maritime trade, deemed illegal at the time due to the isolationist haijin laws. When the prohibitions were lifted in 1567, Yuegang was designated as the port in Fujian from where it is legal to trade overseas. Since then, it flourished as the Chinese terminus of the trans-Pacific trade carried by the Manila galleon through its trade with the Spanish Philippines until it was overshadowed by Xiamen in the 17th century.