Ming Dynasty

The Ming Dynasty was a native Chinese dynasty that ruled for nearly three centuries after expelling the Mongol Yuan, presiding over a period of cultural flowering, demographic growth, and the consolidation of imperial institutions.

It was founded in 1368 by Zhu Yuanzhang, a peasant who rose through rebellion to drive the Yuan court back onto the steppe and proclaim himself the Hongwu Emperor, establishing his capital at Nanjing. Hongwu rebuilt a war-torn country, restored agriculture, redistributed land, and constructed a highly centralised autocratic state in which the emperor wielded direct personal power, abolishing the post of chief minister. His son the Yongle Emperor moved the capital to Beijing, where he built the Forbidden City, sponsored the massive Yongle Encyclopedia, and dispatched the admiral Zheng He on a series of spectacular maritime expeditions that reached Southeast Asia, India, Arabia, and the coast of East Africa, projecting Ming prestige across the Indian Ocean before the voyages were abandoned. The Ming era saw a vibrant economy, the spread of printing and popular literature, the flourishing of porcelain and the arts, and a population that grew dramatically. The dynasty rebuilt and extended the Great Wall into the form recognisable today as a defence against renewed Mongol pressure. In its later phase the dynasty was weakened by costly wars, factional strife at court, the growing influence of palace eunuchs, fiscal crises, and a series of natural disasters and famines that fuelled widespread peasant rebellion. In 1644 the rebel leader Li Zicheng captured Beijing, prompting the last Ming emperor, Chongzhen, to take his own life. Manchu forces, invited through the Great Wall, then seized the capital and founded the Qing Dynasty, though Ming loyalist regimes resisted in the south for nearly two more decades.

Key figures