Fall of Beijing and the Ming–Qing transition
- Date
- 1644
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- China (Beijing and the north)
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
In 1644 the Ming dynasty collapsed amid famine, fiscal breakdown and rebellion.
The peasant rebel Li Zicheng, who had proclaimed his own Shun dynasty, marched across north China and entered Beijing on 24 April; the next day the last Ming emperor, Chongzhen, hanged himself on a hill behind the Forbidden City rather than be captured. Li's triumph proved fleeting. The Ming general Wu Sangui, guarding the strategic Shanhai Pass where the Great Wall meets the sea, chose to ally with the Manchu Qing rather than submit to Li. Combined Qing and Wu forces crushed Li's army at the Battle of Shanhai Pass, and on 6 June 1644 the Manchu prince-regent Dorgon entered Beijing, installing the young Shunzhi Emperor and proclaiming the Qing as the legitimate rulers of China. The conquest was far from complete; resistance by Southern Ming claimants and loyalists continued for decades across the south. Yet 1644 marks the decisive turning point at which a non-Han Manchu dynasty seized the imperial capital and the Mandate of Heaven, beginning a rule that would last until 1912 and would ultimately expand China to its greatest territorial extent.
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Empires active in 1644
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE – 1922 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
Related military & conflict events
- Defenestration of Prague and the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War23 May 1618
- Second Siege of Vienna and the turn of the Ottoman tide12 September 1683
- Oman captures Fort Jesus and seizes the Swahili coast13 December 1698
- The Imjin War: Japan's invasions of Korea1592–1598
- Battle of Tondibi and the fall of the Songhai Empire13 March 1591
- Defeat of the Spanish Armada1588
Further reading
The wider story
The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties
Engaging survey of Yuan-Ming China (Harvard History of Imperial China).
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