Manchu Conquest of China: A Visual History

The Manchu conquest of China (1618-1683) began when the Jurchen leader Nurhaci declared war on the Ming with his Seven Grievances and won at Sarhu in 1619. His son Hong Taiji renamed his people Manchus and his state Qing in 1636 and subdued Korea and the Mongols. In 1644 the rebel Li Zicheng took Beijing and the last Ming emperor hanged himself; the Ming general Wu Sangui opened the Shanhai Pass to the Manchus, who took Beijing and spent 40 years conquering the south. The Southern Ming were hunted to Burma, the Three Feudatories revolt was crushed in 1681, and Zheng family Taiwan surrendered in 1683. Perhaps 25 million died.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

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Registered population of China

Timeline of the Manchu conquest of China

1. 1618
   Seven GrievancesNurhaci declares war.
2. 1619
   Sarhu
3. 1636
   Qing dynasty proclaimed
4. 1644
   Beijing falls; Shanhai Pass
5. 1645
   Yangzhou massacre; queue order
6. 1662
   Yongli emperor executed; Koxinga takes Taiwan
7. 1673
   Three Feudatories revolt
8. 1683
   Taiwan surrenders

Nurhaci and Hong Taiji

Nurhaci united the Jurchen tribes of Manchuria under the Eight Banners, created a script and in 1616 proclaimed the Later Jin. His victory at Sarhu over four Ming columns and the capture of Liaodong made him master of the north-east; he died in 1626 after failing to take Ningyuan against Portuguese cannon. Hong Taiji built a Chinese-style state, incorporated Chinese and Mongol banners, invaded Korea twice and in 1636 took the dynastic name Qing.

1644

The Ming, bankrupted by wars and famine, faced the peasant armies of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong. Li took Beijing on 25 April 1644 and the Chongzhen emperor hanged himself on Coal Hill. Wu Sangui, holding the Great Wall pass at Shanhaiguan, admitted the Manchu regent Dorgon's army; together they routed Li at Shanhai Pass and the Qing entered Beijing on 6 June, proclaiming themselves avengers of the Ming.

The long conquest of the south

Ming loyalists set up courts at Nanjing, Fuzhou, Guangzhou and finally in Yunnan under the Yongli emperor, strangled by Wu Sangui in Burma in 1662. Resistance to the queue order produced massacres at Yangzhou and Jiading in 1645. Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) held the coast and took Taiwan from the Dutch in 1662. Wu Sangui and two other Chinese generals given southern fiefs revolted in 1673 (the Three Feudatories); the Kangxi emperor crushed them by 1681, and his fleet took Taiwan in 1683, completing the conquest.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644)
• Qing dynasty (1636 to 1912)
• Northern Yuan dynasty (1368 to 1635)
• Dzungar Khanate (1634 to 1758)
• Dutch Empire (1602 to 1975)
• Jin dynasty (1115-1234) (1115 to 1234)

Wars of the same era and region

• Japanese invasions of Korea (Imjin War) (1592 to 1598)

8 surprising things about the Manchu conquest of China

1. The Ming's last emperor hanged himself from a tree that was later put in chains as punishment.
2. The queue order, forcing Chinese men to shave the front of their heads and grow a Manchu pigtail, was summed up as 'keep your hair, lose your head'.
3. Wu Sangui supposedly let in the Manchus because Li Zicheng had seized his concubine Chen Yuanyuan.
4. The Yangzhou massacre of 1645 was said to have killed 800,000; the figure is exaggerated but the slaughter was immense.
5. Koxinga's capture of Fort Zeelandia from the Dutch in 1662 was the first Chinese defeat of a European colonial power.
6. The Manchus were fewer than a million people ruling perhaps 150 million Chinese.
7. The Kangxi emperor was seven when he came to the throne and 29 when the conquest was complete.
8. The conquest's peasant rebel Zhang Xianzhong is said to have depopulated Sichuan.

Sources

• Qing dynasty: The Manchu conquest Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Transition from Ming to Qing Wikipedia
• Nurhaci Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Frederic Wakeman, The Great Enterprise (1985) University of California Press

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