Who destroyed the Ming Dynasty?

In 1644, the Ming Dynasty was overthrown by the peasant army, and the Qing Dynasty followed suit, thus opening up a "great industry" that lasted nearly three hundred years. During this historical process, many complicated changes occurred, and in the end the Qing rulers inherited the Ming Dynasty as the victors. From an objective perspective on historical development, the reason why the Qing Dynasty was able to enter the Pass was because the Ming Dynasty itself provided several opportunities for the Manchu rulers. The fundamental reason for these opportunities lies in the fact that the Ming Dynasty was on the verge of extinction. Therefore, the analysis of the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty will help us objectively understand some of the historical conditions of the Ming and Qing dynasties, which will further help us understand the complex social and historical changes in China in the 17th century. Furthermore, since many historians always regard the Ming and Qing dynasties as a separate historical period, understanding many aspects of Ming history will inevitably benefit our understanding of Qing history. Based on this, this article intends to make a brief analysis of the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty. From a political and economic perspective, the demise of the Ming Dynasty is seen more as the result of the development of traditional Chinese dynasties to their later stages. The luxury and corruption of the ruling group, the monopoly of eunuchs, and the struggle between parties and societies made the Ming Dynasty's ruling order chaotic and eventually led to its demise. Many scholars also understand the demise of the Ming Dynasty from the perspective of class relations and class antagonisms. They believe that the demise of the Ming Dynasty was due to the increasing power of the landlord class (hoarding, occupying land and occupying land) while the taxes and duties borne by the middle and lower classes continued to increase. , which resulted in the increasing intensification of social conflicts and the outbreak of peasant uprisings. When arguing that the luxury and corruption of the ruling class led to the demise of the Ming Dynasty, people often talk about Zhengde and Jiajing's neglect and debauchery (an obvious example is that Emperor Jiajing did not go to court once in eight years) to Wanli's wealth accumulation and Tianqi's influence on the government. of desolation. In these arguments, people often only see the luxury and corruption of the supreme ruler as responsible for the country's demise, but ignore the impact of the corruption of the entire bureaucracy and the chaos of officialdom on the country's demise. When demonstrating the exclusive power of eunuchs, most people believe that eunuchs were the cause of the political chaos in the late Ming Dynasty, and therefore conducted various analyzes on the impact of the eunuch group on the demise of the Ming Dynasty. But in fact, there were some good eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty, such as Feng Quan, Wang An, etc., who still supported the ideas of scholar-bureaucrats. Therefore, when analyzing the impact of the eunuchs’ exclusive power on the demise of the Ming Dynasty, we should be targeted and specific. Since the early Ming Dynasty, eunuchs have played a special role in the political life of the Ming Dynasty. This is the particularity of the Ming Dynasty. The struggle between the party and the society accelerated the demise of the Ming Dynasty. This is obvious. In the late Ming Dynasty, due to differences in group interests or political opinions, fights broke out between parties and societies, which dispersed the power of the ruling group and affected and delayed the normal operation of the government. Due to the party's unfavorable Ming Dynasty policies towards Liaodong, Yuan Chonghuan was executed. It was precisely because of party strife that the Beijing regime was unable to make a decision when faced with the choice of moving south. Therefore, the disadvantages of the party-social dispute and its impact on the demise of the Ming Dynasty are indisputable. From the perspective of class relations and class antagonism, the strength of the powerful landlord class and the intensification of servitude and exploitation of the middle and lower classes of civilians can be used to explain the occurrence of peasant uprisings, but the key is to have contrast and to compare the late Ming Dynasty with the Comparing the burdens borne by the common people with those before it shows numerically that taxes and levies have indeed increased in the last years of the Ming Dynasty. However, the luxury and corruption of the ruling group cannot be used as the only symbol, so we habitually think that the last years of the Ming Dynasty are like any traditional dynasty. At the end of the period, taxes and servitude were also very heavy and exploitation was severe, leading to conflicts and eventually an uprising. In fact, in the process of analyzing the peasant uprisings in the late Ming Dynasty, it seems that we should see that in Henan, Anhui, Shaanxi, Sichuan and other places where the largest number of peasant uprisings broke out in Chinese history, on the one hand, the government imposed more taxes and exploitation on the people; On the other hand, due to factors such as large populations and limited resources in these areas, farmers' survival competition and pressure have increased, resulting in many unemployed refugees, and eventually uprisings broke out. An example of this is: Why have there been no peasant uprisings in the southeastern Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions for a long time? Therefore, the demise of the Ming Dynasty cannot be attributed to the increase of taxation and exploitation to such an extent that the peasants had no choice but to rebel. When considering this factor, we must pay attention to the differences between regions, that is, the ability of various regions to withstand taxation and exploitation. The views mentioned above are scattered in many books and articles, and they can explain the demise of the Ming Dynasty to a certain extent. However, as Huang Renyu pointed out in the book "Finance and Taxation in Ming Dynasty China in the Sixteenth Century": "It is not surprising that traditional Chinese historians are always willing to use morality to explain history. When one has both ability and political integrity, When people take control of political power, the government's funds are naturally abundant. On the contrary, corruption always goes hand in hand with the incompetence of leaders." The above understandings from the political and economic perspective also seem to fall into the trap of interpreting history with morality. They make too much of it. Emphasize the virtues and talents of those in power. Therefore, some foreign scholars try to explain the demise of the Ming Dynasty from an institutional perspective. Huang Renyu pointed out that the demise of the Ming Dynasty was caused by the rigid and convergent financial system. Others believe that Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime minister system, which led to a series of negative consequences, namely: the high concentration of imperial power and its fragility, the monopoly of eunuchs, conflicts between parties and societies, etc. In short, the demise of the Ming Dynasty was inevitable due to the development of early historical factors. In addition to the above analyses, the demise of the Ming Dynasty can also be explained from the relationship between bureaucratic intellectuals and the state. Due to the late Ming Dynasty's rulers' neglect of government affairs and the exclusive power of eunuchs, many intellectuals who were willing to be loyal to the country were excluded and attacked, which to a certain extent weakened the trust of the scholar class in the country.

In addition, the struggle between the party and the society became more and more intense, which made the scholars choose the latter between safeguarding justice and preserving themselves. As a result, knowledgeable people either stayed outside the temple or took refuge in Houjin. According to Wei Feide's view in "Hongye-The Founding History of the Qing Dynasty": the Qing Dynasty relied on the two forces of Liaodong warriors and scholars to achieve the war of unifying China. Therefore, the separation between the bureaucratic intellectuals and the dynasty in the late Ming Dynasty was also the reason for the demise of the Ming Dynasty. The rapid rise of the Qing Dynasty was also the reason for the demise of the Ming Dynasty. Although historians are still skeptical about the inevitability of the Qing Dynasty's entry into the customs. However, the rapid rise of the Jurchens outside the Pass caused the Ming Dynasty to shift its attention to Liaodong, thereby ignoring the uprising in the interior and increasing the burden on the people. The Qing Dynasty's constant wars with the Ming Dynasty not only consumed the Ming Dynasty's national power, but also accelerated the division within the Ming Dynasty's ruling group. Some foreign scholars also pointed out that the demise of the Ming Dynasty was closely related to the worldwide commercial decline in the 17th century. They first demonstrated the close correlation between China and the world economic system starting from the early Ming Dynasty. He also pointed out that in the first thirty years of the 17th century, China benefited greatly from world trade. Silver from all over the world flowed into China continuously through Malacca and Manila, thus supplying the currency demand of the commercial economy in southeastern China. However, between 1620 and 1660, a trade crisis occurred in Europe. Coupled with the sharp decline in silver production worldwide, the amount of silver imported into China decreased, which ultimately led to the decline of the southeastern commercial economy and intensified the Ming Dynasty's Economic collapse. This understanding can explain the decline of the Jiangnan economy, especially the urban economy, in the late Ming Dynasty, but it cannot explain the eventual demise of the entire country due to a general commercial crisis. Of course, this understanding also has its own novelty when explaining the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty. In addition, worldwide climate change also contributed to the demise of the Ming Dynasty. In the mid-17th century, China, like many countries in the northern hemisphere, experienced a cold period in geological history (see "Cambridge History of China in the Ming Dynasty" p. 633, Zhu Kezhen's "Preliminary Research on Climate Changes in China in the Past Five Thousand Years"). Along with this cold period, the It was a series of droughts, floods, locust plagues and plagues. Especially between 1637 and 1644, disasters occurred frequently across the country. The plague spread from Shanxi to Henan, Hebei, Beijing and many surrounding areas. These factors caused a significant decrease in population and poor agricultural harvests in the Ming Dynasty. Based on this, Cao Shuji, a professor of historical geography at Fudan University, analyzed various data and proposed that the Ming Dynasty perished due to the deterioration of the ecological environment. The so-called deterioration of the ecological environment is actually caused by the cold period in geological history. Obviously, the demise of the Ming Dynasty cannot be solely attributed to climate factors, but in fact the impact of climate change in the 17th century is clearly visible in the history of the Ming Dynasty. This was also one of the factors that caused the demise of the Ming Dynasty. Generally speaking, the demise of the Ming Dynasty was not due to a single factor. On the one hand, the Ming Dynasty was still a part of traditional Chinese society, so it inevitably went through the reconstruction of the social structure and the redevelopment of social resources in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Distribution in order to maintain the stability of the dualistic social structure under centralization. At the same time, after nearly three hundred years of development, there is an urgent need to rebalance the social structure and distribution. Therefore, the demise of the Ming Dynasty is a recurrence of the previous traditional dynasty history; but another On the one hand, due to the special characteristics of the Ming Dynasty, future generations can analyze the demise of the Ming Dynasty from other special perspectives.