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Meanwhile, the Ming had been fighting the Manchus in the north, suffering a notable early defeat in [[1619]], but otherwise managing to hold back the steppe nomads. Hearing of the fall of Beijing, however, the commander of the Ming armies in the northeast enlisted the aid of the Manchus to help oust Li Zicheng. The Manchu armies, led by Ming forces to Beijing, did just that, defeating Li Zicheng, but afterwards, they kept Beijing for themselves, going on to conquer the remainder of China in the ensuing decades.<ref name=tignor500/>

Meanwhile, the Ming had been fighting the Manchus in the north, suffering a notable early defeat in [[1619]], but otherwise managing to hold back the steppe nomads. Hearing of the fall of Beijing, however, the commander of the Ming armies in the northeast enlisted the aid of the Manchus to help oust Li Zicheng. The Manchu armies, led by Ming forces to Beijing, did just that, defeating Li Zicheng, but afterwards, they kept Beijing for themselves, going on to conquer the remainder of China in the ensuing decades.<ref name=tignor500/>

Ming loyalists initially fled to [[Fujian province]], attempting to set up an Imperial Court in exile there,<ref>[[Marius Jansen]], ''China in the Tokugawa World'', Harvard University Press (1992), 26.</ref> and remained active in southern China and Taiwan into the 1680s, sending numerous requests for aid to Japan. The Japanese referred to those bringing these requests as ''Nihon kisshi'' (日本乞師). None were offered aid by the shogunate.<ref>Mizuno Norihito, “China in Tokugawa Foreign Relations: The Tokugawa Bakufu’s Perception of and Attitudes toward Ming-Qing China,” ''Sino-Japanese Studies'' 15 (2003), 138.</ref>

Ming loyalists initially fled to [[Fujian province]], attempting to set up an Imperial Court in exile there,<ref>[[Marius Jansen]], ''China in the Tokugawa World'', Harvard University Press (1992), 26.</ref> and remained active in southern China and Taiwan into the 1680s, sending numerous requests for aid to Japan. The Japanese referred to those bringing these requests as ''Nihon kisshi'' (日本乞師). Some prominent shogunate officials supported the notion of sending support, and the matter was briefly discussed; the shogunate went so far as to send messages to the Korean court, via [[Tsushima han]], testing out Korean support for such pro-Ming actions. However, a number of prominent officials opposed sending any support. They pointed to the Ming's unfriendly and even hostile attitudes for nearly a century against Japanese ships coming to China, and to the fact that the loyalists requesting aid were not clear representatives of the Ming Imperial Court, but were essentially unknowns. In the end, no aid was offered or provided by the shogunate.<ref>Mizuno Norihito, “China in Tokugawa Foreign Relations: The Tokugawa Bakufu’s Perception of and Attitudes toward Ming-Qing China,” ''Sino-Japanese Studies'' 15 (2003), 138.; Jansen, 27.</ref>

The Ming continued to live on in the popular imagination throughout the region. Japanese popular publications continued to associate the Ming with the true Chinese rulers, or the true Chinese culture, down into the 19th century, and the royal courts & aristocracies of [[Joseon Dynasty|Korea]] and Ryûkyû considered themselves, in certain respects, the successors to the Ming tradition - the inheritors of the true Chinese civilization, as China proper had fallen to the "barbarians" (the Manchus).

The Ming continued to live on in the popular imagination throughout the region. Japanese popular publications continued to associate the Ming with the true Chinese rulers, or the true Chinese culture, down into the 19th century, and the royal courts & aristocracies of [[Joseon Dynasty|Korea]] and Ryûkyû considered themselves, in certain respects, the successors to the Ming tradition - the inheritors of the true Chinese civilization, as China proper had fallen to the "barbarians" (the Manchus).