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Created page with " Following the fall of Beijing to Manchu forces in 1644, hundreds of imperial princes and thousands of scholar-officials and others continued to fight to restore t..."
Following the fall of [[Beijing]] to [[Manchu]] forces in [[1644]], hundreds of imperial princes and thousands of scholar-officials and others continued to fight to restore the [[Ming Dynasty]], or fled to Japan and elsewhere, refusing to serve under a "barbarian" dynasty. The [[Qing Dynasty]] suppressed the last of the resistance on mainland China by around [[1660]], but [[Taiwan]] remained a significant base of loyalist resistance until [[1683]].
[[Joseon Dynasty]] Korea submitted to Qing authority early on, ending its [[tribute|tributary]] relations with the Ming and entering into such relations with the Qing in [[1637]], seven years before the Ming fell. The Ming's second chief tributary, the [[Kingdom of Ryukyu|Kingdom of Ryûkyû]], on the other hand, continued to be loyal to the Ming until well into the 1650s. Qing envoy [[Xie Bizhen]] traveled to Ryûkyû several times, unsuccessfully attempting to convince King [[Sho Ken|Shô Ken]] to shift loyalties; it was only under his successor, King [[Sho Shitsu|Shô Shitsu]], that a mission to Qing-held Beijing was finally sent, sometime after [[1647]]. The Ryukyuan envoys congratulated the [[Shunzhi Emperor]] on his enthronement, turned in the royal seal and imperial rescript granted them by the Ming, and requested a new seal and rescript from the Qing, but even at that time did not explicitly request [[Chinese investiture envoys]] to continue coming to Ryûkyû. Such a mission would not come until [[1663]], re-establishing investiture/tribute relations between China and Ryûkyû, after a previous attempt to send an investiture mission in [[1654]] was blocked by the naval forces of Taiwan-based Ming loyalists.<ref>Nishizato Kikô. "The Problem of Royal Investiture during the Ming-Qing Transition Period." [http://venus.unive.it/okinawa/en/sunti/nishizato.html Abstract]. Paper presented at 5th International Conference on Okinawan Studies, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, September 2006.</ref>
==Claimants to the Throne==
The [[Prince of Fu]] was the first of the significant claimants to the throne to be defeated. A grandson of the [[Wanli Emperor]], he was based at [[Nanjing]]. The Prince attempted to negotiate with the Manchu leader [[Dorgon]], offering large annual tribute payments if the Manchus would withdraw to the north of the [[Great Wall]]; this tactic, which worked to an extent for the [[Han Dynasty]] keeping the [[Xiongnu]] at bay, and for the [[Song Dynasty]] against the [[Khitans]] and [[Jurchens]], was rejected by Dorgon, who offered a counter-proposal: that the Prince of Fu give up any claims to the throne, or imperial ambitions, and be satisfied with a small independent kingdom. Following the Prince's rejection of this counter-offer, the Manchu forces marched south along the [[Grand Canal]], sacking [[Yangzhou]] in May [[1645]] and taking Nanjing the following month. As the Prince's court was beset by much factional debate, it was unable to provide a coordinated defense of the city, and folded quickly. The Prince was captured and taken to Beijing, where he died in [[1646]].
Two brothers, supposed descendants of the [[Hongwu Emperor]], the 14th century founder of the Ming, led a short-lived resistance in [[Fuzhou]] and [[Canton]] (Guangzhou). The older brother was defeated and killed at Fuzhou in late 1646, and his younger brother the following year, as the Manchus took Canton. Another supposed descendant of Hongwu based his court at [[Xiamen]] (Amoy), and later at [[Zhoushan Island]] (near modern-day [[Shanghai]]), attempting to rally followers around him as he moved up the southeast coast; he was eventually forced to flee to sea, continuing to assert his claim from a junk offshore until [[1653]].
The Prince of Gui was the final major claimant to the Ming throne.
==On Taiwan==
[[Wako|Pirate]] captain [[Zheng Zhilong]] and his son [[Zheng Chenggong]] fled from the fall of Fuzhou in 1646, taking their loyalist forces to the sea, and to Taiwan, where they established a new base of operations, harassing Qing ships and the Chinese coast, and resisting Qing forces until 1683. While intercepting maritime trade originating from mainland China, these Taiwan-based loyalists maintained communications and trade connections with the [[Chinese in Nagasaki|Chinese community in Nagasaki]].<ref>Marius Jansen, ''China in the Tokugawa World'', Harvard University Press (1992), 27.</ref>
In a policy known as ''[[qianjie]]'', ports in southern China were closed in [[1657]], and again in [[1661]], and residents moved away from the coast, in response to raids and pirate attacks by Ming loyalists based on Taiwan.<ref>Angela Schottenhammer, "The East Asian maritime world, 1400-1800: Its fabrics of power and dynamics of exchanges - China and her neighbors." in Schottenhammer (ed.) ''The East Asian maritime world, 1400-1800: Its fabrics of power and dynamics of exchanges'', Harrassowitz Verlag, 2007. pp1-83. </ref> Around that same time, one hundred seventy people fled from Taiwan to [[Chinese in Nagasaki|Nagasaki]], including at least three European women, 11 women of mixed race, and 28 slaves. These would be the last women of non-East Asian origin to live in Japan until [[1817]].
Ming loyalists in mainland China, and on Taiwan, sent numerous requests to Japanese authorities, and to the Ryûkyû Kingdom, requesting aid against the Manchus. The Japanese referred to the messengers 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>
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==References==
*Jonathan Spence, ''The Search for Modern China'', Second Edition, W.W. Norton & Co. (1999), 35-.
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