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==The Fall of the Ming==

==The Fall of the Ming==

The Ming suffered their first defeat to the Manchus in [[1619]], and lost Beijing in 1644. Ming loyalists remained active in southern China and [[Taiwan]] into the 1680s, however, and 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 suffered their first defeat to the Manchus in [[1619]], and lost Beijing in 1644. Ming loyalists remained active in southern China and [[Taiwan]] into the 1680s, however, and sent numerous requests for aid to Japan. The Japanese referred to those bringing these requests as ''Nihon kisshi'' (日本乞師), and 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>

 

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).

==Emperors of the Ming Dynasty==

==Emperors of the Ming Dynasty==