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A weakened Ming Dynasty saw the rise of numerous rebel and bandit groups, in part in response to these famines and onerous tax burdens. One rebel leader, [[Li Zicheng]], captured Beijing in [[1644]], finding only a few companies of soldiers and a few thousand eunuchs defending the city's twenty-one miles of city walls. The [[Chongzhen Emperor]] hanged himself two days later.<ref name=tignor500>Tignor, Elman, et al., 501.</ref>

A weakened Ming Dynasty saw the rise of numerous rebel and bandit groups, in part in response to these famines and onerous tax burdens. One rebel leader, [[Li Zicheng]], captured Beijing in [[1644]], finding only a few companies of soldiers and a few thousand eunuchs defending the city's twenty-one miles of city walls. The [[Chongzhen Emperor]] hanged himself two days later.<ref name=tignor500>Tignor, Elman, et al., 501.</ref>

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, [[Wu Sangui]], 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, thousands of Ming Imperial princes across the country began to gather followers in order to fight to regain the capital and restore the dynasty, resulting in widespread conflict over the succession and leaving the Ming military scattered and occupied, unable to present a unified front against either the rebels or the Manchus. The commander of the Ming armies in the northeast, [[Wu Sangui]], commanded one of the largest and best-equipped forces in the empire, numbering perhaps as many as 100,000 and armed with some number of the best artillery (cannon) in all of East Asia. Wu was stuck in a quandary. Were he to leave his post and march to Beijing to defeat the rebels in hopes of restoring the Ming, the Great Wall would go undefended and the Manchu hordes would flow into China; if, on the other hand, he remained at his post and continued to impede the progress of the Manchus, there would be no Ming to defend (and besides, which of the hundreds or thousands of claimants would he support?). In the end, Wu 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>Jansen, 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>

Ming loyalists initially fled to [[Fujian province]], attempting to set up an Imperial Court in exile there,<ref>Jansen, 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>