Key takeaways
- Wikipedia dates the Ming dynasty from 1368 to 1644, after the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan; Southern Ming rump regimes survived until 1662.
- Its founder, Zhu Yuanzhang, ruled as the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368–1398) and abolished the Chancellery after executing Chancellor Hu Weiyong in 1380.
- The Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–1424) announced Beijing as the new capital in 1403; Wikipedia says construction there lasted from 1407 to 1420.
- Ming census figures are treated as dubious by historians; late-Ming population estimates cited by Wikipedia range from 160 to 200 million.
- Wikipedia notes that historians such as Atwell have argued that disrupted silver imports in the 1630s–40s were central to the Ming fiscal collapse.
- Beijing fell to Li Zicheng's rebels on 25 April 1644, and the Qing entered the capital on 6 June with the defecting general Wu Sangui.
The Ming dynasty ruled China from 1368 to 1644, between the Mongol-led Yuan and the Manchu-led Qing. Wikipedia describes it as the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, and Columbia University's Asia for Educators summary calls this "late imperial" period the height of the Chinese political and social order. That is a long span — 276 years from proclamation to the fall of Beijing — so this guide follows it as a sequence of reigns and turning points rather than a single portrait.
A rebel monk takes the Yangtze
The Ming began inside a rebellion. Wikipedia attributes the Yuan collapse to several pressures together: resentment of institutionalised ethnic discrimination against the Han, overtaxation in areas hit by inflation, and massive Yellow River flooding after irrigation works were abandoned. Rebellion spread among the peasants drafted to repair the levees, and the Red Turbans, linked to the White Lotus Buddhist society, rose in 1351.
Zhu Yuanzhang — in Wikipedia's words a penniless peasant and Buddhist monk — joined the Red Turbans in 1352. His force captured Nanjing in 1356. In 1363 he defeated his chief rival, Chen Youliang, at the Battle of Lake Poyang; the enemy force is claimed to have been 650,000 strong, a figure worth treating as a claim rather than a count. In 1368 he sent an army toward the Yuan capital Dadu (present-day Beijing), the last Yuan emperor fled north, and Zhu proclaimed the Ming, taking the era name Hongwu, "Vastly Martial".
What the Hongwu Emperor built, and whom he purged
The Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368–1398) set out to rebuild the state. Wikipedia records a 48-kilometre wall around Nanjing, a new law code — the Great Ming Code, completed by 1397 — and a hereditary military system known as the weisuo. His aim, as Wikipedia puts it, was a society of self-sufficient rural communities in a rigid, immobile order supporting a permanent soldier class.
He was also suspicious to the point of terror. In 1380 he had Chancellor Hu Weiyong executed on suspicion of conspiracy and then abolished the Chancellery, making himself chief executive as well as emperor — a precedent mostly followed for the rest of the dynasty. He created the Embroidered Uniform Guard as a secret police, and Wikipedia states that some 100,000 people were executed in purges during his rule. Asia for Educators sums this up as Hongwu having "laid the basis of an authoritarian political culture."
The Yongle Emperor's "second founding"
Hongwu named his grandson as heir, who reigned as the Jianwen Emperor from 1398. His uncle Zhu Di rebelled; after a three-year civil war the Nanjing palace burned along with Jianwen, and Zhu Di took the throne as the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–1424). Wikipedia says scholars universally view his reign as a "second founding", because he reversed many of his father's policies.
Yongle moved the centre of gravity north. In 1403 he announced that the capital would be his power base, renamed Beijing; construction lasted from 1407 to 1420 and employed hundreds of thousands of workers daily, with the Forbidden City at its centre. He restored the Grand Canal, occupied Vietnam from 1406 until the Ming withdrawal in 1427, and from 1405 sent the eunuch Zheng He on the voyages discussed in Zheng He's treasure fleets. He also gave eunuchs real power as a counterweight to the scholar-officials, against his father's rule that eunuchs should not read or engage in politics.
1449: an emperor captured at Tumu
The expansive early phase ended abruptly. In July 1449 the Oirat leader Esen Tayisi invaded. Encouraged by the chief eunuch Wang Zhen, the Zhengtong Emperor led an army out in person, and on 8 September it was routed and the emperor captured — the Tumu Crisis. The ransom plan failed because his brother took the throne as the Jingtai Emperor, and the captive was eventually released, kept under house arrest, and restored by coup in 1457.
After Tumu the posture became defensive. Wikipedia notes that the vast majority of the brick and stone Great Wall seen today is a Ming product, fortified from the late fifteenth century into the sixteenth, and quotes John Fairbank's judgement that it "proved to be a futile military gesture but vividly expressed China's siege mentality."
Silver, census gaps and the late Ming economy
The sixteenth century brought European traders to the coast. Wikipedia dates the first Portuguese trade with China to 1516 and their settlement at Macau, with Ming consent, to 1557. American silver followed. Asia for Educators describes silver minted by the Spanish in the Americas crossing the Pacific through Manila into China, which it calls a "sink" for silver at a time when Asia was the centre of the world economy.
Population is the figure most often quoted and least secure. The 1381 census counted 59,873,305 people, but Wikipedia reports that Timothy Brook considers Ming census figures dubious because households and officials under-reported to reduce tax. Late-Ming estimates it cites differ by 40 million: Fairbank 160 million, Brook 175 million, Ebrey 200 million.
How the silver squeeze reached a farmer
Wikipedia describes what happened when silver imports were disrupted in the 1630s and people began hoarding it. In the 1630s a string of 1,000 copper coins equalled an ounce of silver; by 1640 the same string fetched half an ounce; by 1643, a third.
Peasants sold crops and traded locally in copper but paid taxes in silver. Take a tax bill of one ounce of silver:
| Year | Silver per 1,000 coins | Copper coins needed for 1 oz tax |
|---|---|---|
| 1630s | 1 oz | 1,000 |
| 1640 | 0.5 oz | 2,000 |
| 1643 | about 0.33 oz | 3,000 |
The same tax tripled in copper terms within a few years. Wikipedia adds that Atwell and other historians have argued silver disruption was central to the fiscal collapse — an argument, not a settled verdict.
From famine to the fall of Beijing in 1644
The monetary squeeze arrived alongside natural disaster. Wikipedia links famines in northern China in the early seventeenth century to dry, cold weather associated with the Little Ice Age, and describes an epidemic from 1633 to 1644 that killed "an unknown but large number of people". From 1640 starving peasants formed huge rebel bands while the army fought Manchu raiders to the north.
On 25 April 1644 Beijing fell to Li Zicheng, who had proclaimed the Shun dynasty, and the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself outside the Forbidden City. The border general Wu Sangui then opened Shanhai Pass to the Manchu Eight Banners, and on 6 June the Manchus and Wu entered Beijing and proclaimed the Shunzhi Emperor. Ming loyalists — the Southern Ming — fought on until the last claimant was captured and executed in 1662.
Placing the Ming on a wider timeline
The Ming overlaps with the European voyages covered in the age of exploration, and its silver story links it to the Americas. For where it sits among China's other dynasties, see Chinese dynasties in chronological order; for the Mongol state it replaced, how the Mongol conquests spread.
World History Timeline Sim, our own app, lets you browse events by year, era, region or country and set turning points like these side by side; its Time Travel Mode is alternate history, so its chains of consequences are simulations, not what happened. Its store listing pitches it as a companion to coursework rather than a replacement, so for the census and silver debates above, the cited historians remain the place to go. It is free with ads and optional in-app purchases. More is in the education and brain apps category.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
When did the Ming dynasty begin and end?
Who founded the Ming dynasty?
Why did the Ming dynasty fall in 1644?
How many people lived in Ming China?
Sources
- Ming dynasty (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia — accessed
- Key Points: 1450–1750 — Late Imperial China: The Ming (1368–1644) and the Qing (1644–1912) (opens in a new tab)Asia for Educators, Columbia University — accessed
- Timelines: China (opens in a new tab)Asia for Educators, Columbia University — accessed
About the author
Reign Creative LLC — The independent app studio that builds the apps covered on this site and publishes every article here. On Google Play it publishes as Reign Collective Apps.
We use AI tools to help research, draft and edit our articles. Each article lists the sources its factual claims rely on, and details about our apps come from their live Google Play listings. No article on this site has been reviewed by an independent expert unless the reviewer is named on it.
No person at Reign Creative LLC has read this article in full. It was published after automated checks and an AI editorial review, which are described in our editorial policy and are not the same as a person reading every sentence.
Spotted an error? Tell us — how corrections are handled is set out in our editorial policy.