Tom Colton
domesticated humans?!
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- he/him/his
I was just watching Hansan: Rising Dragon and got into a bit of a deep dive concerning the Ming Emperor at the time, ergo the Wanli Emperor in the title of this WI.
After essentially eleven continuous years of warfare on multiple fronts (the Bozhou rebellion in southwestern China, the Ordos campaign near Mongolia and Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea) in the first 18 years of his personal rule, he effectively neglected all of his imperial duties for 20 straight years, especially after he got browbeaten in 1601 into accepting the succession of his son Zhu Changluo who eventually became the Taichang Emperor whose rule is amongst the shortest in Chinese history because he died of diahorrea shortly after ascending. The Wanli Emperor's inaction and refusal to attend court has widely been the scapegoat for Ming China's collapse some 24 years after his death in 1620.
What if he died essentially right after accepting the succession plans of his ministers in 1601 (or long enough after that to avoid suspicion of an assassination), say from a respiratory collapse since he was rumoured to have been an opium addict? The Taichang Emperor is said to have had a hampered education only starting at the late age of 13 due to the lack of clarity over his succession, and was 19 when he was finally confirmed as his father's heir.
Could he have become a capable ruler given an earlier start? Would the Ming government have spent 1601-1620 (at the very earliest) more fruitfully than in OTL? Could any of these factors have preserved the fortunes of the Ming dynasty in specific and China in general before the Great Divergence became an inevitability?
After essentially eleven continuous years of warfare on multiple fronts (the Bozhou rebellion in southwestern China, the Ordos campaign near Mongolia and Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea) in the first 18 years of his personal rule, he effectively neglected all of his imperial duties for 20 straight years, especially after he got browbeaten in 1601 into accepting the succession of his son Zhu Changluo who eventually became the Taichang Emperor whose rule is amongst the shortest in Chinese history because he died of diahorrea shortly after ascending. The Wanli Emperor's inaction and refusal to attend court has widely been the scapegoat for Ming China's collapse some 24 years after his death in 1620.
What if he died essentially right after accepting the succession plans of his ministers in 1601 (or long enough after that to avoid suspicion of an assassination), say from a respiratory collapse since he was rumoured to have been an opium addict? The Taichang Emperor is said to have had a hampered education only starting at the late age of 13 due to the lack of clarity over his succession, and was 19 when he was finally confirmed as his father's heir.
Could he have become a capable ruler given an earlier start? Would the Ming government have spent 1601-1620 (at the very earliest) more fruitfully than in OTL? Could any of these factors have preserved the fortunes of the Ming dynasty in specific and China in general before the Great Divergence became an inevitability?
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