WI/AHC: Taichang Emperor ascends earlier (c.1601), Saves the Ming Dynasty

[Tom Colton]

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?

 

[raharris1973]

in the first final 18 years of his personal rule

I think you meant this

 

[Tom Colton]

I think you meant this

I didn’t, he had a regent from 1572-1582, then was active in government from 1582-1600 (this being the 18 years), of which 11 years were basically continuous warfare, then neglected his duties from 1600-1620.

 

[Tom Colton]

Edited the title for comprehensibility - is the Ming Dynasty doomed due to the Little Ice Age and being bankrupted from the wars, or is it possible with more energetic leadership to ride out the storm?

 

[raharris1973]

I didn’t, he had a regent from 1572-1582, then was active in government from 1582-1600 (this being the 18 years), of which 11 years were basically continuous warfare, then neglected his duties from 1600-1620.

A-ha, thanks for explaining.

 

[Octosteel]

Edited the title for comprehensibility - is the Ming Dynasty doomed due to the Little Ice Age and being bankrupted from the wars, or is it possible with more energetic leadership to ride out the storm?

I do wonder if it's mostly just past its expiration date. How much of the issue with the Ming was more structural and how much do you think was the military being underfunded. I do recall Samuel Hawley saying the actual amount of troops the Ming could bring to fight were surprisingly limited. I'm just not entirely sure why speciifcally they were so weak.

If the Ming are doomed, you can still preserve Han Chinese rule by having that one bandit king become emperor instead of the Qing. At the very least, preventing the Qing from coming in seems not impossible either with having better paid and more loyal Great Wall guards certainly being a way to help.

Also, I too watched Hansan recently! Really excited for Noryang which should be out next year. Excited to see the Ming in that one.

 

[raharris1973]

I do wonder if it's mostly just past its expiration date. How much of the issue with the Ming was more structural and how much do you think was the military being underfunded. I do recall Samuel Hawley saying the actual amount of troops the Ming could bring to fight were surprisingly limited. I'm just not entirely sure why speciifcally they were so weak.

If the Ming are doomed, you can still preserve Han Chinese rule by having that one bandit king become emperor instead of the Qing. At the very least, preventing the Qing from coming in seems not impossible either with having better paid and more loyal Great Wall guards certainly being a way to help.

Also, I too watched Hansan recently! Really excited for Noryang which should be out next year. Excited to see the Ming in that one.

I have both Samuel Hawley's 'Imjin War' and Kenneth Swope's 'A Dragon's Head and a Serpent's Tail' about that period and the Imjin War in particular. I got furthest with Swope's book, and he's pretty positive on Ming military and naval performance during the war along with two other simultaneous campaigns, and by extension, Wanli's leadership for at least that 1590s portion of his reign.

 

[BBadolato]

Edited the title for comprehensibility - is the Ming Dynasty doomed due to the Little Ice Age and being bankrupted from the wars, or is it possible with more energetic leadership to ride out the storm?

I really don't think it's doomed, you'd really just have to make sure the Jurchen's don't come knocking but what happens to the Ming afterwards is anyone's game. The thing with some Chinese Emperors is that they needed to find the right people and give a shit to rule and not just do whatever they wanted if they got bored.

Mind you the Ming before hand had weathered the capture of one Emperor, and the Jiajeng emperor's reign. Also the Ming weren't weak enough to be pushovers, most of the Jurchen's success came from Ming defectors. And even the Japanese invasion of Korea was something of a really remarkable event, and the Ming were an important part of the Imjin War.

 

[Tom Colton]

I have both Samuel Hawley's 'Imjin War' and Kenneth Swope's 'A Dragon's Head and a Serpent's Tail' about that period and the Imjin War in particular. I got furthest with Swope's book, and he's pretty positive on Ming military and naval performance during the war along with two other simultaneous campaigns, and by extension, Wanli's leadership for at least that 1590s portion of his reign.

I can believe that the Ming's participation in the Imjin War was somewhat limited by its other obligations, but I'd like to see some actual numbers so it'd be great if you could see where Hawley and Swope give them!

I really don't think it's doomed, you'd really just have to make sure the Jurchen's don't come knocking but what happens to the Ming afterwards is anyone's game. The thing with some Chinese Emperors is that they needed to find the right people and give a shit to rule and not just do whatever they wanted if they got bored.

It seems like one consequence of the Taichang Emperor ruling two decades earlier would be butterflying away Wei Zhongxian's notorious domination of the Ming government, so that probably helps, right?

 

[raharris1973]

I still owe Tom a look-up of the numbers.

And I don't have a larger question on how much individual rulership matters versus big picture structural and external factors matter for the fate of the dynasty. As it was, by the standards of dynasties since the Tang, the Ming had a nice long run (and the Qing weren't too shabby in lifespan either). I also have little to go on for Taichang's personal potential.

However, if you want to have Taichang be an engaged Emperor, with an actively functioning court, whose Dad's overall reputation benefits from being a victorious martial Emperor before dying young instead of getting lazy for decades making a mockery of himself - Taichang might try to be a martial Emperor himself.

If so, a fine opportunity for a splendid little war could present itself. The Japanese Shimazu Clan's invasion of the Liu Chiu (or Ryukyu) Kingdom and its main island of Okinawa, which was formally a Chinese tributary, in 1609.

In OTL, the Japanese invaded and extracted regular tribute, but hid or departed, like a hostage-taking burglar, whenever annual or biannual Chinese tribute missions were due to come by,and told the Okinawans to tell the Chinese nothing of the Japanese presence. Maybe the Chinese knew something was up, but if so, they allowed the fiction to continue.

In the ATL, the Chinese become aware of this Japanese attack on their tributary Kingdom, which the Japanese use to get around anti-Japanese trade restrictions, and, pissed off, send a fleet and soldiers to drive out the Japanese. They are especially angry because the Imjin War is in living memory and the Japanese have to be taught another lesson. Maybe rage at the Japanese might motivate the early reigning Taichang Emperor, or he wants to match his father's deeds. Ming China's odds should be pretty good in such a fight, because the Mings had shown themselves superior to the Japanese in naval terms throughout the Imjin War, and the Ryukyuan people I would expect to be pro-Chinese and anti-Japanese, and the Japanese central Shogunate left the takeover a deniable operation outsourced to the Shimazu daimyo. The Japanese superiority would be in infantry. The Koreans may or may not feel obligated to help out, from a sense of tributary and reciprocal duty, dating back to the Imjin War.

This is pre-Sakoku, so western mercs, arms traders, pirates, other merchants and diplomats could get involved, on the margins, on both sides.

 

[Tom Colton]

And I don't have a larger question on how much individual rulership matters versus big picture structural and external factors matter for the fate of the dynasty. As it was, by the standards of dynasties since the Tang, the Ming had a nice long run (and the Qing weren't too shabby in lifespan either). I also have little to go on for Taichang's personal potential.

Good points, I just wanted to use the Taichang Emperor for this since he's enough of a cipher for us to project whatever traits we need to onto him. Sure, increased participation in government could easily be worse, but I'd imagine it's still more likely to be better than malaise.

In the ATL, the Chinese become aware of this Japanese attack on their tributary Kingdom, which the Japanese use to get around anti-Japanese trade restrictions, and, pissed off, send a fleet and soldiers to drive out the Japanese. [snip]

That's a good flashpoint for a "second" POD right there, I wonder how much longer that staves off the end of the Ming however.

 

[BBadolato]

In the ATL, the Chinese become aware of this Japanese attack on their tributary Kingdom, which the Japanese use to get around anti-Japanese trade restrictions, and, pissed off, send a fleet and soldiers to drive out the Japanese. They are especially angry because the Imjin War is in living memory and the Japanese have to be taught another lesson. Maybe rage at the Japanese might motivate the early reigning Taichang Emperor, or he wants to match his father's deeds. Ming China's odds should be pretty good in such a fight, because the Mings had shown themselves superior to the Japanese in naval terms throughout the Imjin War, and the Ryukyuan people I would expect to be pro-Chinese and anti-Japanese, and the Japanese central Shogunate left the takeover a deniable operation outsourced to the Shimazu daimyo. The Japanese superiority would be in infantry. The Koreans may or may not feel obligated to help out, from a sense of tributary and reciprocal duty, dating back to the Imjin War.

This is pre-Sakoku, so western mercs, arms traders, pirates, other merchants and diplomats could get involved, on the margins, on both sides.

That's a good flashpoint for a "second" POD right there, I wonder how much longer that staves off the end of the Ming however.

This would be unlikely to happen, and it could end up making things worse. For one, the Ming would have to raise a fleet and send soldiers, and that is not an inexpensive undertaking, even if the conflict is limited to just the Ryukyu islands. Two I don't believe Ieyasu or Hidetada would have ordered the Shimazu to go invade, they might have allowed it to happen, but it was largely the Shimazu's doing. The Shimazu also sided against the Tokugawa at Sekigahara in 1600, and that the Tokugawa's grip wasn't that firm. If the Shimazu were to do something that could jeopardize everything, they'd be sold the river even if it at least meant the death of the head of the Shimazu as reparations.

As for it becoming a wider war, I don't anyone is really willing to go that far. Joseon suffered too much from the invasions prior to, the Ming risk an expensive conflict for minimal gain that could upend some political careers, and Japan is in a delicate situation that the Tokugawa can't afford to miscalculate.

Staving off the malaise of the Ming could be as simple as just making sure the Donglin movement goes somewhere and conflict with the Jurchens are avoided. But again It's a system where you going to get 'lazy' emperors and political struggles somewhere down the line although it takes a serious invasion and devastating natural disasters to push things to the breaking point which no one good leader can go fight.