Major conflict1618 – 1683 · 65 years
Ming-Qing Transition
China · Manchuria · Ming territory
Jurchen invaders conquered the Ming Dynasty, establishing Qing rule and redrawing China's borders.
Estimated casualties
500K – 2.0Mestimated dead
HEADLINE2.0M — the single figure used on the map
1618-1683; overlaps with Manchu conquest
SOURCEChinese historical records; Clodfelter
What happened
The Qing Conquest (1618-1683) saw Jurchen armies under Nurhaci and Hong Taiji gradually conquer Ming-held territories. The Ming's collapse was expedited by peasant rebellions, particularly Li Zicheng's revolt (1644), which sacked Beijing. Jurchen general Dorgon invited to suppress the rebellion, instead conquered the empire. The Kangxi Emperor (r. 1661-1722) solidified Qing rule, suppressing the Three Feudatories Rebellion (1673-1681) and reclaiming Taiwan from the Ming loyalist Zheng Chenggong's family. The transition involved decades of warfare, plague, and famine; millions died.
Why it mattered
The transition established the Qing Dynasty, which would rule China for nearly 300 years. The Qing became the most extensive empire in Chinese history, incorporating Xinjiang, Tibet, and Mongolia. The transition marked the last conquest of China by an external power (until Western imperialism). The Qing's adoption of Han administrative practices created a hybrid Jurchen-Han empire.
Belligerents3
- Ming Dynasty
- Qing Dynasty
- Later Jin
ON THE MAPMing DynastyQing Dynasty
Sources
- Wikipedia: Fall of Ming Dynasty
- Britannica: Ming-Qing Transition
- Clodfelter, Warfare and Armed Conflicts (4th ed., 2017)
- Wikipedia — text reused under CC BY-SA 4.0
Open in the atlas →Seeks the timeline to 1618 and opens this record.
Cite as: Ming-Qing Transition (1618 – 1683). War Atlas. https://waratlas.org/c/ming-qing-transition · Sources & methodology