31 Ming Dynasty
Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)
The Yuan Empire came apart at the seams in the early fourteenth century as regional autonomy and separatism rendered the central government at Tatu (later ‘Beijing’) increasingly cash-strapped and powerless. Despite several campaigns and measures to reverse this, including forming numerous coalitions with warlords still semi-loyal to the Yuan to take down non-loyal warlords, the area controlled by the central government (little more than the area around Tatu and Mongolia proper) was too weak and the warlords too selfish and fickle for the House of Ghenghis Khan to do anything but inexorably lose control over the country. This process started with the southernmost warlords along the Pearl River (Guangxi, Guangdong), whose geographical isolation (and therefore protection) led to them being the first to declare the restoration of the Song Empire/independence. For all intents and purposes, the Yuan Empire ceased to exist split into at least nine different countries.
The mid-Yangzi was one of the most hotly-contested regions in all of China, as it was relatively populous and thus wealthy, and one of the hardest to hold because it was vulnerable to attacks from the lower and upper Yangzi and from the north China plain. The kingdoms which had originally held these lands basically tore themselves apart through the strain of fighting, allowing several highly unorthodox figures to rise to the top of society. Through good strategic choices including the forging of two key alliances (most notably the warlord Zhang Shicheng of Fujian and the lower Yangzi), and excellent understanding of the operational and tactical levels of warfare, Zhu eventually conquered the entire Yangzi despite starting from virtually nothing and both his major allies (based in the upper- and lower-Yangzi, respectively) turning on him once they’d divided up the entire Yangzi between the three of them. After he secured the entire Yangzi Zhu spent several years building up his powerbase before declaring the foundation of The Ming Dynasty of the Chinese Empire and crowning himself the Hongwu (’eminently martial’) Emperor. He then conquered the entire north China plain, and after that the Pearl River region.
Zhu Yuanzhang was many things: born a poor peasant, he would emerge as one of China’s foremost warlords. With brutal cunning, he managed to get the upper hand over his rivals, seizing the throne, and with increasing age ended up becoming more and more paranoid and murderous. That’s at least Rags to Royalty, Magnificent Bastard (although very much indebted to good advisers) and Despotism Justifies the Means all rolled into one. The Ming is the first Chinese Empire we have anything more than very basic documentation for, with about 10,000 government documents remaining from the period – not enough for a detailed picture of government activity, but enough for a reasonably accurate outline. The minor cultural stuff (plays, songs, opera, etc) wasn’t