A Study Of The Imperial Clan During The Fall Of The Ming Regime

This is a study of the decision made by the Imperial Clansmen when they faced the fall of their Dynasty.The Feudal System established at early Ming,after two hundred odd years of development into late Ming,had become burdensome and corrupted due to the geometrical increase in clansman's population.This,in term,triggered the delay in payment of Clansmen's emolument and other related financial,political and social problems in the community.That explains why the princes and 2^nd princes had become targets of military actions launched by both the peasant armies and the Qing army before their invasion of Beijing.During the turmoil,most of their palaces were looted and the Clansmen were massacred.Under these circumstances,some affordable survivors decided to rise against the Qing by their own means while other high ranking clansmen took refuge under the Southern Ming Regime and rebelled against the Qing when they were so inst ructed.Most of them ended up with either captured and executed or committing suicide;leaving a fortunate few managed to escape at large and lived like a fugitive in some remote places.There were also Clansmen who committed suicide without making any attempt to save the Regime in contrast to those opportunistic clansmen who joined the rebellion against Qing just for fame and power.For those who surrendered themselves to the Qing government,the governmental policy for Ming's clansman at different stages determined their fate,and thus,the outcome depend very much on the timing as well as ranking and linage of the individual clansman.As to the remaining land sliding majority of the clansmen who belonged to the deprived layer of the clan,they all aba ndoned their halos and burdens of being Imperial Clansmen and became common people living the life of commoners.Some lived as teachers or farmers,others as herbist or artists while a lot became monks or Taoists.The materials they handed down in the form of painting,calligraphy,poems,medical scripts,Buddhist scripts and,most of all,legends,brightened up our culture and enriched our historical records and archives.At the end,although the decision-making of the subject clansman is the focus of t he study,it was discovered that their decision-making were not commanded by their freewill as it might seem to be;but instead,it is the circumstances of each individual clansman which determined the decision he made.