The Fall of the Ming Dynasty: How Rebels and Manchus Conquered China

In the early seventeenth century, the Ming Dynasty still ruled one of the world’s largest and wealthiest empires. But beneath its power, China was being consumed by political conflict, military expenses, fiscal crisis, natural disasters, famine, and increasingly destructive rebellions. Beyond the Great Wall, the Manchus built a powerful new state and launched repeated attacks against Ming territory. Inside China, desperate peasants joined enormous rebel armies. In 1644, the rebel leader Li Zicheng captured Beijing, and the Chongzhen Emperor took his own life as the imperial capital fell. But the rebels would not rule China for long. The Ming general Wu Sangui sought Manchu assistance against Li Zicheng, helping Qing forces enter through Shanhai Pass. After defeating the rebels, the Manchus occupied Beijing and claimed the Mandate of Heaven. Their conquest was far from complete, however. Ming loyalists, southern regimes, rebel armies, and regional commanders continued resisting Qing rule for decades. This documentary explores the complete fall of the Ming Dynasty—from economic crisis and peasant rebellion to the Manchu invasion, the capture of Beijing, the Battle of Shanhai Pass, and the prolonged Qing conquest of China. How did rebels destroy the Ming government—only for the Manchus to seize the empire from them?