Battle · April 14, 1619 · Manchuria (modern Liaoning) Theater

The Ming court sent a massive four-pronged army of nearly 90,000 troops to crush Nurhaci's fledgling Manchu state. Nurhaci, commanding roughly 60,000 bannermen, exploited the poor coordination between the four Ming columns by concentrating his entire force against each one in turn. In three days of fighting in the forested hills near Sarhu, the Manchus destroyed three of the four Ming armies in detail, killing an estimated 45,000 soldiers including several commanding generals. The fourth column retreated without engaging.

Campaign · March 22, 1621 · Liaodong (modern Liaoning) Theater

Following his victory at Sarhu, Nurhaci turned his bannermen against the principal Ming cities of Liaodong. Shenyang, the regional capital, fell after a brief siege when a coordinated attack overwhelmed its defenses. The Ming governor Yuan Yingtai drowned himself rather than surrender. Liaoyang, the other great fortress, fell days later. The twin conquests gave the Manchus the urban and agricultural base they needed to sustain a state capable of challenging China proper.

Siege · February 10, 1626 · Liaodong corridor (modern Liaoning) Theater

Yuan Chonghuan, a brilliant Ming general, organized the defense of the fortress of Ningyuan using recently acquired European-designed cannon (hongyi pao — 'red-haired barbarian cannon' from the Portuguese). When Nurhaci's Manchu host attacked in January 1626, the cannon tore devastating holes in the charging bannermen. Nurhaci, who had never suffered a significant defeat in his forty-year career, was forced to withdraw. He died eight months later, possibly from wounds sustained during the siege.

Political event · April 25, 1644 · North China (Zhili) Theater

After years of famine, tax revolt, and military collapse, the peasant rebel Li Zicheng marched on Beijing with an army of several hundred thousand. The city's defenders deserted or defected, and the gates were opened without a fight. The Chongzhen Emperor, the last ruler of the Ming dynasty, climbed Coal Hill behind the Forbidden City and hanged himself from a tree, leaving a final note blaming his ministers for the dynasty's fall. Li Zicheng proclaimed the Shun dynasty, but his occupation would last barely six weeks.

Battle · May 27, 1644 · Great Wall (modern Hebei/Liaoning border) Theater

The most consequential betrayal in Chinese history. Wu Sangui, the Ming general commanding the fortress at Shanhai Pass — the eastern anchor of the Great Wall — faced a terrible choice after Li Zicheng seized Beijing and reportedly abducted his concubine Chen Yuanyuan. Rather than submit to the rebels, Wu opened the gates to Dorgon's Manchu army. When Li Zicheng marched north with 60,000 troops, the combined Manchu-Wu Sangui force caught his army in a sandstorm and routed it completely. Li fled back to Beijing and retreated west, never to recover.

Siege · May 20, 1645 · Jiangsu (Yangtze Delta) Theater

The wealthy city of Yangzhou, defended by the Southern Ming loyalist Shi Kefa, resisted the Qing advance across the Yangtze. After a brief siege, the Qing army under Prince Dodo stormed the city. What followed was ten days of unrestrained killing, rape, and looting — one of the worst urban massacres in Chinese history. Shi Kefa was captured and executed after refusing to switch allegiance. The eyewitness account 'A Record of Ten Days at Yangzhou' by Wang Xiuchu documented the horror in detail, though the text was suppressed under the Qing for two centuries.

Campaign · June 16, 1645 · Jiangsu (Southern Ming capital) Theater

After the horror of Yangzhou, resistance in the lower Yangtze collapsed. The Southern Ming court at Nanjing — China's traditional secondary capital — descended into factional paralysis. The Hongguang Emperor, installed barely a year earlier, proved weak and indecisive. When Qing forces approached, the Ming garrison mutinied, the emperor fled, and the city surrendered without a fight. The Hongguang Emperor was captured shortly afterward and later executed in Beijing.

Siege · August 21, 1645 · Jiangsu (Yangtze Delta) Theater

The small city of Jiangyin became the site of one of the fiercest acts of resistance in the entire conquest. When the Qing issued the Queue Order — forcing all Chinese men to adopt the Manchu hairstyle by shaving the front of their heads on pain of death — the people of Jiangyin revolted under the leadership of a former Ming official, Yan Yingyuan. For eighty-one days, the citizens held out against vastly superior Qing forces, repelling multiple assaults. When the city finally fell, the Qing massacred virtually the entire population.

Siege · April 30, 1661 · Taiwan (Dutch Formosa) Theater

Koxinga — Zheng Chenggong, the half-Japanese, half-Chinese pirate king and Ming loyalist — landed on Taiwan with 25,000 troops and besieged the Dutch colonial fortress of Fort Zeelandia. The Dutch garrison of barely 2,000 held out for nine months, hoping for reinforcements from Batavia that never came. When the fort finally surrendered in February 1662, Koxinga expelled the Dutch and established Taiwan as a base for the Ming loyalist cause. He died just months later, but his family would hold the island for two more decades.

Campaign · December 28, 1673 · Southern China (Yunnan, Guangdong, Fujian) Theater

The young Kangxi Emperor's decision to abolish the three feudatory kingdoms in the south — autonomous fiefdoms granted to Chinese generals who had helped conquer the empire for the Qing — provoked the largest internal war of the Qing dynasty. Wu Sangui, the same general who had opened Shanhai Pass to the Manchus in 1644, now raised the standard of rebellion, claiming to restore the Ming. At its peak, the revolt controlled half of China. But Wu Sangui's allies fell away one by one, and the Kangxi Emperor's patient strategy of isolating the rebels and winning defectors gradually turned the tide. Wu Sangui died in 1678, and the last rebels surrendered in 1681.

Battle · July 16, 1683 · Taiwan Strait and the Penghu Islands Theater

The last chapter of the Ming–Qing transition. Admiral Shi Lang — himself a former subordinate of the Zheng family who had defected to the Qing — led a fleet of 300 warships and 20,000 marines across the Taiwan Strait. After crushing the Zheng navy at the Battle of Penghu, Shi Lang landed on Taiwan. Koxinga's grandson, Zheng Keshuang, surrendered without serious resistance. The Kingdom of Tungning, the last Ming loyalist state, ceased to exist. The Kangxi Emperor incorporated Taiwan into the Qing empire.