Ming loyalism

Ming loyalism was political and military allegiance to the Ming dynasty after its overthrow by the Qing. It persisted among officials, military leaders, scholars, and communities in China and overseas.

Southern Ming: The Ming regimes that resisted Qing rule in southern China from 1644 to 1662. Its courts claimed dynastic continuity and became the main political focus of loyalist resistance.
Ming-Qing transition: The political and military upheaval through which the Qing replaced the Ming as China’s ruling dynasty. The conquest created the crisis that turned dynastic allegiance into a political choice.
Huang Zongxi: A Chinese scholar and political thinker who lived through the Ming-Qing transition and wrote on government and society. He refused Qing office and expressed loyalist commitments through scholarship and political criticism.
Ming loyalist literature: Writing by Ming loyalists that records the conquest, mourns the dynasty, or argues for continued allegiance. It preserved political arguments and personal memories that outlasted military resistance.
Koxinga: A Ming loyalist military leader who established Zheng rule in Taiwan after resisting the Qing on the southeastern coast. His maritime campaigns carried Ming allegiance into Taiwan and beyond.
Mandate of Heaven: A Chinese political doctrine that grants a ruler legitimacy while he governs justly and effectively. Ming loyalists could dispute Qing legitimacy by denying that conquest proved a valid transfer of the Mandate.
Gu Yanwu: A Chinese scholar of the early Qing known for his work in philology, history, and statecraft. His refusal to serve the Qing linked scholarly life with resistance to dynastic submission.
Ming-Qing transition historiography: Historical writing about the Ming’s fall and Qing rise, shaped by questions of legitimacy and political memory. Loyalist accounts became a lasting source—and a contested perspective—for histories of the conquest.
Zheng regime: A maritime regime founded by Zheng Zhilong and led by his son Zheng Chenggong, known as Koxinga, in the seventeenth century. It maintained an organized armed challenge to Qing rule after the Southern Ming fell.
Dynastic legitimacy: The accepted right of a ruling house to govern a state and command political obedience. Loyalist claims depended on treating Ming succession as valid despite the dynasty’s loss of territory.

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