THE HUNG-KUANG REGIME

As rebel forces overran Shansi, Pei Chihli, and Shantung in the spring of 1644, communications between north and south China were severely disrupted. Confusion, dilatoriness, and lack of direction prevailed among Ming military authorities south of the Yellow River. Most of the regular personnel along the usual postal and transport routes had abandoned their stations, and roads were clogged with refugees who brought southward pestilence, hysteria, enemy agents, and alarming rumors about conditions in the north. On 5 April the Ch'ung-chen emperor had issued a general call for immediate aid from all commands in the empire. But when Peking fell to the rebels three weeks later, the grand adjutant and minister of war for Nanking, Shih K'o-fa, had still not yet mobilized an army. Not until three more weeks had elapsed did reliable word of the Ch'ung-chen emperor's suicide reach Nanking.

This news not only caused great consternation among officials and members of the elite, especially at Nanking and in Nan Chihli, but also, as it spread throughout the south, set in motion new waves on the sea of late Ming social unrest–urban riots, revolts of tenants and indentured persons, strikes by factory and mine workers, outlaw raids, insurrections by local armed groups of various stripes – waves that did not settle in many areas for decades. It was during the consequent general failure in local control and undirected, uncoordinated militarization throughout society that the first Southern Ming court sought to establish a base for recovering the north and restoring the Ming empire.