Chongzhen Emperor in the context of "Taichang Emperor"

The Southern Ming (Chinese: 南明; pinyin: Nán Míng), also known in historiography as the Later Ming (simplified Chinese: 后明; traditional Chinese: 後明; pinyin: Hòu Míng), officially the Great Ming (Chinese: 大明; pinyin: Dà Míng), was an imperial dynasty of China and a series of rump states of the Ming dynasty that came into existence following the Jiashen Incident of 1644. Peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng who founded the short-lived Shun dynasty captured Beijing and the Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide. The Ming general Wu Sangui then opened the gates of the Shanhai Pass in the eastern section of the Great Wall to the Qing banners, in hope of using them to annihilate the Shun forces. Ming loyalists fled to Nanjing, where they enthroned Zhu Yousong as the Hongguang Emperor, marking the start of the Southern Ming. The Nanjing regime lasted until 1645, when Qing forces captured Nanjing. Zhu fled before the city fell, but was captured and executed shortly thereafter. Later figures continued to hold court in various southern Chinese cities, although the Qing considered them to be pretenders.

The Nanjing regime lacked the resources to pay and supply its soldiers, who were left to live off the land and pillaged the countryside. The soldiers' behavior was so notorious that they were refused entry by those cities in a position to do so. Court official Shi Kefa obtained modern cannons and organized resistance at Yangzhou. The cannons mowed down a large number of Qing soldiers, but this only enraged those who survived. After the Yangzhou city fell in May 1645, the Manchus started a general massacre pillage and enslaved all the women and children in the notorious Yangzhou massacre. Nanjing was captured by the Qing on June 6 and the Hongguang Emperor was taken to Beijing and executed in 1646.

The transition from Ming to Qing, also known as the Manchu conquest of China or Ming-Qing transition, was a decades-long period of conflict between the Qing dynasty, established by the Manchu Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, and the Ming dynasty in China proper and later in South China. Various other regional or temporary powers were also involved in this conflict, such as the short-lived Shun dynasty. In 1618, before the start of the Qing conquest, Nurhaci, the leader of the Aisin Gioro clan, commissioned a document titled the Seven Grievances, in which he listed seven complaints against the Ming, before launching a rebellion against them. Many of the grievances concerned conflicts with the Yehe, a major Manchu clan, and the Ming's favoritism toward the Yehe at the expense of other Manchu clans. Nurhaci's demand that the Ming pay tribute to address the Seven Grievances was effectively a declaration of war, as the Ming were unwilling to pay money to a former vassal. Shortly thereafter, Nurhaci began to rebel against the Ming in Liaoning, a region in southern Manchuria.

At the same time, the Ming dynasty was struggling to survive amid increasing fiscal troubles and peasant rebellions. On April 24, 1644, Beijing fell to a rebel army led by Li Zicheng, a former minor Ming official who became the leader of the peasant revolt. Zicheng then proclaimed the Shun dynasty. At the time of the city's fall, the last Ming emperor, the Chongzhen Emperor, hanged himself on a tree in the imperial garden outside the Forbidden City. As Li Zicheng advanced toward him with his army, the general Wu Sangui, tasked by the Ming with guarding one of the gates of the Great Wall, swore allegiance to the Manchus and allowed them to enter China. Li Zicheng was defeated at the battle of Shanhai Pass by the combined forces of Wu Sangui and the Manchu prince Dorgon. On June 6, the Manchus and Wu entered the capital and proclaimed the young Shunzhi Emperor as the new Emperor of China.

The transition from Ming to Qing, also known as the Manchu conquest of China or Ming-Qing transition, was a decades-long period of conflict between the Qing dynasty, established by the Manchu Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, and the Ming dynasty in China proper and later in South China. Various other regional or temporary powers were also involved in this conflict, such as the short-lived Shun dynasty. In 1618, before the start of the Qing conquest, Nurhaci, the leader of the Aisin Gioro clan, commissioned a document titled the Seven Grievances, in which he listed seven complaints against the Ming, before launching a rebellion against them. Many of the grievances concerned conflicts with the Yehe, a major Manchu clan, and the Ming's favoritism toward the Yehe at the expense of other Manchu clans. Nurhaci's demand that the Ming pay tribute to address the Seven Grievances was effectively a declaration of war, as the Ming were unwilling to pay money to a former vassal. Shortly thereafter, Nurhaci began to rebel against the Ming in Liaoning, a region in southern Manchuria.

At the same time, the Ming dynasty was struggling to survive amid increasing fiscal troubles and peasant rebellions. On April 24, 1644, Beijing fell to a rebel army led by Li Zicheng, a former minor Ming official who became the leader of the peasant revolt. Li then proclaimed the Shun dynasty. At the time of the city's fall, the last Ming emperor, the Chongzhen Emperor, hanged himself on a tree in the imperial garden outside the Forbidden City. As Li Zicheng advanced toward him with his army, the general Wu Sangui, tasked by the Ming with guarding one of the gates of the Great Wall, swore allegiance to the Manchus and allowed them to enter China. Li Zicheng was defeated at the battle of Shanhai Pass by the combined forces of Wu Sangui and the Manchu prince Dorgon. On June 6, the Manchus and Wu entered the capital and proclaimed the young Shunzhi Emperor as the new Emperor of China.

The Jiashen Incident (simplified Chinese: 甲申之变; traditional Chinese: 甲申之變), also known as the Battle of Beijing, took place in 1644 in the areas surrounding Beijing, and was fought between forces of the incumbent Ming dynasty and the Shun dynasty founded by peasant rebel leader Li Zicheng. It eventually resulted in the collapse of the Ming dynasty. Remnants of the Ming imperial family, whose regime is known as the Southern Ming dynasty in historiography, would continue to rule parts of southern China until 1662.

Li Zicheng led his rebel army to attack the Ming capital Beijing from two directions (north and south). The eunuch official Du Zhizhi (杜之秩) ordered the Ming forces defending Beijing to open the city gates and let Li Zicheng's army in. After the fall of Beijing, the last Ming ruler, the Chongzhen Emperor, committed suicide by hanging himself on a tree in Mount Mei near the Forbidden City. No actual battle was fought in Beijing itself as the rebels marched into the capital unopposed, and even after occupying Beijing, the rebels did not face any resistance. Li Zicheng's short-lived Shun dynasty would be subsequently defeated by forces of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, which would go on to rule China proper until its fall in 1912.

The Yongli Emperor (1623–1662), personal name Zhu Youlang, was the fourth and last emperor of the Southern Ming dynasty, reigning in turbulent times when the former Ming dynasty was overthrown and the Manchu-led Qing dynasty progressively conquered the entire China proper. He led the remnants of the Ming loyalists with the assistance of peasant armies to resist the Qing forces in southwestern China, but he was then forced to exile to Toungoo Burma and eventually captured and executed by Wu Sangui in 1662. His era name "Yongli" means "perpetual calendar".

Zhu Youlang was the son of Zhu Changying (朱常瀛), the seventh son of the Wanli Emperor, and Empress Dowager Ma. He inherited the title Prince of Gui (桂王) from his brother and lived an obscure life as a minor member of the Ming imperial family until the rebellions of peasant armies, which resulted to the fall of the imperial capital, Beijing, and the suicide of the last Ming emperor, Chongzhen, after the peasant rebel leader Li Zicheng captured Beijing in 1644. The true beneficiaries of the collapse of the Ming were the Qing dynasty, ruled by the emerging nation Manchus from Manchuria. After mass defection from Ming remnants, including a former Ming general, Wu Sangui, who allowed the Qing forces to pass the Ming Great Wall against Li Zicheng. The Qing forces defeated the peasant armies and rapidly expanded to northern China, the Lower Yangtze valley, and Central China. The Ming loyalists continued to resist in southern China, with several former Ming royal members regrouping in the south in attempt to re-establish the Ming governance, but all failed before the rapid Manchu military advance. Youlang ascended the throne in Zhaoqing as the fourth Southern Ming emperor in November 1646.