Wanli Emperor in the context of "List of emperors of the Ming dynasty"

While the Tibetan Plateau has been inhabited since pre-historic times, most of Tibet's history went unrecorded until the creation of Tibetan script in the 7th century. Tibetan texts refer to the kingdom of Zhangzhung (c. 500 BCE – 625 CE) as the precursor of later Tibetan kingdoms and the originators of the Bon religion. While mythical accounts of early rulers of the Yarlung dynasty exist, historical accounts begin with the introduction of Tibetan script from the unified Tibetan Empire in the 7th century. Following the dissolution of Tibetan Empire and a period of fragmentation in the 9th–10th centuries, a Buddhist revival in the 10th–12th centuries saw the development of three of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

After a period of control by the Mongol Empire and the also Mongol led Yuan dynasty, Tibet effectively became independent in the 14th century and was ruled by a succession of noble houses for the next 300 years. In the 16th century, the Dalai Lama title was created by Altan Khan, and as requested by the family of Altan Khan, seal of authority was granted to the Dalai Lama by the Wanli Emperor. In the 17th century, the senior lama of the Gelug school, the Dalai Lama, became the head of state with the aid of the Khoshut Khanate. Seal of authority and golden sheets were granted by the Shunzhi Emperor to both the Dalai Lama and the founder Güshi Khan of Khoshut Khanate in 1653. In 1717, the Dzungar Khanate invaded Lhasa, killed Lha-bzang Khan of the Khoshut Khanate, which effectively destroyed the Khoshut Khanate. The Qing dynasty then sent military troops in the same year to fight the Dzungars, but failed.

Matteo Ricci SJ (Italian: [matˈtɛːo ˈrittʃi]; Latin: Matthaeus Riccius; 6 October 1552 – 11 May 1610) was an Italian Jesuit priest and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China missions. He created the Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, a 1602 map of the world written in Chinese characters. In 2022, the Apostolic See declared its recognition of Ricci's heroic virtues, thereby bestowing upon him the honorific of Venerable.

Ricci arrived at the Portuguese settlement of Macau in 1582 where he began his missionary work in China. He mastered the Chinese language and writing system. He became the first European to enter the Forbidden City of Beijing in 1601 when invited by the Wanli Emperor, who sought his services in matters such as court astronomy and calendrical science. He emphasized parallels between Catholicism and Confucianism but opposed Buddhism. He converted several prominent Chinese officials to Catholicism. He also worked with several Chinese elites, such as Xu Guangqi, in translating Euclid's Elements into Chinese as well as the Confucian classics into Latin for the first time in history.

The Jianwen Emperor (5 December 1377 – 13 July 1402), personal name Zhu Yunwen, was the second emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigning from 1398 to 1402. Zhu Yunwen's father was Zhu Biao, the eldest son and heir apparent of the Hongwu Emperor, the founder of the Ming dynasty. Zhu Biao died in 1392, after which the Hongwu Emperor named Zhu Yunwen as his successor. Zhu Yunwen ascended the throne after the Hongwu Emperor's death in June 1398.

Upon his accession, the Jianwen Emperor immediately began revising the Hongwu Emperor's reforms, with the most significant change being the attempt to limit or eliminate the power of princes who were sons of the Hongwu Emperor. Zhu Di, the most powerful of these princes, rebelled against the Jianwen Emperor in 1399. He did this under the pretext of acting against allegedly corrupt court officials who had influenced the Emperor, following the Emperor's order for the imprisonment of Zhu Di's own followers. This sparked a civil war known as the Jingnan campaign, which Zhu Di framed as an effort to eliminate disorder. In 1402, Zhu Di captured the capital of Nanjing, and the imperial palace was burned to the ground. Even though three bodies were found at the burnt palace and were later announced to be those of the Emperor, his wife, and their eldest son, rumors of the Emperor's survival and refuge in a Buddhist monastery emerged. Zhu Di ascended the throne as the Yongle Emperor. He abolished the Jianwen Emperor's reforms and declared his reign illegitimate, thus abolishing the Jianwen era and extending the era of Hongwu to 1402. It was not until 1595 that the Jianwen Emperor's era and imperial title were restored by the Wanli Emperor.

Wucai (五彩, "Five colours", "Wuts'ai" in Wade-Giles) is a style of decorating white Chinese porcelain in a limited range of colours. It normally uses underglaze cobalt blue for the design outline and some parts of the images, and overglaze enamels in red, green, and yellow for the rest of the designs. Parts of the design, and some outlines of the rest, are painted in underglaze blue, and the piece is then glazed and fired. The rest of the design is then added in the overglaze enamels of different colours and the piece fired again at a lower temperature of about 850°C to 900°C.

It has its origins in the doucai technique. The usual distinction made with doucai, which also combines underglaze blue with overglaze enamels in other colours, is that in wucai only parts of the design include blue, and these cover wider areas, and are often rather freely painted. In doucai the whole design is outlined in the blue, even if parts are overlaid by the enamels and invisible in the finished product. Some parts may also be painted in the blue. However, this is not true of all pieces classified as doucai, especially from the 18th century onwards. Fragments of incomplete examples, only done in blue, have been excavated from waste tips at the kiln.

Zhang Juzheng (26 May 1525 – 9 July 1582) was a prominent grand secretary during the reigns of Ming emperors Longqing and Wanli. In 1547, he passed the highest level of official examinations and was granted the rank of jinshi. He then served at the Hanlin Academy. In 1567, the Longqing Emperor appointed him as grand secretary, and upon the ascension of the Wanli Emperor in 1572, he became the head of the grand secretaries.

During the early years of the Wanli Emperor's reign, Zhang played a crucial role as the Emperor's mentor and de facto ruler of China due to the Emperor's immaturity. His decisive foreign and economic policies led to one of the most successful periods in the Ming history. Influenced by the Mongol raids of the 1550s, Zhang aimed to "enrich the country and strengthen the army" through legalistic methods rather than Confucian principles. He played a key role in centralizing the administration, limiting various privileges, and revising land tax exemptions. After Zhang's death in 1582, many of his reforms and policies were reversed, and in 1584 his family was stripped of their accumulated property and wealth. He was not rehabilitated until more than half a century later, just before the fall of the Ming dynasty.

Empress Dowager Xiaoding (1545 – 18 March 1614), of the Li clan, was a Chinese empress dowager of the Ming dynasty. She was one of the concubines of the Longqing Emperor and the mother of his successor, the Wanli Emperor.

Feng Bao was a Chinese eunuch who served as the highest-ranking eunuch at the court of the Wanli Emperor of the Ming dynasty from 1567 to 1583. He was one of the three most influential figures in the administration of the empire during the first decade of the Wanli Emperor's reign, along with Grand Secretary Zhang Juzheng and Empress Dowager Li. Feng was known for his education and competence as a statesman. After Zhang's death in 1582, he lost the Emperor's support and was demoted to a lower position in Nanjing in early 1583.
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