The Southern Ming refers to the several regimes established by members of the Ming imperial clan in southern China after Beijing fell in 1644. The most important were the Hongguang and Yongli regimes. This was a sensitive period in the early Qing dynasty, entangled with issues of feudalism, class, and ethnicity. The renowned historian Jian Bozan began researching the history of the Southern Ming in 1940, using the past to comment on the present. He pointed out that the Southern Ming government's resolve to resist the Qing was weak and that it was always ready to compromise. He also exposed the Hongguang regime's mass persecution of political opponents and the infighting it fomented, which led to the political darkness of "civil war breaking out." The author analyzes Southern Ming history and assesses its events through the lens of historical materialism, giving the work powerful relevance to the present.
