The Ming dynasty was the penultimate dynasty of China, which ruled between 1368 and 1644, after the fall of the Mongol Yuan dynasty. Some historians describe the Ming as "one of the greatest eras of disciplined government and social stability in human history." It was the last dynasty in China ruled by the Han people. Although Beijing, the Ming capital, fell in 1644 in a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the Shun dynasty, which was quickly replaced by the Qing dynasty, of Manchu origin), until 1662 some regimes loyal to the Ming throne survived, commonly known as a dynasty of the Southern Ming. Under the Ming government a vast fleet and a large permanent army of a million troops were built. Although commercial and diplomatic expeditions had already been carried out from China in previous periods, the tribute fleet of Muslim eunuch Admiral Zheng He during the fifteenth century surpassed all others in size. Numerous construction projects were carried out, including the Grand Canal, the Great Wall and the foundation of the Forbidden City in Beijing during the first quarter of the 15th century. It is estimated that the population at the end of the Ming reign was between 160 and 200 million people.
The Qing Dynasty also called the Qing Empire by itself or the Manchu dynasty by foreigners, was the last imperial dynasty of China, established in 1636 and ruled over China between 1644-1912. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multicultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the territorial base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Yurchen clan of Aisin-Gioro in Manchuria. In the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a vassal of the Ming Dynasty, began to organize the "Eight flags", military and social units that included elements of Yurchen, Han Chinese and Mongolian. Nurhaci formed the Yurchen clans into a unified entity, which he renamed as Manchus. In 1636, his son Hung Taiji began expelling the Ming forces from Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, the Qing. In 1644, the peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. Instead of serving them, General Ming Wu Sangui made an alliance with the Manchus and opened the Shanhai Pass to the Armies of Eight flags led by the regent Prince Dorgon, who defeated the rebels and seized the capital. The resistance of the southern Ming and the rebellion of the three feudators led by Wu Sangui extended the conquest of China proper for almost four decades and was not completed until 1683 under Emperor Kangxi (1661-1722). The Ten Great Campaigns of Emperor Qianlong from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control to Central Asia. The first rulers maintained their Manchu customs, and although their title was emperor, they used khan of the Mongols and were sponsors of Tibetan Buddhism. They ruled using Confucian styles and bureaucratic government institutions and retained the imperial exams to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the tax system when dealing with neighboring territories.
