The Yangzhou massacre in May, 1645 in

Yangzhou Yangzhou, postal romanization Yangchow, is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu Province (Suzhong), East China. Sitting on the north bank of the Yangtze, it borders the provincial capital Nanjing to the southwest, Huai'an to the north, Yan ...

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

China, refers to the mass killings of innocent civilians by

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) and ...

and defected northern

Ming The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

soldiers, commanded by the Manchu general

Dodo The dodo (''Raphus cucullatus'') is an extinct flightless bird that was endemic to the island of Mauritius, which is east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. The dodo's closest genetic relative was the also-extinct Rodrigues solitaire. The ...

. The massacre is described in a contemporary account, ''A Record of Ten Days in Yangzhou,'' by Wang Xiuchu. Due to the title of the account, the events are often referred to as a ten-day massacre, but the diary shows that the slaughter was over by the sixth day, when burial of bodies commenced. According to Wang, the number of victims exceeded 800,000, that number is now disproven and considered by modern historians and researchers to be an extreme exaggeration. The major defending commanders of Ming, such as

Shi Kefa Shi Kefa (4 February 1601 – 20 May 1645), courtesy names Xianzhi and Daolin, was a government official and calligrapher who lived in the late Ming dynasty. He was born in Xiangfu (祥符; present-day Kaifeng, Henan) and claimed ancestry from D ...

, were also executed by Qing forces after they refused to submit to Qing authority. The alleged reasons for the massacre were: * To punish the residents because of resistance efforts led by the Ming official Shi Kefa. * To warn the rest of the population in

Jiangnan Jiangnan or Jiang Nan (; formerly romanized Kiang-nan, literally "South of the River" meaning "South of the Yangtze") is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, incl ...

of the consequences of participating in military activities and resisting the Qing invaders. Wang Xiuchu's account has appeared in a number of English translations, including by Backhouse and Bland, Lucien Mao, and Lynn A. Struve. Following are excerpts from the account in the translation by Struve. Books written about the massacres in

Jiading Jiading is a suburban district of Shanghai. It had a population of 1,471,100 in 2010. History Historically, Jiading was a separate municipality/town, until, in 1958, becoming under the administration of Shanghai. In 1993, Jiading's designate ...

and

Jiangyin Jiangyin (, Jiangyin dialect: ) is a county-level city on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, and is administered by Wuxi, Jiangsu province. Jiangyin is one of the most important transport hubs on the Yangtze River, it is also one of the most d ...

were later republished by anti-Qing authors to win support in the leadup to the

Taiping Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It lasted fr ...

and

Xinhai Revolution The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last imperial dynasty, the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of China. The revolution was the culmination of a d ...

. Manchu soldiers ransomed women captured from Yangzhou back to their original husbands and fathers in Nanjing after Nanjing peacefully surrendered, corralling the women into the city and whipping them hard, with their hair containing a tag showing the price of the ransom.

References

Literature

*Struve, Lynn A., ''Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm: China in Tigers' Jaws'', Publisher:Yale University Press, 1998, See pp. 32–48 for the translation of Wang Xiuchu's account. * Finnane, Antonia, ''Speaking of Yangzhou: A Chinese City, 1550-1850'', Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004. See especially Chapter 4, "Yangzhou's Ten Days." *Wei, Minghua 伟明铧, 1994. “Shuo Ýangzhou shiri’”说扬州十日, in Wei Minghua, Yangzhou tanpian 扬州谈片 Beijing: Sanlian shudian. *Zarrow, Peter, 2004. “Historical Trauma: Anti-Manchuism and Memories of Atrocity in Late Qing China,” ''History and Memory'', Vol. 16, No. 2, Special Issue: Traumatic Memory in Chinese History. *''The Litigation Master and the Monkey King'', Liu, Ken. In ''The Paper Menagerie and other stories.'' Publisher:Saga Press, 2016, . pages 363–388. {{coord missing, Jiangsu Qing dynasty History of Jiangsu Conflicts in 1645 Massacres in China 17th century in China 1645 in China War crimes in China Massacres in 1645

See also

References

Literature