THE BITTER END: NOTES ON THE DEMISE OF THE YONGLI EMPEROR

Abstract

During three months from the end of January to the end of April in 1662, the last claimant to the Ming throne, the Yongli emperor (Zhu Youlang) was transported from the Burmese capital of Ava back to the provincial seat of Yunnan by his captors, the joint expeditionary forces of the “Prince Who Pacifies the West,” formidable Wu Sangui, and the eminent Manchu prince, general, and high minister of state, Aisingga. Approximately one month later, in an apparent contravention of the magnanimous Qing policy toward members of the Ming imperial clan who surrendered peaceably, the Yongli emperor met death at the hands of his hosts in Yunnanfu. Since then (especially after the fall of the Qing and the advent of the Republic), this matter has aroused curiosity, as well as considerable invective toward Wu Sangui, the Manchus involved, and the Qing court for having perpetrated this outrage. Charges and insinuations have been based on little hard evidence, however, since no official source discovered to date mentions the final disposition of the Yongli emperor and his family. As is the case with much of Southern Ming history, we must derive a sense of situations and events from various private accounts, which present numerous questions of authenticity and reliability. Accounts that treat the end of the Yongli peregrination are especially rare and problematical. Here I shall cite the four surviving, contemporaneous writings that I feel warrant consideration, and I shall conclude with a general assessment of the evidence.