Xing Chao Tong Bao (兴朝通寳) copper cash coin. The Xing Chao Tong Bao" was produced by Sun Kewang (孙可望) in 1649 AD, when he became the Dongping King. The Chinese characters on the reverse side of the coin (right side) read, "Yi Fen" (a value of silver). At that time, Sun produced a large number of "Xing Chao Tong Bao" and it had its distinct features with a profound influence. The style of the Chinese characters on the coinage was plain. Most of the coinage was made of copper.
SUN K'O-WANG
AD 1644-1650
Sun K'o-Wang was the adopted son of Hang Hsien Chung. After the death of Hang, Sun K'o went to Yunnan where he cast the Hsing-Chao coins, one of which bears a Board of Works (KUNG) mint mark, but must have been minted after Sun-K'o left Peking. This is further evidence that he and his father were using Board of Revenue and Board of Works as the names of their principal mints, but that these are not the mints in Peking.
In 1650, Sun K'o-Wang surrendered to the Ching and became known as the patriotic prince.
Reign title: HSING-CHAO, AD 1644-1650
The Southern Ming Dynasty
The southern Ming was a loyalist movement that was active in southern China following the Ming dynasty's collapse in 1644. The Ming were overthrown when peasant rebels captured Beijing. Ming generals then opened the gates of theGreat Wall to the Manchu, hoping they would fight the rebels. Loyalists fled to Nanjing, where they enthroned the Prince of Fu. The Nanjing regime lasted until 1645, when the Manchu captured Nanjing. Later, a series of pretenders held court in various southern Chinese cities.[1]
The Nanjing regime lacked the resources to pay and supply its soldiers, who were left to live off the land and pillaged the countryside.[2] The soldiers' behavior was so notorious that they were refused entry by those cities in a position to do so.[3] Court official Shi Kefa obtained modern cannons and organized resistance at Yangzhou. The cannons mowed down a large number of Manchu soldiers, but this only enraged those who survived. After the city fell in May 1645, the Manchu slaughtered as many as 800,000 inhabitants in a notorious massacre. Nanjing surrendered promptly and without resistance on June 6. The Prince of Fu was taken to Beijing and executed in 1646.
The literati in the provinces responded to the news from Yangzhou and Nanjing with an outpouring of emotion. Some recruited their own militia and became resistance leaders. Shi was lionized and there was a wave of hopeless sacrifice by loyalists who vowed to erase the shame of Nanjing. By late 1646, the heroics had petered out and the Qing advance had resumed. Notable Ming pretenders held court in Fuzhou (1645-1646), Guangzhou (1646-1647), and Anlong (1652-1659). The Prince of Ningjing maintained a palace at Tainan in Taiwan until 1683.
The end of the Ming and the subsequent Nanjing regime are depicted in Peach Blossom Fan, a classic of Chinese literature. The upheaval of this period, sometimes referred to as the Ming-Qing cataclysm, has been linked to a decline in global temperature. With agriculture devastated by a severe drought, there was manpower available for numerous rebel armies.
