Logical misunderstandings
In the ming dynasty's foreign wars, the ming-portuguese war, the Ming-British war, the Wanli War to aid Korea, and the Ming-Dutch war (Zheng successfully recovered Taiwan) were the Foreign Wars of the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, many people make this analogy: the Ming Dynasty won the battle against Britain, the Netherlands, and Japan, while the Qing Dynasty lost all foreign wars after the Opium War, so some people believe that if the Ming Dynasty continued into the 19th century, world history would be rewritten. In fact, this perception falls into a logical misunderstanding.
East and West drifted apart
In fact, the opponents of Portugal, the Netherlands, japan and other opponents encountered by the Ming Dynasty and the opponents encountered by the Qing Dynasty have already undergone tremendous changes.
In the 1640s, something important to remember in both the East and the West was: the bourgeois revolution broke out in England in 1640, and in the revolution that lasted for decades, the bourgeois system was established. The continent also underwent a series of changes around the 18th century – including the French Revolution, as well as the Industrial Revolution.
In the east, li zicheng's Dashun dynasty or the Manchu Qing outside Guanwai were eager to overthrow the corrupt Ming dynasty, but whether it was Li Zicheng or the Manchu Qing, the regime established by li zicheng was in fact a continuation of the Ming dynasty - that is, a new feudal regime.
The different nature of political power has led to the development of the East and the West taking two completely different paths.
Qing is both Hou ming
From the perspective of political structure, historians are accustomed to classifying dynasties in Chinese history according to their social structure and political structure. Among them, the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty are regarded as similar dynasties – in other words, the Qing Dynasty is the de facto "Later Ming".
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the system of prime ministers, and after ming chengzu, the Ming dynasty pursued the rule of secret agents, and at the same time, at the local level, the ming emperor split the power of local administrators and weakened local powers. This series of policies is seen as the beginning of the peak of absolute monarchy.
After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, most of the system was copied from the Ming Dynasty: especially during the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor, the Military Aircraft Department was set up to take over all the powers, and the Ming Dynasty's secret service rule was "sublimated": mutual whistleblowing and exposing were encouraged throughout the Qing Dynasty. And the Qing rulers repeatedly raised a literal prison to rigidize ideas.
As an agrarian empire, the Ming Dynasty did not realize the strategic significance of land outside the two capitals and thirteen provinces. Therefore, if the Qing Dynasty did not enter the customs, the borders of the Ming Dynasty would be maximized to the extent of the two capitals and thirteen provinces.
In addition, whether it is the Ming Dynasty or the Qing Dynasty, as a feudal regime, its natural attribute is hostility to peasant uprisings and bourgeois revolutions - including bourgeois revolutions in Countries such as Britain and France, and there are records of sending the king to the gallows. Even when England later established a constitutional monarchy, it was after the killing of Charles I that the new King of England realized the power of the bourgeois revolution and was forced to make concessions.
Similarly, the Ming emperor would never allow the Ming dynasty to become a capitalist state. Even if a bourgeois revolution were possible in the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Emperor would resolutely suppress the revolution. So for the Ming Dynasty, either the Ming Dynasty suppressed the bourgeois revolution, or the Ming Emperor waited to be cut off by the revolutionaries.
Therefore, assuming that the Ming Dynasty can survive until 1840, the Ming Dynasty at that time is still a miniature version of the Qing Dynasty, and the fate suffered is even worse than that of the Qing Dynasty.
A miniature version of Daming's encounter
In fact, in the history of the world, we can find the ming dynasty encountering the invasion of the 19th century powers - that is, Vietnam.
Vietnam can be understood as a miniature version of China: ancient Vietnam even imitated China's tributary system, coercing countries such as Chenla and Champa to pay tribute to Vietnam. Unlike the minority government of the Qing Dynasty, the ruling dynasty of modern Vietnam is the main dynasty of the country. Therefore, modern Vietnam can be regarded as a miniature version of the Ming Dynasty.
During the Opium War, the Vietnamese Ming Dynasty emperor was very concerned about the situation in the Opium War, and made a pessimistic but very accurate prediction: britain would defeat the Qing Empire. At the same time, Emperor Ming was worried that Vietnam would one day be invaded by Western forces.
In the end, Vietnam was annexed by the French rulers and completely became a French colony, and its fate was more tragic than that of the Qing Dynasty.