The three main reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty were natural disasters, political corruption, and internal power struggles. Natural disasters were one of the important reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty. At the end of the Wanli era, northern China entered the Xiaoice River period, cold weather led to a large amount of arable land deserted, the historical Eastern Jin Dynasty Sixteen Kingdoms and European barbarian migration was all because the north could not survive, can only go south to plunder, eventually led to the change of dynasties.
In 1636, Emperor Taiji changed the name of the country to Qing, also due to the internal famine could not survive, and finally went to foreign wars, starting from the Nurhachi period to fight against the Ming, and finally unified southern Mongolia during the Emperor Taiji period, carrying out population and food plunder, accelerating the demise of the Ming Dynasty.
In the nearly 40 years from the forty-seventh year of Wanli to the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, the Ming Dynasty had natural disasters almost every year. Natural disasters at that time mainly included drought, locust plague, flood, wind disaster, earthquake and snow disaster. Among these natural disasters, drought was the most frequent, which had a huge impact on agricultural production at that time. The first area to experience famine was Shaanxi, which eventually led to peasant uprisings.
The early peasant uprisings were not large, and they were quickly recruited. However, due to natural disasters, the people could not survive and had to revolt again. With the expansion of natural disasters, the peasant uprising gradually spread throughout the country, and the peasants in Shaanxi could not survive, they entered Henan, Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei, Shandong and Zhizhi, and the local officials and troops only drove the rebel army out of the province, rather than completely eliminated it, resulting in the rebel army being suppressed more and more.
In order to eliminate the rebel army, the court sent additional salaries to increase the burden of the people, and the people could not survive, and they also joined the rebel army. At the critical moment of the Ming Dynasty, the minister Yang Sichang proposed the strategy of "four righteousness, six corners and ten faces", besieged the peasant rebel army in Shaanxi, Henan, Huguang, Jiangbei and Jiangnan, Jiangxi, Sichuan and other places, and was divided and suppressed by the four inspectors, and the six patrols were divided and cooperated, forming a situation of "king of ten faces", and finally successfully eliminated the peasant rebel army. Li Zicheng fled into Shangluoshan, with only eight remaining men, and Zhang Xianzhong was forced to surrender to the Ming army, eventually victorious. However, the actual famine problem was not solved, but in the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, a locust plague occurred in Henan, which eventually became the last straw that crushed the Ming Dynasty, and the rebel army swept the country again, and finally Li Zicheng entered the city of Beijing and destroyed the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty was the number one power in East Asia at that time, and its demise was the result of a combination of factors. Political corruption, natural disasters, and internal power struggles were all responsible for the demise of the Ming Dynasty. Zhang Juzheng's reforms once brought the Ming Dynasty back to life. However, I personally believe that the main reason for the demise of the Ming Dynasty was the system of division and sealing of Wang Ye. For example, King Fu owned 20,000 hectares of good land, but it was not used for disaster relief, which eventually led to his own demise.
The Ming Dynasty's royal clan occupied 70% of the country's land and did not pay taxes, while the people bore the entire tax burden. This contradiction will eventually erupt. For every king killed, the rebels gained a large amount of wealth, most of which was used for disaster relief and a small part for military expenses. I am afraid that Zhu Yuanzhang would not have thought that after more than two hundred years of family inheritance, the population of the old Zhu family has reached 200,000, and the state has borne their food and living expenses, resulting in a large loss of national wealth, becoming a moth of the country, and eventually leading to the collapse of the Daming Dynasty.