ABSTRACT
Wanli’s strong military performance during his Three Great Campaigns was eclipsed by the last decade of his rule, when imperial indolence and selfimposed isolation from the government, coupled with the rising threat of the Jurchen in the steppe, provided the prologue for the Ming’s destruction. It is probably not appropriate to assign too much blame to Wanli for the fall of the dynasty in the 1630s and 1640s, or at least no more blame than any other emperor who left the government’s failing institutions unchanged. Wanli’s invigoration of the Ming military in the face of protest by his civil officials and subsequent retreat from court demonstrate how the poisoned political atmosphere of the court and government had congealed into an almost completely catatonic system by the late sixteenth century. Wanli’s successful military commanders were undermined or sidelined almost immediately after the campaigns were over, some even before, leaving very little to show in long-term development of the army from their efforts. While the army itself had changed from a mostly hereditary, financially independent force into a paid, professional force, now heavily dependent upon firearms, the officer corps remained dependent on hereditary leaders. These hereditary military officers were not the families of the early Ming, but they were the lineages that the court looked to for generals from the late sixteenth century until the end of the dynasty. Like so many dynasties before it, the Ming had great difficulty cultivating military talent institutionally.
