Ming and Qing Rule

Under the Ming, the Sinification of Yunnan accelerated. Waves of immigrants, mostly from the Lower Yangzi region, followed Ming armies to Yunnan, occupying the plateau lands and highland valleys. The walled cities that sprang up were built on the Ming model in north China. Many of the outstanding religious monuments and temples of the province date their construction to Ming times. So does the basic road network, and the iron suspension bridges which spanned the Lancang and Nu  Rivers for the first time.

Administratively the Ming governed the Han inhabited areas directly. But in the minority areas they established the office of tusi-local chieftain-who was usually, but not always, a member of the majority ethnic group in the area. The first Ming emperors were vigourous rulers and in the early 15th century Emperor Yong Le launched naval expeditions as far as Indonesia and even Africa. These were commanded by one of Yunnan's most famous sons-Admiral Zheng He of Jinning County, on Dianchi Lake south of Kunming.

Zheng He(also known as Cheng Ho) was born in Kunyang, Yunnan (present-day Jinning County,Kunming) around 1371 AD, the fourth year of the Hongwu reign period (1371 AD) of the Ming Dynasty

The Ming Dynasty, like the Song, faced it’s gravest threat from the north. Manchu began encroaching in the 17th century and by 1644 established their own dynasty-the Qing. The last Ming prince eventually ended up in Yunnan, in the western outpost of Tengchong. Wu Sangui, the disaffected Ming general who invited the Manchus to Beijing, was dispatched to deal with him. Wu's army invaded Yunnan in 1657 and defeated the last Ming army in the Gaoligong Mountains. The prince fled to Burma. But there, his royal host, to avert an invasion and effect the withdrawal of the Chinese army, handed over the prince and his retinue to Wu Sangui. Ile took them back to Kunming and executed them. The Qing court rewarded him with the office of Yunnan Governor.

But Wu soon felt improperly compensated for his services, even though his power extended to neighbouring provinces as well, and in 1673 he declared independence. Five years later, still locked in struggles in Sichuan and Hunan, he proclaimed himself Emperor, but died five months after that. His grandson succeeded him but could not keep the new state together. In 1681 Qing troops took Kunming and wiped out Wu's entire family

Though Yunnan was the locus of Wu's rebellion events did not involve the non-Han portion of the population. After the last Ming prince's arrest, tribal chieftains made haste to declare their allegiance to the Qing, When the Manchus conquered Yunnan, they left the tusi system intact for another four decades. Then, having consolidated their authority everywhere in China, the Qing began dismissing the chieftains and appointing their own magistrates to rule directly. Only in the most remote areas did the tusi system persist.