On the Trail of the Yellow Tiger

Kenneth M. Swope is a professor of history, director of graduate studies, and senior fellow of the Dale Center for the Study of War and Society at the University of Southern Mississippi. He is the author of A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail: Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592–1598 and The Military Collapse of China’s Ming Dynasty, 1618–44.

“Zhang Xianzhong, known as the butcher of Sichuan, is one of the most riveting—and frightening—figures in Chinese history. Yet no book in English has ever been published on him. In this accessible and vivid study, Ken Swope assesses the history and legacy of this infamous rebel leader, showing that his bloody reign was of signal importance in the emergence of China’s last imperial dynasty. It belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in Qing history or global military history.”—Tonio Andrade, professor of history at Emory University and author of The Gunpowder Age“With this new study, Ken Swope consolidates his reputation as the prime investigator of war in early modern China. The book provides at once the portrait of a rebel leader, a close-up view of the horrors of war and famine, and a detailed analysis of the devastation of Sichuan in the Ming-Qing transition. The engaging narrative brings to life the realities of a period of Chinese history that still remains largely unknown to a Western audience.”—Nicola Di Cosmo, Henry Luce Foundation Professor of East Asian History at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University“Noteworthy for its examination of the `rhetoric of catastrophe.’ The perception and representation of the horrors resulting from civil strife is a subject that is relevant throughout all of China’s imperial history. The book is grounded in an impressive range of modern Chinese secondary scholarship and traditional sources, including eyewitness accounts. Kenneth Swope has a real talent for writing lively and colorful narrative, and for incorporating seventeenth-century voices into that story.”—David A. Graff, Pickett Professor of Military History and director of the East Asian Studies program at Kansas State University

• ContentsList of Illustrations    Acknowledgments    Note on Editorial Style    Chronology of the Ming-Qing Transition    1. Zhang Xianzhong and the Ming-Qing Transition    2. The Rise of the Yellow Tiger    3. Establishing the Great Western Kingdom    4. Looting Heaven’s Storehouse    5. Erasing the Shame of Banditry6. Allying with the Ming    7. A House Divided    8. The Annihilation of the Kuidong 13    9. The Rhetoric of Catastrophe    Appendix 1: Defenders, Contenders, and Pretenders    Appendix 2: Chinese Weights and Measures    Appendix 3: Rebels, Rogues, Regents, and Rascals    Notes    Bibliography    Index