Contents
List 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 Banditry
6. 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    

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.