The Impact of Power Struggles Between the Ming Dynasty Monarchy and Bureaucratic Groups on The Qing Dynasty Power Structure

Throughout Chinese history, the power of the emperor has shown a trend of increasing. Eventually, it reached its peak in the Qing Dynasty. Compared with the Ming Dynasty, imperial power during the Qing Dynasty was more powerful and centralized which led to a more stable political situation. The rulers of the Qing dynasty learned an important lesson from the Ming dynasty’s demise that was the struggle between imperial power and bureaucratic groups and effectively avoided a series of problems occurred in the mid-to-late Ming dynasty by several means, including improving the emperor’s personal ability, strengthening the emperor’s power, optimizing the administrative apparatus, and intensifying ideological control. These methods above helped the imperial power grow up to an unprecedented level. This paper discusses the reasons for the measures to strengthen imperial power in the Qing dynasty, based on the historical works such as The History of the Ming Dynasty, The History of the Qing Dynasty, and Reading Notes of Twenty-two Historical Books.