Volta
ConflictSeptember 1449

Tumu Crisis

Also called: Battle of Tumu Fortress, Tumu Incident

When Esen of the Oirats invaded in 1449, the Ming Zhengtong Emperor, urged on by the eunuch Wang Zhen, took the field himself and was routed and captured at Tumu. Yu Qian set a new emperor on the throne and held Beijing, and thereafter the Ming stood on the defensive in the north.

Seated portrait of the Zhengtong Emperor (Ming Yingzong), National Palace Museum, Taipei
Seated portrait of the Zhengtong Emperor (Ming Yingzong), National Palace Museum, Taipei

Unknown author · Public domain · Source

After Yongle the western Mongols, the Oirats, grew strong on the steppe, and Esen united many Mongol tribes. When Esen, quarrelling with the Ming over the terms of tribute trade, invaded in 1449, the young Zhengtong Emperor, urged by the eunuch Wang Zhen, led out a huge army said to number half a million. Ill-prepared, it was surrounded at Tumu northwest of Beijing on the way back, crushed, and the emperor taken prisoner.

Vice minister of war Yu Qian rejected calls to move south, put the emperor’s brother on the throne as the Jingtai Emperor and defended Beijing. Released and sent home, Zhengtong regained the throne in a coup in 1457. After Tumu the Ming gave up campaigns into Mongolia for defence, and most of the brick Great Wall that survives today was built afterwards.

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States and rulers at the time
Ming · defeated — Zhengtong Emperor → Jingtai Emperor
Places
Tumu Fortress, Beijing

People

  • Zhengtong Emperor (Yingzong of Ming)1427 – 1464

    monarch · Ming emperor (r. 1435–1449, 1457–1464) captured by the Oirats at Tumu on his campaign of 1449; released, he regained the throne in 1457 as the Tianshun Emperor

Before and after

Earlier
1433 Four Commanderies and Six Garrisons
Later
1550 Northern Raiders and Southern Pirates

Themes that include this event

  • Song, Ming and Samurai JapanAD 960 – 1500

    The age when the civil-minded Song bought peace from Liao, Western Xia and Jin while the lower Yangtze boomed and Neo-Confucianism took shape, and the Ming, having driven out the Yuan, rebuilt the East Asian order through imperial autocracy, the sea ban and tribute — as Japan passed through the Kamakura and Muromachi warrior governments into the Warring States era, and Korea from Goryeo to Joseon