Also called: Yingzong of Ming, Tianshun Emperor
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
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.
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