The Massive Explosion in Beijing in 1626

The May 26 Explosion of 400 Years Ago Remains a Mystery

The Facts are these: in May 26, 1626, a massive explosion took place in Beijing, the capital of the Ming Dynasty. It is called the Great Tianqi Explosion or the Wang Gong Chang Explosion. As many as 20,000 people died, thousands more were injured, and the only son of the Tianqi Huangdi (Emperor) died.

It seems most likely that the cause of the explosion was gunpowder stored in the Wang Gong Chang Armory. The armory was a warehouse for military supplies and the Ming were making very extensive use of gunpowder in this time. Records show that around 800 pounds of gunpowder were being moved out of the warehouse per day (a rough average). How much gunpowder was actually stored in the armory in May of 1626 is unknown. A typical warehouse stores three weeks supply so this suggests the warehouse had about 17,000 pounds of gunpowder on site.

The description we have is:

It was an hour or two before noon. The sky was clear. Suddenly a loud roaring rumble was heard coming from northeast, gradually reaching southwest of the city, followed by a great dust cloud and all the houses shook. A bright streak like a river of light was seen, and then a huge bang which seemed to shatter the sky and broke the earth. The sky turned dark, and everything within a mile of the Wang Gong Chang armory was utterly destroyed. The streets around the armory were unrecognizable. Everything was a sea of broken walls and the remains of smashed houses. The ground was covered with the remains of a million broken roof tiles. Large trees were found to have been thrown across the city. One three ton stone lion was somehow blown over the Beijing city walls.

There are other theories. One is that this was a meteorite which happened to explode in an airburst just above Beijing. Another is that this was the result of an odd volcanic eruption.

Given the fact that the Ming had been using gunpowder since the start of the dynasty, in the 1360s; and given the fact that the Song had developed gunpowder and used it in weapons as early as 1230 AD, one would think the Ming in 1626 knew how to safely store gunpowder, especially in the big armory inside their capital! One would expect that if a fire had started in the armory, people would have noticed this for half an hour or more, before the fire reached the gunpowder storage area.

Further, one would expect the gunpowder storage boxes to explode one by one, until eventually the fire became so intense that all the them blew up in the span of a minute. The described single devastating explosion is not consistent with the cause being an accident in the armory.

1626 is an Important Year

The average person doesn’t know that 1626 AD is a significant year in Chinese history. The reason is: this is the year Nurhachi died and Hong Taiji took control over the new Jin Kingdom (soon to be renamed the Qing State).

In early February, just three months before the explosion, Nurhachi’s army had attempted to conquer the fort city of Ningyuan. After a week of hard fighting, Nurhachi conceded that the defenses were too strong and he withdrew his army. This was a rare setback for the great commander. In Nurhachi’s lifetime he had never really lost a battle, though he had been forced to give up an attack on at least one prior occasion. [Note: the Chinese claim that Nurhachi was wounded during the siege of Ningyuan. Manchu sources do not mention any injury to their leader, but it is possible.]

In May, the armory of Beijing is destroyed in an explosion.

Then on September 30, Nurhachi became suddenly ill and he died at the age of 67.

Are these Events Related?

I think it is possible these three events are related. The Manchu had recruited tens of thousands of Chinese into their Kingdom by 1626. Many of these men (household bond-servants or booi) would serve the Manchu loyally for their entire lives, as did their descendants till the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911.

Further, the Manchu staged a great raid on Ming China (the first of four great raids) just two years later, in 1628. The first raid reached the walls of Beijing before they headed back north, loaded with riches and animals they had captured. This shows the Manchu were extremely familiar with the geography of Northern China - no surprise given that Nurhachi had personally gone to Beijing eight times between 1591 and 1606, leading a large contingent of Manchu chiefs each time, bearing tribute to the Wanli Huangdi.

It is a near certainty that Nurhachi knew the exact location of the Wang Gong Chang armory and it is very likely that he had hired spies in Beijing by at least 1620. With the defeat of his army at Ningyuan (mostly due to the large number of Chinese cannons on the walls), he might well have paid some of his agents to undertake a sabotage mission in the Ming capital. What better target than the central depot of Ming gunpowder? After all, cannons are useless without gunpowder.

Nurhachi’s own sudden death at the age of 67 - after a lifetime of battles - is actually odd in that he lived so long. Only a few of his descendants lived to a similar age (his 2nd son, Daisan lived to age 65; his great grandson Kangxi lived to age 68, his great-great-great grandson Qianlong lived to age 87). Still, Nurhachi was vigorous and fully in command of his faculties until just before his sudden death in the fall of 1626.

My belief is that Nurhachi’s son & heir, Hong Taiji, was assassinated by the Ming in 1643. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Ming had arranged for Nurhachi’s assassination as well. After all, the Ming Huangdi’s son died as a result of the explosion at the Wang Gong Chang. Spending a hundred thousand taels of silver to have someone poison Nurhachi as payback for the armory explosion seems like a completely understandable case of “tit for tat”.

As I have written, the Chinese government had made extensive use of assassins in earlier dynasties. Did assassins reappear in the Ming? There is no evidence for it but… Nurhachi’s death in 1626 and Hong Taiji’s death in 1643 seem suspicious to me.