Premise: The Shun take over China. Hilarity ensues.
POD: On March 27th, 1641, as Shun forces were laying siege to Kaifeng. However, an attempt to breach the walls via gunpowder failed and Shun forces had to try again in the next season. The defenders of Kaifeng were better prepared next time and held out for 6 months. In desperation, both sides ended up breaching the floodworks along the Yellow River, causing massive flooding. The resulting disaster killed half of Kaifeng's populace and forced Shun forces to halt in place and recover.
The POD thus is that Shun forces succeed in breaching Kaifeng's walls on their first attempt. This would improve the Shun tax base and give them more in terms of depth, manpower and resiliency. I'm only going to write the timeline for now as the number of personages during this time period is lengthy and confusing.
------------
East Asia:
Early April 1641: Shun forces consolidate around Kaifeng. During the next few months, they intend to take several other cities.
Late April, 1641: Upon hearing of the disaster that has befallen Kaifeng, the Chongzhen Emperor sends Wu Sangui to the West at the head of a large army.
May 1641: Wu Sangui, seeing the writing on the wall, defects to the Shun rebels (treason seems to be in his personality). Li Zicheng rewards his men with extra pay and promises of extra land. Wu and his officer corps are promptly tied to horses and pulled apart.
June-August, 1641: Li Zicheng works on consolidating his rule throughout Henan. Due to Li's policies of land and income redistribution, many peasants rise up in revolt against their landlords and local officials, throwing open the gates to many cities. Li Yan, a former local official, merges his rebel army with the Shun forces.
Zhang Xianzhong, another rebel commander, taking advantage of the chaos after the fall of Henan to Shun forces, takes his forces all the way to Nanchang in Jiangxi. Ming forces in Guangdong and Jiangnan are unable to rally. Zuo Liangyu, the former ruler of Wuchang, forms a coalition with Shi Kefa of Yangzhou, Shen Yunying of Daozhou and Ma Shiying of Nanjing. While these men (and one woman) are nominally serving the Ming Emperor, they know that the Imperial Government is weak and it will only be a matter of time before Beijing falls.
Early 1642: Hong Chengchou is captured by the Manchus. He and his army defect to the Manchus. With this defection, the last Ming army between Beijing and Shenyang has fallen. The Manchus under Huang Taiji march south.
Mid-1642: Sun Chuanting, a Ming commander, attempts to march his army from Shanxi to Beijing to defend the capital. However, he is ambushed by Shun forces on the way back. Taiyuan and Pingyao fall to Shun forces. Meanwhile, Ma Shouying, one of Li's subordinates, gains full control over Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia provinces. For his efforts, he is appointed Supreme Commander of the West.
Late 1642: The Chongzhen Emperor flees south to Nanjing. Beijing falls to the Manchu army. Shi Kefa is appointed Lord of the First Degree by Chongzhen and is given responsibilities for building up Ming defenses in Jiangnan.
Early 1643: Zhang Xianzhong's forces are forced to retreat back to Sichuan by Shen Yunying's forces. Before doing so though, Zhang had ordered his men to kill as many peasants as possible. Fearing the same fate, the peasants of Sichuan decide to ambush and kill Zhang and his forces as they headed back towards Chengdu.
Li Zicheng sneaks his army through the Taihang Mountains and attacks the Manchu army from the rear, crushing it. Huang Taiji and his adjutants Dorgon and Jirgalang are killed in the fighting. Taiji's son, Fulin, is captured by Shun forces. However, Li Zicheng cannot bring himself to execute the 6 year old boy and instead places him on a ship and casts it adrift in the current. Prince Hooge takes control of the Manchu throne.
1644: The Shun consolidate power in Shandong and Liaodong. Li Zicheng orders that the Manchu be subjugated before heading south again. This is not difficult to do as many of the Han Chinese contingents in the Manchu army defect to Shun forces. However, the Manchu army and their Mongol allies remain difficult to pin down. The campaign against the Manchu takes much longer than anticipated, as Shun forces build multiple forts along the Songhua and Amur rivers to pin down and defend against Mongol and Manchu raiders. The Shun will spend the next 8 years subjugating the Manchu, Khalka Mongols and Altan Mongols.
Li Zicheng declares himself the Yongchang Emperor of Great Shun in the Forbidden City in Beijing. He celebrates the occasion by ordering all the eunuchs in the Imperial Palace to be expelled upon pain of death. From this point on, no eunuchs will serve the Imperial Throne.
1645: Manchus arrive in Fusang (OTL Vancouver Island). Shen Yunying restores order in Sichuan.
1646: The Shun reaffirm Korea's status as a Chinese tributary. Meanwhile, Ma Shouying, acting on his own initiative, enters into an alliance with the Kazakh and Chagatai Khanates far to the northwest against the the Dzungars in northern Xinjiang. While Li Zicheng is initially furious at his subordinate for entering into diplomatic relations without his consent, the alliance proves to be quite useful as the Dzungars are becoming an increasingly annoying security threat and because the Kazakhs grant trade access to Chinese caravans in the area.
In the north, although the Manchus and Mongols are fierce fighters, they are no match for Shun musketry and especially Shun artillery, which is built using new techniques superior to those used by the Ming and the Dutch.
1652: The last of the Manchus and Eastern Mongols are defeated. Hooge is granted an honorable death after losing to Shun general Liu Zongmin to single combat. The remaining Manchu forces swear loyalty to the Shun. Honoring the treaty Ma Shouying had made with the Kazakhs, Shun forces march West against the Dzungars.
The lack of activity in the North gives the Southern Ming significant breathing space. Order and Imperial Rule is once against established in Southern China. Shen Yunying is granted the title of Lady of the First Degree by Chongzhen.
1654: The Shun ally themselves with various other Central Asia polities such as the Kazakh Khanate and Khojas of Kokand in order to defeat the Dzungar, who flee to the West.
1660: Due to various Shun machinations, the Kazakh and Uzbek Khanates, as well as the Khojas of Kokand and Uighurs of the Tarim, all declare themselves to subordinate to the Great Shun. This angers the powerful Mughal Dynasty in India, especially since the city of Samarkand is nominally under Shun suzerainty. The Shun, who have few trading partners, decide to withdraw from areas West of the Ferghana Valley in exchange for trading concessions in India, thus permitting the Mughals to retake control of the area.
1662: Chongzhen dies. He is succeeded by Zhu Youlang, who becomes the Yongli Emperor of China. The Shun cannot capitalize on Chongzhen's death due to the transition of power being surprisingly orderly. Furthermore, Shun attempts to foment peasant rebellions in the South fail due to Ming propaganda and heavy use of the secret police to root out Shun agents. The Ming are unable to launch any military offensives against the vastly superior Shun military but the Shun lack the naval resources to cross the Yangtze River, nor do they have the ships to fight a sustained campaign in the south. An attempt to take Sichuan during this time period fails as well, as the mountain passes leading from the Guanzhong Plain to Sichuan are well defended.
Additionally, the divide between Ming and Shun becomes increasingly regional in nature. When Shun forces first entered Beijing, most of the former Ming officials who defected to Li Zicheng were northerners, while most southerners either committed suicide or fled beforehand. Most naval commanders, being southerners, did not defect to the Shun. Furthermore, Shun land reforms caused many landlords to suffer greatly and the scholar gentry of the south could spin such an action as ones only undertaken by an illegitimate usurper attempting to pander to popular sentiment against the Will of Heaven.
1664: The Ming, feeling secure in their rule and having learned how to copy Dutch weapons and ships, decide to revise the terms of their trade with Europeans. The VOC refuses to renegotiate terms, so the Ming send admirals Zheng Chenggong and Shi Lang to take Taiwan from the Dutch, which they succeed in doing. The Dutch retaliate by ordering a massacre of Chinese merchants in Batavia.
While this would not have bothered earlier rulers, the Southern Ming depend much more on overseas trade than their predecessors did. Thus, the Dutch massacre of Chinese merchants means war between the Dutch and Southern Ming.
1666: The Ming decide to invade the Philippines. The natives, who resent Dutch rule, gladly assist the Chinese invaders. A Dutch relief fleet is defeated by Shi Lang's fleet. Meanwhile, Zheng Chenggong's ships raid Dutch possessions in the East Indies and Indian Ocean, bringing back huge amounts of loot. Although the VOC doesn't collapse, several insurance firms do, resulting in a monetary crisis in the Netherlands.
Middle East and India:
1649: Prince Aurangzeb of the Mughal Dynasty is killed fighting the Persians outside of Kandahar. However, Mughal forces under Dara Shikoh crush the combined Safavid-Uzbek forces and retake Kandahar. Shah Abbas II is killed in the fighting.
1650s: The Osmanlis take advantage of Persian weakness and invade Persia. Isfahan is burned to the ground and many residents of Eastern Persia are sold into slavery. Persia lapses into civil war, freeing the Osmanlis against their opponents in Europe.
1666: Dara Shikoh takes the Mughal throne upon Shah Jahan's death. A secular man, Dara Shikoh takes care to include many Hindus and Sikhs in his government.
1670s: However, these tolerant policies do not prevent the Marathas from establishing a small, independent Hindu Kingdom in the Western Deccan. The Jats and Pashtuns however, do not rebel. Dara Shikoh defeats the Marathas and guarantees that other Deccan states may retain their sovereignty.
European Powers:
1646: The Dutch take the Philippines and drive the Spanish out of the area. From now on, the Spaniards must go through Dutch middlemen when attempting to trade with the Chinese. This results in a decline in Spain's fortunes. The Dutch, through their sale of muskets and artillery to the Southern Ming, end up in control of the porcelain, silk and tea trade with China.
1652-1654: The Dutch crush the British in the First Anglo-Dutch War, destroying many British ships and forcing the British to accept Dutch control of the North Sea and the West African slave trade. Additionally, the Dutch force the British to sign over control of Jamaica. The loss to the Dutch greatly reduces the prestige of Oliver Cromwell's government.
1655: The Dzungars, led by their Khan, Sengge, migrate to the West. Sengge unites the disparate Oirat tribes on the border with Russia and crosses into Russian lands. Many towns along the Volga River are plundered, including Saratov and Astrakhan. This proves to be a distraction to the Russian state and a godsend for Poland, which is able to resist an invasion by Sweden with minimal losses. The subsequent Polish counterattack results in the Swedish losing Pomerania.
1657: With the Swedish out of the way, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is able to decisively deal with Russia. Moscow is burned to the ground, dealing a fatal blow to Russia and signifying a revival in Polish-Lithuanian fortunes. Russia lapses into civil war.
1660: Steppe tribes such as the Dzungars and Crimeans, assisted by the Ottoman Empire and Kazakh Khanate, retake large portions of Russia. So many Russian people are taken as slaves in this time period that for at least a decade, the price of Russian slaves is lower than that of African ones. Dutch and Portuguese traders, working out of Ottoman controlled ports in Somalia, ship many of these Russians to the Caribbean, especially to Jamaica, which recently came into Dutch possession.
1664: The Dutch defeat the British in the Second Anglo-Dutch war. London is put to the torch in retaliation. The Dutch sign a treaty of alliance with Sweden to help curb the influence of Catholic powers such as the French in the West and the Poles in the East.
1668: The French and English ally in order to counter Dutch and Swedish influence in Western Europe, which sets off the First Franco-Dutch War. French corsairs, basing out of Barbary and East African ports with the approval of the Ottoman Empire, heavily damage Dutch shipping. This further damages financial markets in the Netherlands and the Dutch are forced to take loans from various banks in order to continue functioning.
POD: On March 27th, 1641, as Shun forces were laying siege to Kaifeng. However, an attempt to breach the walls via gunpowder failed and Shun forces had to try again in the next season. The defenders of Kaifeng were better prepared next time and held out for 6 months. In desperation, both sides ended up breaching the floodworks along the Yellow River, causing massive flooding. The resulting disaster killed half of Kaifeng's populace and forced Shun forces to halt in place and recover.
The POD thus is that Shun forces succeed in breaching Kaifeng's walls on their first attempt. This would improve the Shun tax base and give them more in terms of depth, manpower and resiliency. I'm only going to write the timeline for now as the number of personages during this time period is lengthy and confusing.
------------
East Asia:
Early April 1641: Shun forces consolidate around Kaifeng. During the next few months, they intend to take several other cities.
Late April, 1641: Upon hearing of the disaster that has befallen Kaifeng, the Chongzhen Emperor sends Wu Sangui to the West at the head of a large army.
May 1641: Wu Sangui, seeing the writing on the wall, defects to the Shun rebels (treason seems to be in his personality). Li Zicheng rewards his men with extra pay and promises of extra land. Wu and his officer corps are promptly tied to horses and pulled apart.
June-August, 1641: Li Zicheng works on consolidating his rule throughout Henan. Due to Li's policies of land and income redistribution, many peasants rise up in revolt against their landlords and local officials, throwing open the gates to many cities. Li Yan, a former local official, merges his rebel army with the Shun forces.
Zhang Xianzhong, another rebel commander, taking advantage of the chaos after the fall of Henan to Shun forces, takes his forces all the way to Nanchang in Jiangxi. Ming forces in Guangdong and Jiangnan are unable to rally. Zuo Liangyu, the former ruler of Wuchang, forms a coalition with Shi Kefa of Yangzhou, Shen Yunying of Daozhou and Ma Shiying of Nanjing. While these men (and one woman) are nominally serving the Ming Emperor, they know that the Imperial Government is weak and it will only be a matter of time before Beijing falls.
Early 1642: Hong Chengchou is captured by the Manchus. He and his army defect to the Manchus. With this defection, the last Ming army between Beijing and Shenyang has fallen. The Manchus under Huang Taiji march south.
Mid-1642: Sun Chuanting, a Ming commander, attempts to march his army from Shanxi to Beijing to defend the capital. However, he is ambushed by Shun forces on the way back. Taiyuan and Pingyao fall to Shun forces. Meanwhile, Ma Shouying, one of Li's subordinates, gains full control over Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia provinces. For his efforts, he is appointed Supreme Commander of the West.
Late 1642: The Chongzhen Emperor flees south to Nanjing. Beijing falls to the Manchu army. Shi Kefa is appointed Lord of the First Degree by Chongzhen and is given responsibilities for building up Ming defenses in Jiangnan.
Early 1643: Zhang Xianzhong's forces are forced to retreat back to Sichuan by Shen Yunying's forces. Before doing so though, Zhang had ordered his men to kill as many peasants as possible. Fearing the same fate, the peasants of Sichuan decide to ambush and kill Zhang and his forces as they headed back towards Chengdu.
Li Zicheng sneaks his army through the Taihang Mountains and attacks the Manchu army from the rear, crushing it. Huang Taiji and his adjutants Dorgon and Jirgalang are killed in the fighting. Taiji's son, Fulin, is captured by Shun forces. However, Li Zicheng cannot bring himself to execute the 6 year old boy and instead places him on a ship and casts it adrift in the current. Prince Hooge takes control of the Manchu throne.
1644: The Shun consolidate power in Shandong and Liaodong. Li Zicheng orders that the Manchu be subjugated before heading south again. This is not difficult to do as many of the Han Chinese contingents in the Manchu army defect to Shun forces. However, the Manchu army and their Mongol allies remain difficult to pin down. The campaign against the Manchu takes much longer than anticipated, as Shun forces build multiple forts along the Songhua and Amur rivers to pin down and defend against Mongol and Manchu raiders. The Shun will spend the next 8 years subjugating the Manchu, Khalka Mongols and Altan Mongols.
Li Zicheng declares himself the Yongchang Emperor of Great Shun in the Forbidden City in Beijing. He celebrates the occasion by ordering all the eunuchs in the Imperial Palace to be expelled upon pain of death. From this point on, no eunuchs will serve the Imperial Throne.
1645: Manchus arrive in Fusang (OTL Vancouver Island). Shen Yunying restores order in Sichuan.
1646: The Shun reaffirm Korea's status as a Chinese tributary. Meanwhile, Ma Shouying, acting on his own initiative, enters into an alliance with the Kazakh and Chagatai Khanates far to the northwest against the the Dzungars in northern Xinjiang. While Li Zicheng is initially furious at his subordinate for entering into diplomatic relations without his consent, the alliance proves to be quite useful as the Dzungars are becoming an increasingly annoying security threat and because the Kazakhs grant trade access to Chinese caravans in the area.
In the north, although the Manchus and Mongols are fierce fighters, they are no match for Shun musketry and especially Shun artillery, which is built using new techniques superior to those used by the Ming and the Dutch.
1652: The last of the Manchus and Eastern Mongols are defeated. Hooge is granted an honorable death after losing to Shun general Liu Zongmin to single combat. The remaining Manchu forces swear loyalty to the Shun. Honoring the treaty Ma Shouying had made with the Kazakhs, Shun forces march West against the Dzungars.
The lack of activity in the North gives the Southern Ming significant breathing space. Order and Imperial Rule is once against established in Southern China. Shen Yunying is granted the title of Lady of the First Degree by Chongzhen.
1654: The Shun ally themselves with various other Central Asia polities such as the Kazakh Khanate and Khojas of Kokand in order to defeat the Dzungar, who flee to the West.
1660: Due to various Shun machinations, the Kazakh and Uzbek Khanates, as well as the Khojas of Kokand and Uighurs of the Tarim, all declare themselves to subordinate to the Great Shun. This angers the powerful Mughal Dynasty in India, especially since the city of Samarkand is nominally under Shun suzerainty. The Shun, who have few trading partners, decide to withdraw from areas West of the Ferghana Valley in exchange for trading concessions in India, thus permitting the Mughals to retake control of the area.
1662: Chongzhen dies. He is succeeded by Zhu Youlang, who becomes the Yongli Emperor of China. The Shun cannot capitalize on Chongzhen's death due to the transition of power being surprisingly orderly. Furthermore, Shun attempts to foment peasant rebellions in the South fail due to Ming propaganda and heavy use of the secret police to root out Shun agents. The Ming are unable to launch any military offensives against the vastly superior Shun military but the Shun lack the naval resources to cross the Yangtze River, nor do they have the ships to fight a sustained campaign in the south. An attempt to take Sichuan during this time period fails as well, as the mountain passes leading from the Guanzhong Plain to Sichuan are well defended.
Additionally, the divide between Ming and Shun becomes increasingly regional in nature. When Shun forces first entered Beijing, most of the former Ming officials who defected to Li Zicheng were northerners, while most southerners either committed suicide or fled beforehand. Most naval commanders, being southerners, did not defect to the Shun. Furthermore, Shun land reforms caused many landlords to suffer greatly and the scholar gentry of the south could spin such an action as ones only undertaken by an illegitimate usurper attempting to pander to popular sentiment against the Will of Heaven.
1664: The Ming, feeling secure in their rule and having learned how to copy Dutch weapons and ships, decide to revise the terms of their trade with Europeans. The VOC refuses to renegotiate terms, so the Ming send admirals Zheng Chenggong and Shi Lang to take Taiwan from the Dutch, which they succeed in doing. The Dutch retaliate by ordering a massacre of Chinese merchants in Batavia.
While this would not have bothered earlier rulers, the Southern Ming depend much more on overseas trade than their predecessors did. Thus, the Dutch massacre of Chinese merchants means war between the Dutch and Southern Ming.
1666: The Ming decide to invade the Philippines. The natives, who resent Dutch rule, gladly assist the Chinese invaders. A Dutch relief fleet is defeated by Shi Lang's fleet. Meanwhile, Zheng Chenggong's ships raid Dutch possessions in the East Indies and Indian Ocean, bringing back huge amounts of loot. Although the VOC doesn't collapse, several insurance firms do, resulting in a monetary crisis in the Netherlands.
Middle East and India:
1649: Prince Aurangzeb of the Mughal Dynasty is killed fighting the Persians outside of Kandahar. However, Mughal forces under Dara Shikoh crush the combined Safavid-Uzbek forces and retake Kandahar. Shah Abbas II is killed in the fighting.
1650s: The Osmanlis take advantage of Persian weakness and invade Persia. Isfahan is burned to the ground and many residents of Eastern Persia are sold into slavery. Persia lapses into civil war, freeing the Osmanlis against their opponents in Europe.
1666: Dara Shikoh takes the Mughal throne upon Shah Jahan's death. A secular man, Dara Shikoh takes care to include many Hindus and Sikhs in his government.
1670s: However, these tolerant policies do not prevent the Marathas from establishing a small, independent Hindu Kingdom in the Western Deccan. The Jats and Pashtuns however, do not rebel. Dara Shikoh defeats the Marathas and guarantees that other Deccan states may retain their sovereignty.
European Powers:
1646: The Dutch take the Philippines and drive the Spanish out of the area. From now on, the Spaniards must go through Dutch middlemen when attempting to trade with the Chinese. This results in a decline in Spain's fortunes. The Dutch, through their sale of muskets and artillery to the Southern Ming, end up in control of the porcelain, silk and tea trade with China.
1652-1654: The Dutch crush the British in the First Anglo-Dutch War, destroying many British ships and forcing the British to accept Dutch control of the North Sea and the West African slave trade. Additionally, the Dutch force the British to sign over control of Jamaica. The loss to the Dutch greatly reduces the prestige of Oliver Cromwell's government.
1655: The Dzungars, led by their Khan, Sengge, migrate to the West. Sengge unites the disparate Oirat tribes on the border with Russia and crosses into Russian lands. Many towns along the Volga River are plundered, including Saratov and Astrakhan. This proves to be a distraction to the Russian state and a godsend for Poland, which is able to resist an invasion by Sweden with minimal losses. The subsequent Polish counterattack results in the Swedish losing Pomerania.
1657: With the Swedish out of the way, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is able to decisively deal with Russia. Moscow is burned to the ground, dealing a fatal blow to Russia and signifying a revival in Polish-Lithuanian fortunes. Russia lapses into civil war.
1660: Steppe tribes such as the Dzungars and Crimeans, assisted by the Ottoman Empire and Kazakh Khanate, retake large portions of Russia. So many Russian people are taken as slaves in this time period that for at least a decade, the price of Russian slaves is lower than that of African ones. Dutch and Portuguese traders, working out of Ottoman controlled ports in Somalia, ship many of these Russians to the Caribbean, especially to Jamaica, which recently came into Dutch possession.
1664: The Dutch defeat the British in the Second Anglo-Dutch war. London is put to the torch in retaliation. The Dutch sign a treaty of alliance with Sweden to help curb the influence of Catholic powers such as the French in the West and the Poles in the East.
1668: The French and English ally in order to counter Dutch and Swedish influence in Western Europe, which sets off the First Franco-Dutch War. French corsairs, basing out of Barbary and East African ports with the approval of the Ottoman Empire, heavily damage Dutch shipping. This further damages financial markets in the Netherlands and the Dutch are forced to take loans from various banks in order to continue functioning.