Katalysator-2 worldline

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by patchwork

The year is 1669, China is listed as an empire with no special qualities; the Ming dynasty ended in 1644 in our history. Is the Ming limping along through some probably-inadvisable application of psionic alchemy, or are we in one of the regrettably interesting bits of Chinese history?

Can't it be both?

My current thought is that the Later Ming remnant is stronger and a bit more stable, but doesn't have de facto control over the rest of China. Given the point of divergence (during the reign of the Jiajing Emperor) and the relative lack of historical inertia, the fall of the Ming dynasty is reasonably likely to be somewhat different in this timeline than it was in our history.