Wang Anshi, in his New Policies sponsored by Shenzong, has enhanced central authority over Song's frontier administrations, increased militia activity, increased troop levels and war horses sent to the frontiers (including the border areas with Dai Viet), and actively seeks loyal supporters in border regions who can heighten the pace of extraction of local resources for the state's disposal.

Officials at court debate the merits or faults of Wang's policies, yet criticism of his reforms even appears in Dai Viet, where the high officer Ly Thuong Kiet publicly announces that Wang's policies are deliberate efforts to seize and control their border frontiers.

Tensions between Song and Lý are at a critical point, and in these conditions any sign of hostility has the potential to ignite a war.

Wang Anshi tells the Song emperor that Dai Viet is being destroyed by Champa, with less than ten thousand soldiers surviving, hence it will be a good occasion to annex Dai Viet.

The Quang Nguyen chieftain Lưu Ky launches an unexpected attack against Yongzhou in 1075, which is repelled by the Song's Vietnamese officer Nung Trí Hoi in charge of Guihua.

Shenzong now seeks to cement an alliance with the "Five Clans" of northern Guangnan by issuing an edict which will standardize their once irregular tribute missions to visit Kaifeng every five years.

Shenzong has officials sent from the capital to supervise militiamen in naval training exercises.

Shenzong then orders that all merchants are to cease trade with the subjects of Dai Viet, a further indication of heightened hostility that prompts the Ly court under Ly Nhan Tông to prepare for war.

Upon hearing the news, the Ly ruler sends Ly Thuong Kiet and Nung Ton Dan with more than one hundred thousand troops to China to carry out a preemptive attack against the Song Dynasty troops.

In the autumn of 1075, Nung Tong Đan advances into Song territory in Guangxi while a naval fleet commanded by Ly Thuong Kiet captures Qinzhou and Lianzhou prefectures.

Ly Thuong Kiet calms the apprehensions of the local Chinese populace, claiming that he is simply apprehending a rebel who had taken refuge in China and that the local Song authorities had refused to cooperate in detaining him.

…a subsequent rebellion springs up in Guangxi, where the Ming Dynasty had early annexed the areas of the southwest that had once been part of the Kingdom of Dali, and where more than half of the roughly three nillion inhabitants had then been non-Han peoples.

By the end of the fourteenth century, some two hundred thousand military colonists had settled some three hundred and fifty thousand acres of land in what is now Yunnan and Guizhou.

Roughly half a million more Chinese settlers are to follow; these migrations are causing a major shift in the ethnic make-up of the region, for which the Ming government has adopted a policy of dual administration.

Areas with majority ethnic Chinese are governed according to Ming laws and policies; areas where native tribal groups dominate have their own set of laws while tribal chiefs promise to maintain order and send tribute to the Ming court in return for needed goods.

In 1464, a rebellion of the Miao people and Yao people against what they see as oppressive government rule forces the Ming throne to respond by sending thirty thousand troops (including one thousand Mongol cavalry) to aid the one hundred and sixty thousand local troops stationed in the region to crush the rebellion; they will do so within two years.

The twenty-one-year-old Prince of Gui, the seventh son of the Wanli Emperor, had in November 1646 ascended the throne of the vanquished Southern Ming dynasty and assumed the reign name of Yongli.

He had initially established himself in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, but as the Ming troops were unable to fend off the stronger Qing troops who were continuously sending reinforcements south towards Guangzhou, the Yongli emperor, in order to save his life, had had no choice but to flee in 1650 from Guangzhou towards Nanning with a motley court and hastily assembled army.

Koxinga, a Ming loyalist and military leader during the Southern Ming Dynasty who now establishes himself as the head of the Zheng family, opposes the Manchu-ruled Qing Dynasty, and has pledged allegiance to the only remaining claimant to the throne of the Ming Dynasty, the Yongli Emperor.

Despite one fruitless attempt, Koxinga is unable to do anything to aid the emperor, who is to be the last of the Ming Dynasty.

He decides instead to concentrate on securing his own position on the southeast coast.

Koxinga has enjoyed a series of military successes in 1651 and 1652 that have increased the Qing government's anxiety over the threat he poses.

His gather, Zheng Zhilong, writes a letter to his son from Beijing, presumably at the request of the Shunzhi Emperor and the Qing government, urging Koxinga to negotiate with the Manchus.

The long series of negotiations between Koxinga and the Qing Dynasty lasts until November 1654, when the Qing government appoints Prince Jidu (son of Jirgalang) to lead an attack on Koxinga's territory after the failed negotiations.

...Sun Yanling and ...

...Guangxi and ...