Abstract: There are various and complex reasons for the collapse of the Ming Dynasty, of which the disintegration of the people's hearts from the top to the bottom can be described as one of the important causes. At that time, the king had no concern about the public and the state;the scholars had no sense of morality and honor;the people had no perseverance and no patriotism. The deconstruction of people's mentality reflected in the king, the scholars, and the people indicated that the Ming regime had been unable to assemble forces to re-establish the order of ruling, which led to the demise of the Ming Dynasty. People's mentality is a social political ethics formed by the ruling of monarchy, the Confucius criteria of scholars, and the moral code of the people. The stability of the political system and the order is closely linked with social and political ethics. The Ming Dynasty was a critical period for the transformation of traditional Chinese society when the social and political ethics gradually changed with people's mentality as the framework. However, due to the constraints of the traditional political mechanism and the system itself, the system transformation turned into a failure which led to deconstruction. The construction and deconstruction of people's mentality in the Ming Dynasty can also be taken as a new angle in the study of the transformation of Chinese society during the late Ming period.

Key words: Ming Dynasty, people's mentality, patriotism, the sense of honor, the concept of homeland