(16441912) The last imperial Chinese dynasty. Originating from the Tungusic tribes to the NE, and the Jin dynasty which ruled the N in the Song period (12th13th-c), they took the appellation Manchu in 1635, and the dynastic title Qing in 1636. Building a power base in Manchuria, Mongolia, and Korea, then invited (1644) to suppress rebellion in China, they subsequently extended supremacy over all China, especially under the Kangxi Emperor (r.16621722). Rule was by an unequal ManchuChinese partnership - for example, cities had Manchu garrisons - but gentry support was ensured through non-intervention in land ownership, producing an administration seen by Europeans as a model of stability (especially since Christianity was tolerated). The 17th19th-c saw a rapid increase in prosperity and cultural richness. It was a major period for art, porcelain, philosophy, literature, and science. Taiwan, Outer Mongolia, Turkestan, Tibet, Burma, and Nepal were conquered. However, serious reversals took place in the 19th-c: China was defeated by Britain and France in the Opium Wars (18402, 185760), forcing ports to be opened and leading to the sack of Beijing; defeat by France in 1884 lost China control of Indo-China; defeat by Japan in 1894 lost Korea and Taiwan; and the Boxer Rising (1900) provoked a second sack of Beijing and huge indemnities. There were revolts in China proper, such as the Taiping Rebellion (185064), and efforts at reform were negated by Ci-Xi. The dynasty was overthrown by revolutionaries in 1911, a revolutionary government was established, and the last emperor abdicated in 1912.
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The Qing Dynasty (Chinese: 清朝; Manchu: daicing gurun), occasionally known as the Manchu Dynasty, was a dynasty founded by the Manchu clan Aisin Gioro, in what is today northeast China, expanded into China and the surrounding territories, establishing the Empire of the Great Qing (Traditional Chinese: 大清國; According to Chinese tradition, the Qing Dynasty was the last Imperial dynasty of China. Declared as the Later Jin Dynasty in 1616, it changed its name in 1636 to "Qing", and became the ruler of all of China in 1644, completing the Manchu conquest.
During its reign, the Qing Dynasty consolidated its grip on China, integrated with Chinese culture, and saw the height of Imperial Chinese influence. However, its military power weakened during the 1800s, and faced with international pressure, massive rebellions and defeats in wars, the Qing Dynasty declined after the mid-19th century. The Qing Dynasty was overthrown following the Xinhai Revolution when Empress Dowager Longyu, faced with massive opposition, abdicated on behalf of the last emperor, Puyi, on February 12, 1912.
"Later Jin" is sometimes spelled "Later Jinn" to distinguish from another Later Jin Dynasty (936-946).
Formation of the Manchu state
The Qing Dynasty was founded not by the Han Chinese who form the majority of the Chinese population, but the Manchus, today an ethnic minority in China.
Nurhaci's successor Huang Taiji continued to build on his father's foundations, incorporating the first Han banners into his army. In 1636, Huang Taiji renamed the state Qing, meaning pure, suggesting ambitions beyond Manchuria. The name Qing was chosen because the name of the Ming Dynasty (明) is composed of the characters for sun (日) and moon (月), which are associated with the fire element. The character Qing (清) is composed of the water (水) radical and the character for green (青), which are both associated with the water element.
Claiming the Mandate of Heaven
Beijing was sacked by a coalition of rebel forces led by Li Zicheng. The Ming Dynasty officially came to an end when the Chongzhen Emperor of China, the last Ming Emperor, committed suicide by hanging himself on a tree on Coal Hill overlooking the Forbidden City. Shanhaiguan is the pivotal northeastern pass of the Great Wall of China located fifty miles northeast of Beijing and for years its defenses were what kept the Manchus outside of the capital. Wu, caught between two enemies, decided to cast his lot with the Manchus and made an alliance with Prince Dorgon, regent to the then six-year old Emperor Shunzhi, son of Emperor Huang Taiji who had died the year before.
Together, the two armies defeated Li Zicheng's rebel forces in battle on May 27, 1644. The last Ming pretender, Prince Gui, sought refuge in Burma, now modern Myanmar, but was turned over to a Qing expeditionary force headed by Wu Sangui who had him brought back to Yunnan province and executed in early 1662.
Kangxi and consolidation
The Kangxi Emperor (r.
The Manchus found controlling the "Mandate of Heaven" a daunting task. The vastness of China's territory meant that there were only enough banner troops to garrison key cities forming the backbone of a defence network that relied heavily on surrendered Ming soldiers.
In addition, three surrendered Ming generals were singled out for their contributions to the establishment of the Qing dynasty, ennobled as feudal princes (藩王), and given governorships over vast territories in Southern China.
As the years went by, the three feudal lords and their territories inevitably became increasingly autonomous.
Faced with the stripping of their powers, Wu Sangui felt he had no choice but to rise up in revolt. Ultimately, though, the Qing government was able to put down the rebellion and exert control over all of southern China.
To consolidate the empire, Kangxi Emperor personally led China on a series of military campaigns against Tibet, the Dzungars, and later Russia. Gordhun's military campaign against the Qing failed, further strengthening the Empire. Taiwan was also conquered by Qing Empire forces in 1683 from Zheng Jing's son, Zheng Ke-Shuang; By the end of the 17th century, China was at the height of its most power since the early Ming Dynasty.
Kangxi Emperor also handled many Jesuit Missionaries that came to China hoping for mass conversions.
The Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors
The reigns of the Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1735 - 1796) marked the height of Qing's power. During this period, the Qing Dynasty ruled over 13 million square kilometres of territory.
After the Kangxi Emperor's death in the winter of 1722, his fourth son Prince Yong (雍親王) succeeded him as the Yongzheng Emperor.
Yongzheng showed a great amount of trust in Han officials, and appointed many of his proteges to prestigious positions.
The Yongzheng Emperor died in 1735.
Around forty years into Qianlong's reign, the Qing government saw a return of rampant corruption. The official Heshen was arguably one of the most corrupt in the entire Qing Dynasty.
Rebellion, unrest and external pressure
A common view of 19th century China is that it was an era in which Qing control weakened and prosperity diminished. Historians offer various explanations for these events, but the basic idea is that Qing power was, over the course of the century, faced with internal problems and foreign pressure which were simply too much for the antiquated Chinese government, bureaucracy, and economy to deal with.
The Taiping Rebellion in the mid-nineteenth century was the first major instance of anti-Manchu sentiment threatening the stability of the Qing dynasty, a phenomenon that would only increase in the following years. Although not nearly as bloody, the outside world and its ideas and technologies had a tremendous and ultimately revolutionary impact on an increasingly weak and uncertain Qing state.
One of the major issues affecting nineteenth-century China was the question of how to deal with other countries. During the Napoleonic Wars, Great Britain attempted to forge an alliance with China, sending a fleet to Hong Kong with gifts for the Emperor, including examples of the latest European technologies and art. When the British delegation received a letter from Peking explaining that China was unimpressed with European achievements, and that George III was welcome to pay homage to the Chinese court, the deeply offended British government aborted all further attempts to reconcile relations with the Qing regime.
When the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815, world trade rapidly increased, and as China's vast population offered limitless markets for European goods, trade between Chinese and European merchants expanded during the early years of the nineteenth century. This increased trade, though, led to increasing hostility between European governments and the Qing regime.
In 1793, the Qing regime had officially stated that China had no use for European manufactured products. By the late 1830's, the governments of Great Britain and France were deeply concerned about their stockpiles of precious metals and sought alternate trading schemes with China - the foremost of which was addicting China with opium. When the Qing regime tried to ban the opium trade in 1838, Great Britain declared war on China.
The First Opium War revealed the outdated state of the Chinese military. Although China's army overwhelmingly outnumbered the British, their technology and tactics were hopelessly inadequate for a war against the world's leading technological power. The Qing navy, composed entirely of wooden sailing junks, was no match for the steam-powered ironclad battleships of the Royal Navy. British soldiers, using modern rifles and artillery, easily outmanoeuvred and outgunned Qing forces in ground battles. The Qing surrender in 1842 marked a decisive, humiliating blow to China. It revealed many inadequacies in the Qing government and provoked widespread rebellions against the regime.
The Western powers, largely unsatisfied with the Treaty of Nanking, only gave grudging support to the Qing government during the Taiping and Nian Rebellions. China's income fell sharply during the wars as vast areas of farmland were destroyed, millions of lives lost, and countless armies raised and equipped to fight the rebels. This last clause outraged the Qing regime, who refused to sign, provoking another war with Britain. The Second Opium War ended in another crushing Chinese defeat, whilst the Treaty of Tianjin contained clauses deeply insulting to the Chinese, such as a demand that all official Chinese documents be written in English and a proviso granting British warships unlimited access to all navigable Chinese rivers.
The rule of Empress Dowager Cixi
In the late 19th century, a new leader emerged. 1850-1861), the mother of child emperor Tongzhi, and Aunt of Guangxu successfully controlled the Qing government and was the de facto leader of China for 47 years.
By the 1860s, the Qing dynasty had put down the rebellions with the help of militia organized by the gentry. The Qing government then proceeded to deal with problem of modernization, which it attempted with the Self-Strengthening Movement. After the start of the 20th century, the Qing Dynasty was in a dilemma. The Qing Dynasty tried to follow a middle path, but proceeded to alienate everyone.
Ten years into the reign of Guangxu (r.
In 1901, following the murder of the German Ambassador, the Eight-Nation Alliance (八國聯軍) entered China as a united military force for the second time. As a military compensation, the Alliance listed scores of demands on the Qing Government, including an initial hit list which had Cixi as No.
Qing government and society
Politics
The Qing were very clever in stabilizing the government. The most important administrative body of the Qing dynasty was the Trung Council which was a body composed of the emperor and high officials. The Qing dynasty was characterized by a system of dual appointments by which each position in the central government had a Manchu and a Han assigned to it.
With respect to Mongolia, Tibet, and Eastern Turkestan, like other dynasties before it the Qing maintained imperial control, with the emperor acting as Mongol khan, patron of Tibetan Buddhism and protector of Muslims. However, Qing policy changed with the establishment of Xinjiang province in 1884. In response to British and Russian military action in Xinjiang and Tibet, the Qing sent Army units which performed remarkably well against British units.
The abdication of the Qing emperor inevitably led to the controversy about the status of territories in Tibet and Mongolia. It was and remains the position of Mongols and Tibetan nationalists, that because they owed allegiance to the Qing monarch, that with the abdication of the Qing, they owed no allegiance to the new Chinese state. This position was rejected by the Republic of China and subsequent People's Republic of China which based their claims on the fact that these areas were integral parts of Chinese dynasties even before the Qing. Regardless of Hans, Manchus, Mongols, or other ethnic groups, they all established Sino-centric based dynasties, and claimed their legitimacy and history as part of imperial China over the last two thousands years.
Bureaucracy
The Qing Dynasty inherited many important institutions from the preceding Ming dynasty. The formal structure of the Qing government centred around the Emperor as the absolute ruler, who presided over six ministries (or boards), each headed by two presidents (Ch: Shàngshū, 尚書; In contrast to the Ming system, however, Qing ethnic policy dictated that appointments were split between Manchu noblemen and Han officials who had passed the highest levels of the state examinations. Ma: Dorgi yamun), which had been an important policy making body during Ming, lost its importance during Qing and evolved into an imperial chancery. The institutions which had been inherited from the Ming dynasty formed the core of the Qing "outer court", which handled routine matters and was located in the southern part of the Forbidden City.
In order not to let the routine administration take over the running of the empire, the Manchu Qing emperors made sure that all important matters were decided in the "Inner Court," which was dominated by the imperial family and Manchu nobility and which was located in the northern part of the Forbidden City.
The six ministries and their respective areas of responsibilities were as follows:
Board of Civil Appointments (Ch: Lìbù, 吏部;
Board of Finance (Ch: Hùbù, 户部; For much of the Qing Dynasty's history, the government's main source of revenue came from taxation on landownership supplemented by official monopolies on essential household items such as salt and tea. Thus, in the predominantly agrarian Qing dynasty, the 'household' was the basis of imperial finance.
Board of Rites (Ch: Lǐbù, 禮部;
Board of War (Ch: Bīngbù, 兵部; Ma: Coohai jurgan) - Unlike its Ming Dynasty predecessor, which had full control over all military matters, the Qing Dynasty Board of War had very limited powers. First, the Eight Banners were under the direct control of the Emperor and hereditary Manchu and Mongolian princes, leaving the ministry only with authority over the Green Standard Armies.
Board of Punishments (Ch: Xíngbù, 刑部; The Qing legal framework was relatively weak compared to modern day legal systems, as there was no separation of executive and legislative branches of government. To counter these inadequacies and keep the population in line, the Qing maintained a very harsh penal code towards the Han populace, but it was no more severe than previous Chinese dynasties.
Board of Works (Ch: Gōngbù, 工部;
In addition to the six boards, there was a Court of Colonial Affairs unique to the Qing government.
Even though the Board of Rites and the Court of Colonial Affairs performed some duties of a foreign office, they fell short of developing into a professional foreign service. It was not until 1861--a year after losing the Second Opium War to the Anglo-French coalition--that the Qing government bowed to foreign pressure and created a proper foreign affairs office known by as the Zongli Yamen.
Military
Beginnings and early development
The development of Qing military system can be divided into two broad periods separated by the Taiping rebellion (1850 - 1864). Early Qing military was rooted in the Manchu banners first developed by Nurhachi as a way to organize Manchurian society beyond petty clan affiliations. Only Manchus belonging to the Upper Three Banners, and selected Han Chinese who had passed the highest level of military exams were qualified to serve as the Emperor's personal bodyguards. However, the Iron Cap Princes continued to exercise considerable influence over the political and military affairs of Qing government well into the reign of the Qianlong Emperor.
As Qing power expanded north of the Great Wall in the last years of the Ming dynasty, the banner system was expanded by Nurhachi's son and successor Hong Taiji to include mirrored Mongolian and Han Banners. As they gained control of territories formerly under Ming rule, the relatively small Banner armies were further augmented by the Green Standard Army (綠營兵) which eventually outnumbered banner troops three to one. The Green Standard Army so-named after the colour of their battle standards was made up of those ethnic Han troops previously under Ming command who had surrendered to the Qing.
There were three different military groups, including the tuanlian, gentry, and the government army. When the regular defence system failed to beat away the strong foreign armies and rebels after the Opium War, the Qing government had to approve the gentry control of local militia (tuanlian).
Banner Armies were divided along ethnic lines, namely Manchurian and Mongolian. Although there existed a third branch of Han bannermen made up of those who had joined the Manchus before the establishment of the Qing dynasty, Han bannermen were never regarded by the government as equal to the other two branches due to their late addition to the Manchu cause as well as their Han Chinese ancestry. However during protracted period of peace in China from the 18th to mid 19th century, recruits from farming communities dwindled, due partly to Neo-Confucianism's negative stance on military careers.
After defeating the remnants of the Ming forces, the Manchu Banner Army of approximately 200,000 strong at the time was evenly divided; It served both as the capital's garrison and Qing government's main strike force.
The policy of posting Banner troops as territorial garrison was not to protect but to inspire awe in the subjugated populace at the expense of their expertise as cavalry. Secondly, before the conquest the Manchu banner was a 'citizen' army, and its members were Manchu farmers and herders obligated to provide military service to the state at times of war. The Qing government's decision to turn the banner troops into a professional force whose every welfare and need was met by state coffers brought wealth, and with it corruption, to the rank and file of the Manchu Banners and hastened its decline as a fighting force. When the Taiping rebellion broke out in 1850s the Qing Court found out belatedly that the Banner and Green Standards troops could neither put down internal rebellions nor keep foreign invaders at bay.
Transition and modernization
Early during the Taiping rebellion, Qing forces suffered a series of disastrous defeats culminating in the loss of the regional capital city of Nanjing (南京) in 1853.
Prior to forming and commanding the Xian Army, Zen had no military experience. Being a classically educated Mandarin his blueprint for the formation of the Xian Army was copied from a historical source--the Ming Dynasty General Qi JiGuan (戚繼光) who because of the weakness of the regular Ming troops had decided to form his own 'private' army to repel raiding Japanese pirates in the mid 16th century. However, circumstances saw that the Yongying system became a permanent institution within the Qing military, which in the long run created problems of its own for the beleaguered central government.
Firstly, Yongying system signalled the end of Manchu dominance in Qing military establishment. Although the Banners and Green Standard armies lingered on as parasites depleting resources much needed by the rest of Qing administration, henceforth the Yongying corps were Qing government's de facto first-line troops. Finally, the nature of Yongying command structure fostered nepotism and cronyism amongst its commanders whom as they ascended up the bureaucratic ranks laid the seeds to Qing's eventual demise and the outbreak of regional "warlordism" in China during the first half of the twentieth century.
By late 19th century, China was fast descending into a semi-colonial state. Even the most conservative elements in the Qing court could no longer ignore China's military weakness in contrast to the foreign "barbarians" literally beating down its gates. Although the Chinese pride themselves as the inventor of gunpower, and firearms had been in continual use in Chinese warfare since as far back as the Sung Dynasty, the advent of modern weaponry resulting from the European Industrial Revolution, such as the grooved rifle barrel (1855), Maxim gun (1885), and steam driven battleships (1890s) had rendered China's traditionally trained and equipped army and navy obsolete. The Qing dynasty had attempted to modernize during the Self-Strengthening Movement, but these efforts were in the view of most historians of the early and mid twentieth century, piecemeal and yielding little in lasting results. These reasons remain disputed with some historians of the late 20th century and early 21st century questioning whether in fact the Qing did fail to modernize and emphasizing accomplishments of the late-Qing and the general difficulty that nations have had in economic development.
Losing the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 - 1895 was a watershed for the Qing government. Japan, a country long regarded by the Chinese as little more than an upstart nation of pirates, had convincingly beaten its larger neighbour and in the process annihilated the Qing government's pride and joy--it's modernized Beiyang Fleet then deemed to be the strongest naval force in Asia. The defeat was a rude awakening to the Qing court especially when set in the context that it occurred a mere three decades after the Meiji reforms set a feudal Japan on course to emulate the Western nations in their economic and technological achievements. Finally, in December 1894, the Qing government took some concrete steps to reform military institutions and to re-train selected units in westernized drills, tactics and weaponry. The most successful of which was the Beiyang Army (北洋軍) under the overall supervision and control of an ex-Huai Army commander, the Han Chinese general Yuan Shikai (袁世凱), who exploited his position to eventually become Republic president, dictator and finally abortive emperor of China.
Fall of the dynasty
By the early 20th century, mass civil disorder had begun and continuously grown.
The Wuchang Uprising succeeded on October 10, 1911, and was followed by a proclamation of a separate central government, the Republic of China, in Nanjing with Sun Yat-sen as its provisional head. Numerous provinces began "separating" from Qing control. Seeing a desperate situation unfold, the Qing government brought an unwilling Yuan Shikai back to military power, taking control of his Beiyang Army, with the initial goal of crushing the revolutionaries.
With Zaifeng gone, Yuan Shi-kai and his Beiyang commanders effectively dominated Qing politics. He reasoned that going to war would be unreasonable and costly, especially when noting that the Qing Government had a goal for constitutional monarchy.
The collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1912 brought an end to over 2000 years of imperial China and began an extended period of instability, not just at the national level but in many areas of peoples' lives. China's turbulent history since the overthrow of the Qing may be understood at least in part as an attempt to understand and recover significant aspects of historic Chinese culture and integrate them with influential new ideas that have emerged within the last century. The Qing dynasty is the source of much of this magnificent culture, but its perceived humiliations also provide much from which to learn.
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Preceded by: Ming Dynasty |
Qing Dynasty 1644 – 1912 |
Succeeded by: Last imperial dynasty of China |
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