Efforts at modernization and Westernization met opposition from conservative officials especially through the efforts of the dowager empress Cixi. Slavery, concubinage, arranged marriage, opium smoking, footbinding, judicial torture, and the worship of idols were all banned. Indeed, the Qing government did far more to encourage mobility than to discourage it. In 1854, Britain tried to re-negotiate the Treaty of Nanjing, inserting clauses allowing British commercial access to Chinese rivers and the creation of a permanent British embassy at Beijing. The ambitious Hundred Days' Reform of 1898 proposed fundamental change, but the Empress Dowager Cixi (18351908), who had been the dominant voice in the national government for more than three decades, turned it back in a coup. Cultural attitudes were strongly conservative and Neo-Confucianism was the dominant philosophy. Learn about the Qing Dynasty, its early achievements, its cultural achievements, and its inventions and innovations. After the invasion of Northeast China to fight Japan by the Soviet Union, Manchukuo fell in 1945. [174] The painting of the early years of the dynasty included such painters as the orthodox Four Wangs and the individualists Bada Shanren (16261705) and Shitao (16411707). The Fifth Dalai Lama, who had gained power in 1642, just before the Manchus took Beijing, looked to the Qing court for support. The Manchus, a northern Chinese ethnic group who established the Qing dynasty, were able to take power during a time of social unrest. Despite prohibitions, by the 18th century Han Chinese streamed into Manchuria, both illegally and legally, over the Great Wall and Willow Palisade. The Han Chinese appointee was required to do the substantive work and the Manchu to ensure Han loyalty to Qing rule. After taking the position of Prime Minister he created his own cabinet, with the support of Empress Dowager Longyu. [54], After the death of the Kangxi Emperor in the winter of 1722, his fourth son, Prince Yong (), became the Yongzheng Emperor. Due to a Han revolt in 1623, Nurhaci turned against them and ordered that they no longer be trusted and enacted discriminatory policies and killings against them. [58] Next, he moved to control the government. During The Great Game era, taking advantage of the Dungan revolt in northwest China, Yaqub Beg invaded Xinjiang from Central Asia with support from the British Empire, and made himself the ruler of the kingdom of Kashgaria. The Qing dynasty was founded not by the Han people, who constitute the majority of the Chinese population, but by the Manchus, descendants of a sedentary farming people known as the Jurchens, a Tungusic people who lived around the region now comprising the Chinese provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. The Qing Dynasty began in 1644 and concluded the China dynasties. Porcelain is literally called China because it is a Chinese invention. Officials who had served for one or two terms could retire to enjoy the glory of their status. The last Ming pretender, Prince Gui, sought refuge with the King of Burma, Pindale Min, but was turned over to a Qing expeditionary army commanded by Wu Sangui, who had him brought back to Yunnan province and executed in early 1662. [156] During the mid-Ming China had gradually shifted to silver as the standard currency for large scale transactions and by the late Kangxi reign the assessment and collection of the land tax was done in silver. [126] In the countryside, the newly arrived Dominican and Franciscan clerics established rural communities that adapted to local folk religious practices by emphasizing healing, festivals, and holy days rather than sacraments and doctrine. [141] In the next decades, there were 800 some conflicts between village Christians and non-Christians (jiao'an) mostly about non-religious issues, such as land rights or local taxes, but religious conflict often behind such cases. Meanwhile, Hong Taiji set up a rudimentary bureaucratic system based on the Ming model. However, the Qing dynasty used gunpowder to create the world's first machine guns, which could fire many bullets without reloading and held as many as 28 bullets at a time. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They often showed off their learning by collecting objects such as scholars' stones, [94], The population was also remarkably mobile, perhaps more so than at any time in Chinese history. The literature of the Qing dynasty resembled that of the preceding Ming period in that much of it focused on classical forms. The Qing dynasty was a period of literary editing and criticism, and many of the modern popular versions of Classical Chinese poems were transmitted through Qing dynasty anthologies, such as the Quan Tangshi and the Three Hundred Tang Poems. The gentleman gourmet, such as Yuan Mei, applied aesthetic standards to the art of cooking, eating, and appreciation of tea at a time when New World crops and products entered everyday life. By the 16th century, colored woodblock printing became very popular in China. The Manchus had been. He expanded his father's system of Palace Memorials, which brought frank and detailed reports on local conditions directly to the throne without being intercepted by the bureaucracy, and he created a small Grand Council of personal advisors, which eventually grew into the emperor's de facto cabinet for the rest of the dynasty. In Chinese historiography, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. Common practices included ancestor veneration, filial piety, local gods and spirits. [122] Since they did not require exclusive allegiance, forms and branches of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism were intertwined, for instance in the syncretic Three teachings. The height of Qing glory and power was reached in the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (17351796). This reform occurred when Inner Manchuria was a battleground between Russia and Japan. The magistrate lectured on the Emperor's Sacred Edict to promote civic morality; he kept close watch over religious organizations whose actions might threaten the sovereignty and religious prerogative of the state. Puyi was allowed to live in the Forbidden City after his abdication until 1924, when he moved to the Japanese concession in Tianjin. China, 1000 B.C.-1 A.D. Map In ancient China, it was a form of entertainment for both men and women, the young and the old, and the rich . After the conquests of the 1750s and 1760s, the court organized agricultural colonies in Xinjiang. Dzungaria was fully opened to Han migration by the Qianlong Emperor from the beginning. The majority of the population belonged to the first category and were described as liangmin, a legal term meaning good people, as opposed to jianmin meaning the mean (or ignoble) people. [145] Missionaries began establishing nurse training schools in the late 1880s, but nursing of sick men by women was rejected by local tradition, so the number of students was small until the 1930s. [12] The Manchus are sometimes mistaken for a nomadic people,[13] which they were not. Dorgon then drastically reduced the influence of the eunuchs, a major force in the Ming bureaucracy, and directed Manchu women not to bind their feet in the Chinese style. [110] Such worship was intended to ensure that the ancestors remain content and benevolent spirits (shen) who would keep watch over and protect the family. Newer, more radical advisers such as Kang Youwei were given positions of influence. The occupation prompted a "scramble for concessions" in 1898, which included the German lease of Jiazhou Bay, the Russian acquisition of Liaodong, and the British lease of the New Territories of Hong Kong. The Qin Dynasty is known for being the first dynasty of a unified China. Kangxi was able to unify his forces for a counterattack led by a new generation of Manchu generals. These people lived in northeastern China but soon expanded their. To guarantee Manchu control over the administration, however, the Qing made certain that half the higher-level officials were Manchus. Seals like this were used to give documents the official stamp of approval. The Reign of Louis XIV in France: Accomplishments & Influence. [51], To extend and consolidate the dynasty's control in Central Asia, the Kangxi Emperor personally led a series of military campaigns against the Dzungars in Outer Mongolia. [92] The spread of New World crops, such as maize, peanuts, sweet potatoes, and potatoes decreased the number of deaths from malnutrition. With peace and prosperity, the population rose to some 400million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, soon leading to fiscal crisis. After conquering Manchuria, the Mongols marched southward to defeat the Song dynasty, and by 1279 CE, had united all the provinces. The sixty-one year reign of the Kangxi Emperor was the longest of any emperor of China and marked the beginning of the "High Qing" era, the zenith of the dynasty's social, economic and military power. [81] The Grand Councillors[k] served as a sort of privy council to the emperor. The British East India Company greatly expanded its production in Bengal. Merchant guilds proliferated in all of the growing Chinese cities and often acquired great social and even political influence. [115] The county magistrate, as the emperor's political and spiritual representative, made offerings at officially recognized temples, for instance those dedicated to the God of Walls and Moats, (the so-called City God), and local deified heroes. [152] A system of monitoring grain prices eliminated severe shortages, and enabled the price of rice to rise slowly and smoothly through the 18th century. Qing dynasty, Wade-Giles romanization Ching, also called Manchu dynasty or Pinyin Manzu, the last of the imperial dynasties of China, spanning the years 1644 to 1911/12. [38] In the ensuing unrest, some 100,000 Han were slaughtered.[39][40][41]. Contrary to stereotypes in some Western writing, 16th and 17th century Qing dynasty officials and literati eagerly explored the technology and science introduced by Jesuit missionaries. During the Self-Strengthening Movement of the 1860s and 1870s Confucian officials in several coastal provinces established an industrial base in military technology. From 19021911, seventy civil administrations were created due to the increasing population of Manchuria. Yet, as the historian Jonathan Spence puts it, the empire by the end of the Qianlong reign was "like the sun at midday". The Taiping Rebellion (18501864) and the Dungan Revolt (18621877) in Central Asia led to the deaths of over 20million people, from famine, disease, and war. In 1635, the Manchus' Mongol allies were fully incorporated into a separate Banner hierarchy under direct Manchu command. Diseases such as smallpox were brought under control by an increase in inoculations. [36] The popular description of the order was: "To keep the hair, you lose the head; To keep your head, you cut the hair. [111], Full-fledged trade guilds emerged, which, among other things, issued regulatory codes and price schedules, and provided a place for travelling merchants to stay and conduct their business. So much so that upon his death he was bestowed the extraordinary posthumous title of Emperor Yi (), the only instance in Qing history in which a Manchu "prince of the blood" () was so honored. The water imagery of the new name may also have had Buddhist overtones of perspicacity and enlightenment and connections with the Bodhisattva Manjusri. The fiscal crisis persisted. Create your account. Under Kangxi (reigned 16611722), the second Qing emperor, the Manchus forced the Russians to abandon their fort at Albazin, located along the Manchurian border on the Amur River. By the mid-18th century, the Qing had successfully put outer regions such as Inner and Outer Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang under its control. This was due to the fact that extraction of surplus crops from the countryside was traditionally done by the state and not commercial organizations. Nevertheless, Qianlong used the literary inquisition to silence opposition. However, through chance and machination, Oboi, the most junior of the four, gradually achieved such dominance as to be a potential threat. Surplus crops were placed onto the national market for sale, integrating farmers into the commercial economy from the ground up. By adopting the Ming form of government and continuing to employ Ming officials, the Manchus pacified the Chinese population. Chinese generals and officials such as Zuo Zongtang led the suppression of rebellions and stood behind the Manchus. Their aim was to adopt Western military technology in order to preserve Confucian values. Although officially still communist and Maoist, in practice China's rulers have used this grassroots settlement to proclaim that their current policies are restoring China's historical glory. [59], Yongzheng also inherited diplomatic and strategic problems. Nurhaci had treated Han in Liaodong according to how much grain they had: those with less than 5 to 7 sin were treated badly, while those with more were rewarded with property. [183] In addition, a general growing interest in ethnicity led to fresh understandings of non-Han peoples in Chinese politics and society, which was also part of a rethinking of how the modern Chinese nation-state developed, a rethinking not based on received ideas of Han superiority. Hong Taiji named the Great Qing dynasty in 1636. However, these administrative organs had very little role initially, and it was not until the eve of completing the conquest ten years later that they fulfilled their government roles. The Viceroy of Zhili, who was responsible for the area surrounding the capital Beijing, is usually considered as the most honorable and powerful viceroy among the eight. The young emperor faced challenges in maintaining control of his kingdom, as well. [183], Ping-ti Ho criticized the new approach for exaggerating the Manchu character of the dynasty, which he argued had become sinified. During the Song dynasty, gunpowder technology was further refined for military purposes and many kinds of firearms were invented. In 1860, with Anglo-French forces marching on Beijing, the emperor and his court fled the capital for the imperial hunting lodge at Rehe. This naturally led to regions specializing in certain cash-crops for export as China's economy became increasingly reliant on inter-regional trade of bulk staple goods such as cotton, grain, beans, vegetable oils, forest products, animal products, and fertilizer. The Qing dynasty (1644-1912) was the last imperial dynasty in China. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the territorial base for the modern Chinese state. [103] The proliferation of these mid-sized cities was only made possible by advancements in long-distance transportation and methods of communication. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. First, he promoted Confucian orthodoxy and reversed what he saw as his father's laxness by cracking down on unorthodox sects and by decapitating an anti-Manchu writer his father had pardoned. The core institution of the inner court was the Grand Council. The attitude shared by most artists, in spite of obvious differences, was a strong preference for literati painting (wenrenhua), which emphasized personal expression above all. The empire's spiritual center of gravity" was the "religio-political state." During the Qing dynasty, China's territory and population expanded tremendously. From 1889, when Guangxu began to rule in his own right, to 1898, the Empress Dowager lived in semi-retirement, spending the majority of the year at the Summer Palace. [182], The New Qing History is a revisionist historiographical trend starting in the mid-1990s emphasizing the Manchu nature of the dynasty. First, the Manchus had entered "South of the Wall" because Dorgon had responded decisively to Wu Sangui's appeal, then, instead of sacking Beijing as the rebels had done, Dorgon insisted, over the protests of other Manchu princes, on making it the dynastic capital and reappointing most Ming officials. The leading contenders for power were Hong Taiji's oldest son Hooge and Hong Taiji's half brother Dorgon. The first emperor of the Chinese Qing dynasty was named Shunzhi, and his skill at pacifying former rebels was both shrewd and cunning. The dramatic rise in population was due to several reasons, including the long period of peace and stability in the 18th century and the import of new crops China received from the Americas, including peanuts, sweet potatoes and maize. [104], The gentry class was divided into groups. Winning Taiwan freed Kangxi's forces for a series of battles over Albazin, the far eastern outpost of the Tsardom of Russia. To guarantee this new alliance, Nurhaci initiated a policy of inter-marriages between the Jurchen and Khorchin nobilities, while those who resisted were met with military action. In 1723 he outlawed Christianity and expelled Christian missionaries, though some were allowed to remain in the capital. Major Events in World History Study Guide, Qing Dynasty: Social Classes, Laws & Economy, Psychological Research & Experimental Design, All Teacher Certification Test Prep Courses, History of the Ancient Middle East & India, Shang Dynasty: Technology, Inventions & Achievements, Shang Dynasty: Social Structure & Family Life, Shang Dynasty: Leaders, Political Structure & Laws, Qin Dynasty: Achievements, Inventions & Technology, Qin Dynasty: Social Structure, Laws & Rules, Sui Dynasty: Achievements, Inventions & Technology, Tang Dynasty: Facts, Time Period & Rulers, Tang Dynasty: Achievements, Inventions & Technology, Tang Dynasty: Government, Economy & Trade, Tang Dynasty: Social Structure & Traditions, Yuan Dynasty: Achievements, Inventions & Technology, Qing Dynasty: Achievements, Inventions & Technology, Praxis World & U.S. History - Content Knowledge (5941): Practice & Study Guide, GED Social Studies: Civics & Government, US History, Economics, Geography & World, CLEP History of the United States I - Early Colonization to 1877 Prep, High School US History Syllabus Resource & Lesson Plans, High School World History Curriculum Resource & Lesson Plans, Middle School World History Curriculum Resource & Lesson Plans, China During the Ming & Qing Dynasties (1368-1911), The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971: Origins, Events & Consequences, Peace Negotiations, Diplomacy & the Indo-Pakistan Conflict, The 1982 Lebanon War: Origins, Events & Outcomes, The Social & Economic Impact of the Yugoslav Wars, Displacement of Refugees in the Middle Eastern Conflicts, Comparing and Contrasting Early American Presidents: Essay Prompts, Analyzing Important Documents in American History: Essay Prompts, Working Scholars Bringing Tuition-Free College to the Community. [45] 400,000 Green Standard Army soldiers were used against the Three Feudatories in addition to the 200,000 Bannermen.[46]. 17 April 1895. [158], It was estimated in the 1850s that wages around the capital of Beijing and the Yangtze delta region for a farmer was between 0.99-1.02 taels a month assuming every day was worked this would amount to roughly 12 taels a year with over 400,000,000 citizens in 1890 the level of taxation was extremely low. Manchuria was originally separated from China proper by the Inner Willow Palisade, a ditch and embankment planted with willows intended to restrict the movement of the Han Chinese, as the area was off-limits to civilian Han Chinese until the government started colonizing the area, especially since the 1860s. Germany used the murders as a pretext for a naval occupation of Jiaozhou Bay. Still others in China agree that this scholarship has opened new vistas for the study of Qing history. A friend of Hong's, Feng Yunshan, utilized Hong's ideas to organize a new religious group, the God Worshippers Society (Bai Shangdi Hui), which he formed among the impoverished peasants of Guangxi province. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you [91] Furthermore, similar to Xinjiang which was converted into a province earlier, the Qing government also turned Manchuria into three provinces in the early 20th century, officially known as the "Three Northeast Provinces", and established the post of Viceroy of the Three Northeast Provinces to oversee these provinces, making the total number of regional viceroys to nine. Literati families drew income from landholding, as well as from lending money. In addition, there are schools of painting (though painters so classified share more a common location than a single style), such as the Four Masters of Anhui, the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, and the Eight Masters of Nanjing. After a series of successful battles, he relocated his capital from Hetu Ala to successively bigger captured Ming cities in Liaodong: first Liaoyang in 1621, then Shenyang (Manchu: Mukden) in 1625. Rites included mourning, funeral, burial, practices. Pao Chao gives a record of revenues and expenditures in 1887: 3,624,532 Shih of rice The Treaty of Nanjing, the first of the "unequal treaties", demanded war reparations, forced China to open up the Treaty Ports of Canton, Amoy, Fuzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai to Western trade and missionaries, and to cede Hong Kong Island to Britain. One of the defining events of Hong Taiji's reign was the official adoption of the name "Manchu" for the united Jurchen people in November 1635. The Qing Dynasty was the final imperial dynasty in China, lasting from 1644 to 1912. The Qing had taken shrewd advantage of Ming civilian government discrimination against the military and encouraged the Ming military to defect by spreading the message that the Manchus valued their skills. The Ming dynasty, which . "[35] To the Manchus, this policy was a test of loyalty and an aid in distinguishing friend from foe. As more and more Chinese-citizens were travelling the country conducting trade they increasingly found themselves in a far-away place needing a place to stay, in response the market saw the expansion of guild halls to house these merchants. Wu and Dorgon allied in the name of avenging the death of the Chongzhen Emperor. [67] Prince Gong, a younger half-brother of the emperor, who had been left as his brother's proxy in the capital, was forced to sign the Convention of Beijing. The formula for gunpowder dates back to 850 CE in China. It was standardized for China during the Qing Dynasty . [83][86], Qing China reached its largest extent during the 18th century, when it ruled China proper (eighteen provinces) as well as the areas of present-day Northeast China, Inner Mongolia, Outer Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, at approximately 13million km2 in size. In April 1644, the capital, Beijing, was sacked by a coalition of rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, a former minor Ming official, who established a short-lived Shun dynasty. [153] Wary of the power of wealthy merchants, Qing rulers limited their trading licenses and usually refused them permission to open new mines, except in poor areas. It was not until 1864 that Qing armies under Zeng Guofan succeeded in crushing the revolt. After Galdan's death, his followers, as adherents to Tibetan Buddhism, attempted to control the choice of the next Dalai Lama. Three Ming generals singled out for their contributions to the establishment of the dynasty had been granted governorships in Southern China. [82], There was also another government institution called Imperial Household Department which was unique to the Qing dynasty. Get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaking ethnic group who unified other Jurchen tribes to form a new "Manchu" ethnic identity. The terms might have been harsher, but when a Japanese citizen attacked and wounded Li Hongzhang, an international outcry shamed the Japanese into revising them. The latter included an increasingly large and mobile workforce. The Manchu armies deteriorated, and popular unrest, aggravated by severe floods and famine, were factors contributing to the Taiping (185064) and Nian (185368) rebellions in the south and north, respectively. [78] This brought an end to over 2,000 years of Imperial China and nearly 268 years of ruling China by the Manchu people, and began a period of instability. [55] In the words of one recent historian, he was "severe, suspicious, and jealous, but extremely capable and resourceful",[56] and in the words of another, he turned out to be an "early modern state-maker of the first order". Together, the two former enemies met and defeated Li Zicheng's rebel forces in battle on May 27, 1644.[26]. Because the emperor was only 12 years old at that time, most decisions were made on his behalf by his mother, Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang, who turned out to be a skilled political operator. [157] Following the Opium wars and the opening of China to foreign trade and the mid-century rebellions against the Qing 2 further important sources of revenue were added the foreign maritime customs revenue and the likin revenue though only 20% of the likin revenue was actually given by the provinces to Hu Pu (board of revenue) in Beijing the rest remaining in provincial hands, the Hu Pu also managed to raise some miscellaneous taxes and increased the rate of the salt tax these measures doubled revenue by the late 19th century, this however was insufficient for the central government which was facing numerous crises and wars during the period and 9 foreign loans amounting to 40mil taels were contracted by the Qing government prior to 1890. [29] Normally, Han Chinese defector troops were deployed as the vanguard, while Manchu Bannermen acted as reserve forces or in the rear and were used predominantly for quick strikes with maximum impact, so as to minimize ethnic Manchu losses. [146], By the end of the 17th century, the Chinese economy had recovered from the devastation caused by the wars in which the Ming dynasty were overthrown, and the resulting breakdown of order. The efforts of the Manchu rulers, from the beginning of their rule, to become assimilated into Chinese culture bred strongly conservative Confucian political and cultural attitudes in official society and stimulated a great period of collecting, cataloging, and commenting upon the traditions of the past. [53], The reigns of the Yongzheng Emperor (r. 17231735) and his son, the Qianlong Emperor (r. 17351796), marked the height of Qing power. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Qing-dynasty, GlobalSecurity.org - Chinese History - 1644-1912 AD - Qing / Ch'ing (Manchu) Dynasty, Humanities LibreTexts - Qing Dynasty (1636 - 1911), Alpha History - The Manchu and the Qing dynasty, Qing dynasty - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), Shenyang, Liaoning province, China: Qing tomb complex. These 10 facts will help you understand the Qing Empire better. Hong Taiji's reign also saw a fundamental change of policy towards his Han Chinese subjects. [80], The formal structure of the Qing government centered on the Emperor as the absolute ruler, who presided over six Boards (Ministries[f]), each headed by two presidents[g] and assisted by four vice presidents. However, throughout the Qing dynasty, the emperor and his court, as well as the bureaucracy, worked towards reducing the distinctions between the debased and free but did not completely succeed even at the end of its era in merging the two classifications together. Officials, of course, drew a salary, which, as the years went by, were less and less adequate, leading to widespread reliance on "squeeze," irrgular payments.
Categories
