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Manchu-led dynasty of China (1644–1912)
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The Qing dynasty ( CHING), officially the Great Qing, also known as the Qing Empire or Qing China, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia which existed from 1636/1644 to 1912. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. At the height of its power, the empire stretched from the Sea of Japan in the east to the Pamir Mountains in the west, and from the Mongolian Plateau in the north to the South China Sea in the south. Originally emerging from the Later Jin dynasty founded in 1616 and proclaimed in Shenyang in 1636, the dynasty seized control of the Ming capital Beijing and North China in 1644, traditionally considered the start of the dynasty's rule. The dynasty lasted until the Xinhai Revolution of October 1911 led to the abdication of the last emperor in February 1912. The multi-ethnic Qing dynasty assembled the territorial base for modern China. The Qing controlled the most territory of any dynasty in Chinese history, and in 1790 was the fourth-largest empire in world history to that point. It was also the most populous state at the time, with over 426 million citizens in 1907.
Nurhaci, leader of the Jianzhou Jurchens and House of Aisin Gioro who was also a vassal of the Ming dynasty, unified Jurchen clans (known later as Manchus) and founded the Later Jin dynasty in 1616, renouncing the Ming overlordship. As the founding Khan of the Manchu state he established the Eight Banners military system, and his son Hong Taiji was declared Emperor of the Great Qing in 1636. As Ming control disintegrated, peasant rebels captured Beijing as the short-lived Shun dynasty, but the Ming general Wu Sangui opened the Shanhai Pass to the Qing army, which defeated the rebels, seized the capital, and took over the government in 1644 under the Shunzhi Emperor and his prince regent. While the Qing became the new rulers of China, resistance from Ming rump regimes and the Revolt of the Three Feudatories delayed the complete conquest until 1683, which marked the beginning of the High Qing era. As an emperor of Manchu ethnic origin, the Kangxi Emperor (1661–1722) consolidated control, relished the role of a Confucian ruler, patronised Buddhism, encouraged scholarship, population and economic growth.
To maintain prominence over its neighbors, the Qing leveraged and adapted the traditional tributary system employed by previous dynasties, enabling their continued predominance in affairs with countries on its periphery like Joseon Korea and the Lê dynasty in Vietnam, while extending its control over Inner Asia. The Qing dynasty reached its apex during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (1735–1796), who led the Ten Great Campaigns of conquest, and personally supervised Confucian cultural projects. After his death, the dynasty faced internal revolts, economic disruption, official corruption, foreign intrusion, and the reluctance of Confucian elites to change their mindset. As peace and prosperity returned, the population rose to 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, soon leading to a fiscal crisis. Following China's defeat in the Opium Wars, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and the United States forced the Qing government to sign unequal treaties, granting them trading privileges, extraterritoriality and treaty ports under their control, beginning the century of humiliation. The Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) and the Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) in western China led to the deaths of over 20 million people, from famine, disease, and war.
The Tongzhi Restoration in the 1860s brought vigorous reforms and the introduction of foreign military technology in the Self-Strengthening Movement. Defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) led to loss of suzerainty over Korea and cession of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan. The ambitious Hundred Days' Reform in 1898 proposed fundamental change, but was poorly executed and terminated by the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) in the Wuxu Coup. In 1900, anti-foreign Boxers killed many Chinese Christians and foreign missionaries; in retaliation, the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China and imposed a punitive indemnity. In response, the government initiated unprecedented fiscal and administrative reforms, including elections, a new legal code, and the abolition of the imperial examination system. Sun Yat-sen and revolutionaries debated reform officials and constitutional monarchists such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao over how to transform the Manchu-ruled empire into a modernised Han state. After the deaths of the Guangxu Emperor and Cixi in 1908, Manchu conservatives at court blocked reforms. The Wuchang Uprising on 10 October 1911 led to the Xinhai Revolution. The abdication of the Xuantong Emperor on 12 February 1912 brought the dynasty to an end.
Hong Taiji proclaimed the Great Qing dynasty in 1636. There are competing explanations as to the meaning of the Chinese character Qīng (清; 'clear', 'pure') in this context. One theory posits a purposeful contrast with the Ming: the character Míng (明; 'bright') is associated with fire within the Chinese zodiacal system, while Qīng (清) is associated with water, illustrating the triumph of the Qing as the conquest of fire by water. The name possibly also possessed Buddhist implications of perspicacity and enlightenment, as well as connection with the bodhisattva Manjusri. Early European writers used the term "Tartar" indiscriminately for all the peoples of Northern Eurasia but in the 17th century Catholic missionary writings established "Tartar" to refer only to the Manchus and "Tartary" for the lands they ruled—i.e. Manchuria and the adjacent parts of Inner Asia, as ruled by the Qing before the Ming–Qing transition.
After conquering China proper, the Manchus identified their state as "China", with China being the standard English translation of Zhōngguó (中國; 'middle kingdom') in Chinese and Dulimbai Gurun in Manchu. The emperors equated the lands of the Qing state (including, among other areas, present-day Northeast China, Xinjiang, Mongolia, and Tibet) as "China" in both the Chinese and Manchu languages, defining China as a multi-ethnic state, and rejecting the idea that only Han areas were properly part of "China". The government used "China" and "Qing" interchangeably to refer to their state in official documents, including the Chinese-language versions of treaties and maps of the world. The term 'Chinese people' (中國人; Zhōngguórén; Manchu: ᡩᡠᠯᡳᠮᠪᠠᡳᡤᡠᡵᡠᠨ ᡳᠨᡳᠶᠠᠯᠮᠠ Dulimbai gurun-i niyalma) referred to all the Han, Manchu, and Mongol subjects of the Qing Empire. When the Qing conquered Dzungaria in 1759, it proclaimed within a Manchu-language memorial that the new land had been absorbed into "China". The Qing government expounded an ideology that it was bringing the "outer" non-Han peoples—such as various populations of Mongolians, as well as the Tibetans—together with the "inner" Han Chinese into "one family", united within the Qing state. Phraseology like Zhōngwài yījiā (中外一家) and nèiwài yījiā (內外一家)—both translatable as 'home and abroad as one family'—was employed to convey this idea of Qing-mediated trans-cultural unity.
The Qing dynasty was founded not by Han Chinese, who constituted a majority of the population, but by Manchus, a sedentary farming people descended from the Jurchens, a Tungusic people who lived in the region now comprising the Chinese provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang.
The early form of the Manchu state was founded by Nurhaci, the chieftain of a minor Jurchen tribe – the Aisin Gioro – in Jianzhou in the early 17th century. Nurhaci may have spent time in a Han household in his youth, and became fluent in Chinese and Mongolian languages and read the Chinese novels Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin. As a vassal of the Ming emperors, he officially considered himself a guardian of the Ming border and a local representative of the Ming dynasty. Nurhaci embarked on an intertribal feud in 1582 that escalated into a campaign to unify the nearby tribes. He also began organizing the Eight Banners military system which included Manchu, Han, and Mongol elements. By 1616, however, he had sufficiently consolidated Jianzhou so as to be able to proclaim himself Khan of the Later Jin dynasty in reference to the previous Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty.
Two years later, Nurhaci announced the "Seven Grievances" and openly renounced the sovereignty of Ming overlordship in order to complete the unification of those Jurchen tribes still allied with the Ming emperor. 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 Mukden (Shenyang) in 1625. Furthermore, the Khorchin proved a useful ally in the war, lending the Jurchens their expertise as cavalry archers. 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. This is a typical example of Nurhaci's initiatives that eventually became official Qing government policy. During most of the Qing period, the Mongols gave military assistance to the Manchus.
Nurhaci died in 1626, and was succeeded by his eighth son, Hong Taiji. Although Hong Taiji was an experienced leader and the commander of two Banners, the Jurchens suffered defeat in 1627, in part due to the Ming's newly acquired Portuguese cannons. To redress the technological and numerical disparity, Hong Taiji in 1634 created his own artillery corps, who cast their own cannons in the European design with the help of defector Chinese metallurgists. 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. In 1635, the Manchus' Mongol allies were fully incorporated into a separate Banner hierarchy under direct Manchu command. In April 1636, Mongol nobility of Inner Mongolia, Manchu nobility and the Han mandarin recommended that Hong as the khan of Later Jin should be the emperor of the Great Qing. When he was presented with the imperial seal of the Yuan dynasty after the defeat of the last Khagan of the Mongols, Hong Taiji renamed his state from "Great Jin" to "Great Qing" and elevated his position from Khan to Emperor, suggesting imperial ambitions beyond unifying the Manchu territories. Hong Taiji then proceeded to invade Korea again in 1636.
Meanwhile, Hong Taiji set up a rudimentary bureaucratic system based on the Ming model. He established six boards or executive level ministries in 1631 to oversee finance, personnel, rites, military, punishments, and public works. 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.
Hong Taiji staffed his bureaucracy with many Han Chinese, including newly surrendered Ming officials, but ensured Manchu dominance by an ethnic quota for top appointments. Hong Taiji's reign also saw a fundamental change of policy towards his Han Chinese subjects. Nurhaci had treated Han in Liaodong according to how much grain they had. Due to a Han revolt in 1623, Nurhaci turned against them and enacted discriminatory policies and killings against them. He ordered that Han who assimilated to the Jurchen (in Jilin) before 1619 be treated equally with Jurchens, not like the conquered Han in Liaodong. Hong Taiji recognised the need to attract Han Chinese, explaining to reluctant Manchus why he needed to treat the defecting Ming general Hong Chengchou leniently. Hong Taiji incorporated Han into the Jurchen polity as citizens obligated to provide military service. By 1648, less than one-sixth of the bannermen were of Manchu ancestry.
Hong Taiji died suddenly in September 1643. As Jurchen leaders were chosen by a council of nobles, there was no clear successor. The leading contenders for power were Hong Taiji's oldest son Hooge and Hong Taiji's half brother Dorgon. A compromise installed Hong Taiji's five-year-old son, Fulin, as the Shunzhi Emperor, with Dorgon as regent and de facto leader of the Manchu nation.
Meanwhile, Ming government officials fought against fiscal collapse, against each other, and against a series of peasant rebellions. They were unable to capitalise on the Manchu succession dispute and the resulting boy emperor. In April 1644, Beijing was sacked by a contentious rebel coalition led by Li Zicheng, a former minor Ming official, who established a short-lived Shun dynasty. The last Ming ruler, the Chongzhen Emperor, committed suicide when the city fell to the rebels, marking the effective end of the dynasty.
Li Zicheng then led rebel forces numbering some 200,000 to confront Ming general Wu Sangui, stationed at Shanhai Pass of the Great Wall to defend the capital against the approaching Manchu-led armies. Wu, to survive, had to ally with one of his adversaries against the other; one was a Han Chinese peasant army twice his size, but he chose the other. Wu may have resented Li Zicheng's attack on officials and the social order; Li had taken Wu's father hostage and it was said that Li took Wu's concubine for himself. On the other hand, the Manchus had adopted a Chinese-style form of government and promised stability. Wu and Dorgon allied to defeat Li Zicheng in the Battle of Shanhai Pass on 27 May 1644.
The newly allied armies captured Beijing on 6 June. The Shunzhi Emperor was invested as the "Son of Heaven" on 30 October 1644. The Manchus, who had positioned themselves as political heirs to the Ming, held a formal funeral for the Chongzhen Emperor. However, completing the conquest of China proper took another seventeen years of battling Ming loyalists, pretenders and rebels. The last Ming pretender, Prince Gui, sought refuge with Pindale Min, the king of Burma, but was turned over to a Qing expeditionary army commanded by Wu Sangui, who had him brought back to Yunnan and executed in early 1662.
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. Banners made up of Han Chinese who defected before 1644 were classed among the Eight Banners, giving them social and legal privileges. Han defectors swelled the ranks of the Eight Banners so greatly that ethnic Manchus became a minority – only 16% in 1648, with Han bannermen dominating at 75% and Mongol bannermen making up the rest. Gunpowder weapons like muskets and artillery were wielded by the Chinese Banners. Normally, Han Chinese defector troops were deployed as the vanguard, while Manchu bannermen were used predominantly for quick strikes with maximum impact, so as to minimise ethnic Manchu losses.
This multi-ethnic force conquered Ming China for the Qing. The three Liaodong officers who played key roles in the conquest of southern China were Shang Kexi, Geng Zhongming, and Kong Youde, who governed southern China autonomously as viceroys for the Qing after the conquest. Han bannermen made up the majority of governors during the early Qing, stabilising their rule. To promote ethnic harmony, a 1648 decree allowed Han Chinese civilian men to marry Manchu women from the Banners with the permission of the Board of Revenue if they were registered daughters of officials or commoners, or with the permission of their banner company captain if they were unregistered commoners. Later in the dynasty the policies allowing intermarriage were done away with. The Qing's depiction of itself as a Chinese empire was not hindered by the imperial house's Manchu ethnicity, especially after 1644, when the name "Chinese" was given a multiethnic meaning.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Qing dynasty”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.