Fall of the Ming Dynasty:
Manchurian forces from northeastern Asia defeated the Ming army in 1616 near the end of the Ming Dynasty and occupied several cities on China’s northern border. Emperor Shunzhi established the Qing Dynasty in a full-scale invasion after defeating China in 1644.
Many discriminations were faced by the Han subjects. Han men were to be facing execution if they cut their hair in Mongolian fashion. Through literature Han intellectuals attempted to criticize the rulers; many were beheaded and rounded up.
The power centers of Beijing were the place where Han people got relocated in.
Emperor Kangxi:
The longest of any Chinese emperor Kangxi ruled from 1654 to 1722 for about 61 years.
Several cultural leaps including the creation of a dictionary which was considered to be the best standardization of the Han language were overseen by him as well as the funding of surveys to create the most extensive maps of China up to that time was also overseen by him.
Kangxi stifled corruption and governmental excess as well as he reduced taxes. He stopped land seizures and enacted policies that were favorable to farmers. He trimmed expenditures s and his own staff significantly.
By pushing back three Han rebellions and seizing Taiwan Kangxi also squashed military threats. Continuous invasion attempts by Tsarist Russia was also stopped by Kangxi as he brokered the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 bringing in a vast area of Siberia into Chinese control and allowing him to stifle rebellion in Mongolia.
Plants which were native to the Americas such as Potatoes and corn were introduced as crops during Kangxi’s reign, and food was considered plentiful during that time. Additionally, an explosion in exports, particularly that of cotton, silk, tea and ceramics was also overseen by Kangxi.
Emperor Qianlong:
In 1735 Qianlong ascended to the throne where he spent 60 years of ruling China. Qianlong’s later reign was characterized by his own disinterest in ruling as he was not a dynamic ruler.
Artistic pursuits preoccupied Qianlong more. He added his poetry by hand to hundreds of pieces of historical artwork in the palace as he went on to publish over 42,000 poems, though he wasn’t considered very talented.
Preserving Manchu culture was also an obsession of Qianlong as he enacted dictionary and genealogy projects to that end.
He also created a system of torture to combat as he believed that sorcerers were targeting Manchurians, while also creating a program in which thousands of Chinese books were destroyed which had even the slightest disparagement of Manchurians.
Conservative Qing Society:
During the Qing reign social mores became more conservative, with worsened penalties for homosexuals. A mass refusal of men to accept widows as their brides was there with increased demand for purity in women.
Suicides of widows and the creation of homes for widows where interaction with men was limited saw a significant growth.
Arts under the Qing Dynasty:
There was a general turn against literature as the conservative shift rejected on the arts and stage plays were also deemed as subversive. Theaters shut down and Books were routinely banned.
Some creative work did gather attention despite this oppressive atmosphere, as with the poetry of Yuan Mei and Cao Xueqin’s novel Dream of the Red Chamber.
Former Ming clan members Zhu Da and Shi Tao became monks to escape governmental roles in Qing rule and became painters as Painting also managed to thrive. Zhu Da wandered across China and embraced silence as he and his depictions of nature and landscapes are imbued with manic energy.
An artistic rule-breaker is considered to be Shi Tao who with impressionist-style brush strokes and presentations that predated Surrealism.
Opium Wars:
The Opium War of 1840 was the first of several military confrontations which featured in the 19th century between China and the Western World. It pitted China against Great Britain in a two-year conflict.
Opium by the 18th century was popular recreationally though it was used medicinally in China for centuries. Britain cultivated and exported opium to China following its conquest of India, flooding the country with the drug.
It was followed by an addiction crisis. Smoking opium was outlawed as a ban was attempted, but British traders bypassed the laws after working with black marketers.
Soon British forces shut down Chinese ports as Military confrontation became likely. China was forced to give up Hong Kong to the British as it was a part of many concessions during negotiations.
From 1856 to 1860 a second Opium War started against the British and the French, bringing more unequal agreements.
Western businessmen were free to open factories there as well as Christian missionaries were allowed to flood the country. Foreign powers got lease for the ports which allowed them to operate within China according to their own laws as opium addiction rose.
Taiping Rebellion:
Further instability in the Qing Dynasty was created by the internal political and military threats.
Lasting from 1796 to 1804 after an eight-year rebellion, the White Lotus sect was suppressed. In 1813, taking several cities the Eight Trigrams sect rose up and entered the Forbidden City before being defeated.
Lasting from 1850 to 1864 the Taiping Rebellion was the most deadly. The city of Nanjing was occupied by rebels for a decade after being put into motion by Christian religious fanatic Hong Xiuquan as around 20 million Chinese died in the conflict.
Emperor Dowager Cixi:
The end of Imperial China was expedited by the influence of Empress Dowager Cixi.
From 1851 to 1861 the widow of Emperor Xianfeng ruled, from 1862 to 1874 Cixi was regent for her infant son Tongzhi and then for her three-year-old nephew Guangxu, who with Cixi ruled for 46 years which is considered to be the real power behind the throne.
In 1898, Guangxu in an attempt to modernize China tried to take on the role of reformer, but Cixi squashed this effort after several months.
The support of an army general was there for Guangxu who latter betrayed him, and he found himself under house arrest at Cixi’s direction. Guangxu’s fellow reformers were also executed by Cixi.
Boxer Rebellion:
The work of the Harmonious Fist secret society ignited the Boxer Rebellion in 1899. The property of Christian missionaries was seized by this group then moved into the cities where they attached and killed foreigners as they attracted militant followers.
The Empress Dowager sided with the Boxers declared war on the West as the Western countries sent troops. The Imperial Army and the Boxers got defeated by Western forces in 1901. Imposing sanctions that weakened the Qing rule they executed government members who had supported the Boxers.
Xuantong who was known as “The Last Emperor,” took the throne after the Empress Dowager died in 1908, but he wouldn’t reign long.
Fall of the Qing Dynasty:
A revolution brewing since 1894 overthrew the Qing Dynasty in 1911, when Sun Zhongshan who was a western-educated revolutionary forming the Revive of China Society in Hawaii, then Hong Kong.
In 1905, with Japanese help Sun united various revolutionary factions into as one party and wrote the manifesto, the Three Principles of the People.
In 1911, being helped by Qing soldiers, the Nationalist Party of China held an uprising in Wuchang and 15 provinces declared their independence from the empire. The creation of a republic with its top general, Yuan Shikai, as president was agreed by Qing court within the weeks.
In 1912 with Sun creating a provisional constitution for the new country Xuantong got abdicated, which sparked in years of political unrest centered around Yuan.
To reinstate the Qing government there was a brief attempt in 1917, with Xuantong being restored for less than two weeks during a military coup that ultimately failed.
Written by: Gourav Chowdhury
0 Comments