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119-515: The name Altishahr is derived from the Turkic word alti ('six') and Persian word shahr ('city'). The Altishahr term was used by Turkic-speaking inhabitants of the Tarim Basin in the 18th and 19th century, and adopted by some Western sources in the 19th century. Other local words for the region included Dorben Shahr ('Four Cities') and Yeti Shahr ('Seven Cities'). Another Western term for

238-564: A "responsible cabinet" led by Yikuang , Prince Qing. However, it became known as the " royal cabinet ", as five of its thirteen members, were part of or related to the royal family. The Wuchang Uprising on 10 October 1911 set off a series of uprisings. By November, 14 of the 22 provinces had rejected Qing rule. This led to the creation of the Republic of China , in Nanjing on 1 January 1912, with Sun Yat-sen as its provisional head. Seeing

357-622: 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 recognized 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

476-899: A Turco-Mongol dynasty which gained power in Central Asia after the decline of the Chagatai khans. Chagatai is the predecessor of the modern Karluk branch of Turkic languages, which includes Uzbek and Uyghur . The Mongols during the period of the early Mongol conquests and the conquests of Genghis Khan largely followed Tengrism . However, the successor states of the Mongol Empire, the Ilkhanate , Golden Horde and Chagatai Khanate ruled over large Muslim populations. The Ilkhanate and Chagatai Khanate in particular ruled over Muslim majority populations in Iran and Central Asia, respectively. In

595-603: A Turkic translation of the Qing Chinese term Nanlu Bajiang (literally 'Eight Cities of the Southern Circuit'), referring to (1) Kashgar, (2) Yengisar (3) Yarkant and (4) Khotan in the west and (5) Uqturpan, (6) Aksu, (7) Karasahr (Qarashahr, Yanqi), and (8) Turpan in the east. Altishahr refers to the Tarim Basin of Southern Xinjiang , which was historically, geographically, and ethnically distinct from

714-485: A campaign to unify the nearby tribes . 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

833-617: A desperate situation, the Qing court brought Yuan Shikai back to power. His Beiyang Army crushed the revolutionaries in Wuhan at the Battle of Yangxia . After taking the position of Prime Minister he created his own cabinet , with the support of Empress Dowager Longyu . However, Yuan Shikai decided to cooperate with Sun Yat-sen's revolutionaries to overthrow the Qing dynasty. Turco-Mongol The Turco-Mongol or Turko-Mongol tradition

952-412: A direct threat to the throne. So much so that upon his death he was bestowed the extraordinary posthumous title of Emperor Yi ( 義皇帝 ), the only instance in Qing history in which a Manchu "prince of the blood" ( 親王 ) was so honored. Two months into Shunzhi's personal rule, however, Dorgon was not only stripped of his titles, but his corpse was disinterred and mutilated. Dorgon's fall from grace also led to

1071-666: A disappointed civil service examination candidate who, influenced by reading the Old Testament in translation, had a series of visions and announced himself to be the son of God, the younger brother of Jesus Christ, sent to reform China. In 1851, Hong launched an uprising in Guizhou and established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom with himself as its king. Within this kingdom, slavery, concubinage, arranged marriage, opium smoking, footbinding, judicial torture, and

1190-613: 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

1309-524: A genetic relationship and led to the widespread acceptance of an Altaic language family . More recently, due to the lack of a definitive demonstration of a genetic relationship, these similarities have been divided into these three known periods of language contact. The similarities have led to the proposal of a Northeast Asian sprachbund instead, which also includes the Tungusic , Korean , and Japonic language families, although Turkic and Mongolic display

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1428-519: A misunderstanding that Manchus were afraid of water. Han bannermen carried out the fighting and killing, casting conquest of the Mingdoubt on the claim that fear of the water led to the coastal evacuation and ban on maritime activities. Even though a poem refers to the soldiers carrying out massacres in Fujian as "barbarians", both Han Green Standard Army and Han bannermen were involved and carried out

1547-454: A patron of Tibetan Buddhism to establish legitimacy as a ruler of the Mongols and Tibetans. Kangxi's reign began when the young emperor was seven. To prevent a repeat of Dorgon's monopolizing of power, on his deathbed his father hastily appointed four regents who were not closely related to the imperial family and had no claim to the throne. However, through chance and machination, Oboi ,

1666-633: A process of assimilation with the non-Mongol populations that they ruled over. The population of the Golden Horde was largely a mixture of Turks and Mongols who adopted Islam later, as well as smaller numbers of Finno-Ugric peoples , Sarmato-Scythians , Slavs , and people from the Caucasus , among others (whether Muslim or not). Most of the Horde's population was Turkic: Kipchaks , Cumans , Volga Bulgars , Khwarezmians , and others. The Horde

1785-485: A series of edicts and plans were made to reorganize the bureaucracy, restructure the school system, and appoint new officials. Opposition from the bureaucracy was immediate and intense. Although she had been involved in the initial reforms, the Empress Dowager stepped in to call them off , arrested and executed several reformers, and took over day-to-day control of policy. Yet many of the plans stayed in place, and

1904-485: A short, but hard-fought campaign. She fled to Xi'an . The victorious allies then enforced their demands on the Qing government, including compensation for their expenses in invading China and execution of complicit officials, via the Boxer Protocol . The defeat by Japan in 1895 created a sense of crisis which the failure of the 1898 reforms and the disasters of 1900 only exacerbated. Cixi in 1901 moved to mollify

2023-809: A short-lived proto-state known as the Zheltuga Republic (1883–1886) in the Amur River basin, which was however soon crushed by the Qing forces. In 1884, Qing China obtained concessions in Korea , such as the Chinese concession of Incheon , but the pro-Japanese Koreans in Seoul led the Gapsin Coup . Tensions between China and Japan rose after China intervened to suppress the uprising. The Japanese prime minister Itō Hirobumi and Li Hongzhang signed

2142-400: 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

2261-453: Is nothing we lack..." Since China had little demand for European goods, Europe paid in silver for Chinese goods, an imbalance that worried the mercantilist governments of Britain and France. The growing Chinese demand for opium provided the remedy. The British East India Company greatly expanded its production in Bengal. The Daoguang Emperor , concerned both over the outflow of silver and

2380-626: 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 ,

2499-870: The Beiyang Army , and the purchase of armament factories from the Europeans. The dynasty gradually lost control of its peripheral territories. In return for promises of support against the British and the French, the Russian Empire took large chunks of territory in the Northeast in 1860. The period of cooperation between the reformers and the European powers ended with the 1870 Tianjin Massacre , which

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2618-631: The British Royal Navy . British soldiers, using advanced muskets and artillery, easily outmaneuvered and outgunned Qing forces in ground battles. The Qing surrender in 1842 marked a decisive, humiliating blow. 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. It revealed weaknesses in

2737-697: The Convention of Tientsin , an agreement to withdraw troops simultaneously, but the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895 was a military humiliation. The Treaty of Shimonoseki recognized Korean independence and ceded Taiwan and the Pescadores to Japan. 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 original agreement stipulated

2856-687: 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 in 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

2975-465: The Dungan Revolt in the late 19th century, the Qing combined the two circuits into the newly created Xinjiang Province in 1884. Xinjiang has since been used by the Republic of China and People's Republic of China and Southern Xinjiang replaced Altishahr as place name for the region. Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( / tʃ ɪ ŋ / CHING ), officially the Great Qing ,

3094-594: The Dzungars in Outer Mongolia . The Kangxi Emperor expelled Galdan 's invading forces from these regions, which were then incorporated into the empire. In 1683, Qing forces received the surrender of Formosa (Taiwan) from Zheng Keshuang , grandson of Koxinga , who had conquered Taiwan from the Dutch colonists as a base against the Qing. Winning Taiwan freed Kangxi's forces for a series of battles over Albazin ,

3213-764: The Indian subcontinent . The Turks and Tatars also ruled part of Egypt , exercising political and military authority during the Mamluk Sultanate . One of the khanates where Turkic-Mongolian traditions are experienced most intensely is the Yenisei Kingdom . The ruling dynasty comes from the Melig lineage, the son of Ögedei khan , who was a Muslim . There are Turkic peoples such as Teleuts , Kimeks , Kipchaks , Altaians , Kyrgyzs , Naymans under their rule. These Turco-Mongol elites became patrons of

3332-535: The Junggar Basin of Dzungaria . At the time of the Qing conquest in 1759, Dzungaria was inhabited by Oirats , steppe -dwelling, nomadic Mongols who practiced Tibetan Buddhism . In contrast, the Tarim Basin was inhabited by sedentary , oasis-dwelling, Turkic-speaking Muslim farmers, now known as the Uyghurs . The two regions were governed as separate circuits before the region became independent. Xinjiang

3451-616: The Revolt of the Three Feudatories , which lasted for eight years. Kangxi was able to unify his forces for a counterattack led by a new generation of Manchu generals. By 1681, the Qing government had established control over a ravaged southern China, which took several decades to recover. To extend and consolidate the dynasty's control in Central Asia, the Kangxi Emperor personally led a series of military campaigns against

3570-584: The Sacred Edict of 1670 effectively extolled Confucian family values. His attempts to discourage Chinese women from foot binding , however, were unsuccessful. The second major source of stability was the Inner Asian aspect of their Manchu identity, which allowed them to appeal to the Mongol, Tibetan and Muslim subjects. The Qianlong Emperor propagated an image of himself as a Buddhist sage ruler ,

3689-820: 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 . Resistance from Ming rump regimes and the Revolt of the Three Feudatories delayed the complete conquest until 1683. As a Manchu emperor, the Kangxi Emperor (1661–1722) consolidated control, relished the role of a Confucian ruler, patronised Buddhism (including Tibetan Buddhism ), encouraged scholarship, population and economic growth. Han officials worked under or in parallel with Manchu officials. To maintain prominence over its neighbors,

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3808-459: 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 ,

3927-657: The Tarim did not have a single political structure governing them, and Altishahr referred to the region in general rather than any cities in particular. Foreign visitors to the region would attempt to identify the cities, offering various lists. According to Albert von Le Coq , the 'Six Cities' ( Altishahr ) referred to (1) Kashgar ; (2) Maralbexi (Maralbashi, Bachu); (3) Aksu (Aqsu), alternatively Kargilik (Yecheng); (4) Yengisar (Yengi Hisar); (5) Yarkant (Yarkand, Shache); and (6) Khotan . W. Barthold later replaced Yengisar with Kucha (Kuqa). According to Aurel Stein , in

4046-636: The Tarim Basin ( Northwest China ) and large parts of West Asia ( Middle East ). Before the time of Genghis Khan , Turkic and Mongolic peoples exchanged words between each other, with Turkic languages being more active than Mongolic. Extensive lexical borrowings from Proto-Turkic into the Proto-Mongolic language occurred from at latest the first millennium BCE. Turkic and Mongolic languages share extensive borrowed similarities in their personal pronouns, among other lexical similarities, which seem to date to before this era and already existed before

4165-497: The Tsardom of Russia . However, during the 18th century, European empires gradually expanded across the world and developed economies predicated on maritime trade, colonial extraction, and technological advances. The dynasty was confronted with newly developing concepts of the international system and state-to-state relations. European trading posts expanded into territorial control in what is now India and Indonesia. The Qing response

4284-600: The Turco-Persian tradition , which was the predominant culture amongst the Muslims of Central Asia at the time. In subsequent centuries, the Turco-Persian culture was carried on further by the conquering Turco-Mongols to neighbouring regions, eventually becoming the predominant culture of the ruling and elite classes of South Asia (Indian subcontinent), specifically North India ( Mughal Empire ), Central Asia and

4403-650: The Xianfeng Emperor agreed to the Treaty of Tientsin , which 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. Ratification of the treaty in the following year led to a resumption of hostilities. In 1860, with Anglo-French forces marching on Beijing,

4522-672: 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

4641-637: The queue hairstyle which was worn by Manchu men, on pain of death. The popular description of the order was: "To keep the hair, you lose the head; To keep your head, you cut the hair." To the Manchus, this policy was a test of loyalty and an aid in distinguishing friend from foe. For the Han Chinese, however, it was a humiliating reminder of Qing authority that challenged traditional Confucian values. The order triggered strong resistance in Jiangnan . In

4760-530: The 1727 Treaty of Kyakhta to solidify the diplomatic understanding with Russia. In exchange for territory and trading rights, the Qing would have a free hand in dealing with the situation in Mongolia. Yongzheng then turned to that situation, where the Zunghars threatened to re-emerge, and to the southwest, where local Miao chieftains resisted Qing expansion. These campaigns drained the treasury but established

4879-425: The British government, sent a diplomatic mission to China led by Lord Macartney in order to open trade and put relations on a basis of equality. The imperial court viewed trade as of secondary interest, whereas the British saw maritime trade as the key to their economy. The Qianlong Emperor told Macartney "the kings of the myriad nations come by land and sea with all sorts of precious things", and "consequently there

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4998-541: 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

5117-600: The French. A French invasion of Taiwan was halted and the French were defeated on land in Tonkin at the Battle of Bang Bo . However Japan threatened to enter the war against China due to the Gapsin Coup and China chose to end the war with negotiations. The war ended in 1885 with the Treaty of Tientsin and the Chinese recognition of the French protectorate in Vietnam. Some Russian and Chinese gold miners also established

5236-402: The Golden Horde, Uzbeg (Öz-Beg) assumed the throne in 1313 and adopted Islam as the state religion . He proscribed Buddhism and Shamanism among the Mongols in Russia, thus reversing the spread of the Yuan culture. By 1315, Uzbeg had successfully Islamicized the Horde, killing Jochid princes and Buddhist lamas who opposed his religious policy and succession of the throne. Uzbeg Khan continued

5355-410: 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

5474-447: 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

5593-440: The Manchu-ruled empire into a modernised Han Chinese state. The Guangxu Emperor died on 14 November 1908, and Cixi died the following day. Puyi , the oldest son of Zaifeng, Prince Chun , and nephew to the childless Guangxu Emperor, was appointed successor at the age of two, leaving Zaifeng with the regency. Zaifeng forced Yuan Shikai to resign. The Qing dynasty became a constitutional monarchy on 8 May 1911, when Zaifeng created

5712-458: 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. No major Chinese dynasty had directly taken over its immediate predecessor's capital, but keeping the Ming capital and bureaucracy intact helped quickly stabilize

5831-416: 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

5950-406: The Mongols built mosques and other "elaborate places" requiring baths—an important element of Muslim culture. Sarai attracted merchants from other countries. The slave trade flourished due to strengthening ties with the Mamluk Sultanate . Growth of wealth and increasing demand for products typically produce population growth, and so it was with Sarai. Housing in the region increased, which transformed

6069-412: The Qing government and provoked rebellions against the regime. The Taiping Rebellion (1849–1864) was the first major anti-Manchu movement . Amid widespread social unrest and worsening famine, the rebellion not only posed the most serious threat to Qing rule, but during its 14-year course, between 20 and 30 million people died. The rebellion began under the leadership of Hong Xiuquan (1814–1864),

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6188-526: The Qing leveraged and adapted the 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 including Tibet , Mongolia , and Xinjiang . The High Qing era reached its apex during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (1735–1796), who led Ten Great Campaigns of conquest, and personally supervised Confucian cultural projects . After his death,

6307-500: The Qing, most notably in the Miao Rebellion (1854–1873) in Guizhou , the Panthay Rebellion (1856–1873) in Yunnan , and the Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) in the northwest. The Western powers, largely unsatisfied with the Treaty of Nanjing, 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 were lost, and countless armies were raised and equipped to fight

6426-426: 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')

6545-460: 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 and alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on 10 October 1911 led to

6664-558: The alliance with the Mamluks begun by Berke and his predecessors. He kept a friendly relationship with the Mamluk Sultan and his shadow Caliph in Cairo . After a long delay and much discussion, he married a princess from his family to Al-Nasir Muhammad , Sultan of Egypt. Under Uzbeg and his successor Jani Beg (1342–1357), Islam, which among some of the Turks in Eurasia had deep roots going back into pre-Mongol times, gained general acceptance, though its adherents remained tolerant of other beliefs. In order to successfully expand Islam,

6783-443: The breakup of the Turkic people around 500 BCE. A still more ancient period of prolonged language contact between Turkic and Mongol languages is indicated by further and more fundamental phonotactic, grammatical, and typological similarities (e.g. synchronic vowel harmony , lack of grammatical gender , extensive agglutination , highly similar phonotactic rules and phonology ). In the past, these similarities were attributed to

6902-519: The capital into the center of a large Muslim Sultanate. In the Chagatai Khanate, Mubarak Shah converted to Islam and over time the Chagatai elite became entirely Islamized. The Chagatai Khanate was succeeded by the Timurid Empire in Central Asia, founded by the Turco-Mongol warrior Timur. According to John Joseph Saunders , Timur was "the product of an Islamized and Iranized society", and not steppe nomadic. To legitimize his conquests, Timur relied on Islamic symbols and language, referred to himself as

7021-450: The capital of Tibet, and installed a Dalai Lama sympathetic to the Qing. The reigns of the Yongzheng Emperor ( r.  1723–1735 ) and his son, the Qianlong Emperor ( r.  1735–1796 ), marked the height of Qing power. However, the historian Jonathan Spence notes that the empire at the end of Qianlong's reign was "like the sun at midday". Despite "many glories", "signs of decay and even collapse were becoming apparent". After

7140-412: The cession of Liaodong Peninsula to Japan, but Russia, with its own designs on the territory, along with Germany and France, in the Triple Intervention , successfully put pressure on the Japanese to abandon the peninsula. These years saw the participation of Empress Dowager Cixi in state affairs. Cixi initially entered the imperial palace in the 1850s as a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor, and became

7259-414: The collapse of the Mongol khanates, such as the Kazakh Khanate , the Tatar khanates that succeeded the Golden Horde (e.g., Crimean Khanate , Astrakhan Khanate , Khanate of Kazan ), and the Timurid Empire , which succeeded the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia . Babur (1483–1530), a Turco-Mongol prince and a great-great-great-grandson of Timur , founded the Mughal Empire , which ruled almost all of

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7378-413: 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

7497-415: The compilation of the Siku Quanshu , the largest collection of books in Chinese history. Nevertheless, Qianlong used the literary inquisition to silence opposition. Beneath outward prosperity and imperial confidence, the later years of Qianlong's reign were marked by rampant corruption and neglect. Heshen , the emperor's handsome young favorite, took advantage of the emperor's indulgence to become one of

7616-429: The conquest. Han bannermen made up the majority of governors during the early Qing, stabilizing 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

7735-435: The country for corruption, failing to keep the famine relief granaries full, poor maintenance of roads and waterworks, and bureaucratic factionalism. There soon followed uprisings of "new sect" Muslims against local Muslim officials, and Miao tribesmen in southwest China. The White Lotus Rebellion continued until 1804, when badly run, corrupt, and brutal campaigns finally ended it. During the early Qing, China continued to be

7854-431: The damage that opium smoking was causing to his subjects, ordered Lin Zexu to end the opium trade. Lin confiscated the stocks of opium without compensation in 1839, leading Britain to send a military expedition the following year. The First Opium War revealed the outdated state of the Chinese military. The Qing navy, composed entirely of wooden sailing junks , was severely outclassed by the modern tactics and firepower of

7973-420: The death of the Kangxi Emperor in the winter of 1722, his fourth son, Prince Yong ( 雍親王 ), became the Yongzheng Emperor. He felt a sense of urgency about the problems that had accumulated in his father's later years. In the words of one recent historian, he was "severe, suspicious, and jealous, but extremely capable and resourceful", and in the words of another, he turned out to be an "early modern state-maker of

8092-452: The dynasty back on its feet financially and instituted the Self-Strengthening Movement , which adopted Western military technology in order to preserve Confucian values.Their institutional reforms included China's first unified ministry of foreign affairs in the Zongli Yamen , allowing foreign diplomats to reside in the capital, the establishment of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service , the institution of modern navy and army forces including

8211-577: The dynasty faced internal revolts, economic disruption, official corruption, foreign intrusion, and the reluctance of Confucian elites to change their mindset. With peace and prosperity, 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 , Western colonial powers forced the Qing government to sign unequal treaties , granting them trading privileges, extraterritoriality and treaty ports under their control. The Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) and

8330-419: The dynasty the policies allowing intermarriage were done away with. The first seven years of the young Shunzhi Emperor's reign were dominated by Dorgon's regency. Because of his own political insecurity, Dorgon followed Hong Taiji's example by ruling in the name of the emperor at the expense of rival Manchu princes, many of whom he demoted or imprisoned. Dorgon's precedents and example cast a long shadow. First,

8449-437: 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

8568-570: The early 20th century, Qing administrators used the term to describe the oasis towns around Khotan, including Khotan itself, along with (2) Yurungqash, (3) Karakax (Qaraqash, Moyu), (4) Qira (Chira, Cele), (5) Keriya (Yutian), and a sixth undocumented place. The term ' Seven Cities ' may have been used after Yaqub Beg captured Turpan (Turfan), and referred to (1) Kashgar; (2) Yarkant; (3) Khotan; (4) Uqturpan (Uch Turfan); (5) Aksu; (6) Kucha; and (7) Turpan. The term 'Eight Cities' ( Uyghur Cyrillic : Шәкиз Шәһәр , Şäkiz Şähār ) may have been

8687-638: The emperor and his court fled the capital for the imperial hunting lodge at Rehe . Once in Beijing, the Anglo-French forces looted and burned the Old Summer Palace and, in an act of revenge for the arrest, torture, and execution of the English diplomatic mission. 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 humiliated emperor died

8806-720: The emperor's control of the military and military finance. When the Yongzheng Emperor died in 1735, his son Prince Bao ( 寶親王 ) became the Qianlong Emperor. Qianlong personally led the Ten Great Campaigns to expand military control into present-day Xinjiang and Mongolia , putting down revolts and uprisings in Sichuan and southern China while expanding control over Tibet. The Qianlong Emperor launched several ambitious cultural projects, including

8925-516: The emperor's de facto cabinet for the rest of the dynasty. He shrewdly filled key positions with Manchu and Han Chinese officials who depended on his patronage. When he began to realize the extent of the financial crisis, Yongzheng rejected his father's lenient approach to local elites and enforced collection of the land tax. The increased revenues were to be used for "money to nourish honesty" among local officials and for local irrigation, schools, roads, and charity. Although these reforms were effective in

9044-540: The ensuing unrest, some 100,000 Han were slaughtered. On 31 December 1650, Dorgon died suddenly, marking the start of the Shunzhi Emperor's personal rule. 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. Although his support had been essential to Shunzhi's ascent, Dorgon had centralised so much power in his hands as to become

9163-465: The far eastern outpost of the Tsardom of Russia . The 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk was China's first formal treaty with a European power and kept the border peaceful for the better part of two centuries. Galdan was ultimately killed in the Dzungar–Qing War ; after his death, his Tibetan Buddhist followers attempted to control the choice of the next Dalai Lama . Kangxi dispatched two armies to Lhasa ,

9282-445: The first order". First, he promoted Confucian orthodoxy and cracked down on unorthodox sects. In 1723, he outlawed Christianity and expelled most Christian missionaries. 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

9401-542: The following year at Rehe. Following the death of the Xianfeng Emperor in 1861, and the accession of the 5-year-old Tongzhi Emperor , the Qing rallied. In the Tongzhi Restoration , Han Chinese officials such as Zuo Zongtang stood behind the Manchus and organized provincial troops. Zeng Guofan , in alliance with Prince Gong, sponsored the rise of younger officials such as Li Hongzhang , who put

9520-675: The foreign community, called for reform proposals, and initiated the Late Qing reforms . Over the next few years the reforms included the restructuring of the national education, judicial, and fiscal systems, the most dramatic of which was the abolition of the imperial examination system in 1905. The court directed a constitution to be drafted , and provincial elections were held, the first in China's history. Sun Yat-sen and revolutionaries debated reform officials and constitutional monarchists such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao over how to transform

9639-916: The goals of reform were implanted. Drought in North China, combined with the imperialist designs of European powers and the instability of the Qing government, created background conditions for the Boxers . In 1900, local groups of Boxers proclaiming support for the Qing dynasty murdered foreign missionaries and large numbers of Chinese Christians, then converged on Beijing to besiege the Foreign Legation Quarter. A coalition of European, Japanese, and Russian armies (the Eight-Nation Alliance ) then entered China without diplomatic notice, much less permission. Cixi declared war on all of these nations, only to lose control of Beijing after

9758-591: The hegemonic imperial power in East Asia. Although there was no formal ministry of foreign relations, the Lifan Yuan was responsible for relations with the Mongols and Tibetans in Inner Asia, while the tributary system , a loose set of institutions and customs taken over from the Ming, in theory governed relations with East and Southeast Asian countries. The 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk stabilized relations with

9877-442: 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

9996-589: The land does not." The introduction of new crops from the Americas such as the potato and peanut improved nutrition as well, so that the population during the 18th century ballooned from 100 million to 300 million people. Soon farmers were forced to work ever-smaller holdings more intensely. In 1796, the White Lotus Society raised open rebellion, saying "the officials have forced the people to rebel". Others blamed officials in various parts of

10115-519: 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

10234-500: The most corrupt officials in the history of the dynasty. Qianlong's son, the Jiaqing Emperor ( r.  1796–1820 ), eventually forced Heshen to commit suicide. Population in the first half of the 17th century did not recover from civil wars and epidemics, but the following years of prosperity and stability led to steady growth. The Qianlong Emperor bemoaned the situation by remarking, "The population continues to grow, but

10353-467: The most extensive similarities. According to recent aggregation and research, there are doublets , which are considered to be the same in terms of their roots, found in the vocabulary in Mongolian language and Turkic loanwords. Also, words of Turkic origin are the most common loanwords in Mongolian vocabulary. Following the Mongol conquests, the ruling Mongol elites of the Mongol successor states began

10472-497: The most junior of the four, gradually achieved such dominance as to be a potential threat. In 1669, Kangxi disarmed and imprisoned Oboi through trickery – a significant victory for a fifteen-year-old emperor. The young emperor faced challenges in maintaining control of his kingdom, as well. Three Ming generals singled out for their contributions to the establishment of the dynasty had been granted governorships in southern China. They became increasingly autonomous, leading to

10591-600: The mother of the future Tongzhi Emperor. Following the his accession at the age of five, Cixi, Xianfeng's widow Empress Dowager Ci'an , and Prince Gong (a son of the Daoguang Emperor), staged a coup that ousted several of the Tongzhi Emperor's regents. Between 1861 and 1873, Cixi and Ci'an served as regents together; following the emperor's death in 1875, Cixi's nephew, the Guangxu Emperor , took

10710-917: The murders as a pretext for a naval occupation of Jiaozhou Bay . The occupation prompted a Scramble for China in 1898, which included the German lease of Jiaozhou Bay , the Russian lease of Liaodong , the British lease of the New Territories of Hong Kong , and the French lease of Guangzhouwan . In the wake of these external defeats, the Guangxu Emperor initiated the Hundred Days' Reform in 1898. Newer, more radical advisers such as Kang Youwei were given positions of influence. The emperor issued

10829-582: 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

10948-443: The north, in the south and lower Yangtze valley there were long-established networks of officials and landowners. Yongzheng dispatched experienced Manchu commissioners to penetrate the thickets of falsified land registers and coded account books, but they were met with tricks, passivity, and even violence. The fiscal crisis persisted. Yongzheng also inherited diplomatic and strategic problems. A team made up entirely of Manchus drew up

11067-400: 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

11186-557: 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", equivalently as Zhōngguó ( 中國 ; 'middle kingdom') in Chinese and Dulimbai Gurun in Manchu. The emperors equated

11305-630: The population, both sedentary and nomadic, adopted the Kypchak language , which developed into the regional languages of Kypchak groups after the Horde disintegrated. In the Chagatai Khanate , the Turkic language that was adopted by the Mongol elites became known as the Chagatai language , a descendant of Karluk Turkic. The Chagatai language was the native language of the Timurid dynasty ,

11424-433: The purge of his family and associates at court. Shunzhi's promising start was cut short by his early death in 1661 at the age of 24 from smallpox . He was succeeded by his third son Xuanye, who reigned as the Kangxi Emperor . The Manchus sent Han bannermen to fight against Koxinga's Ming loyalists in Fujian. They removed the population from coastal areas in order to deprive Koxinga's Ming loyalists of resources. This led to

11543-602: The rebels. 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. In 1856, Qing authorities, in searching for a pirate, boarded a ship, the Arrow , which the British claimed had been flying the British flag, an incident which led to the Second Opium War . In 1858, facing no other options,

11662-422: The regime and sped up the conquest of the rest of the country. Dorgon then drastically reduced the influence of the eunuchs and directed Manchu women not to bind their feet in the Chinese style. However, not all of Dorgon's policies were equally popular or as easy to implement. The controversial July 1645 Queue Order forced adult Han Chinese men to shave the front of their heads and comb the remaining hair into

11781-781: The region was acquired by the Qing dynasty in its conquest of the Dzungar Khanate . The Qing initially administered the Dzungaria and Altishahar separately as the Northern and Southern Circuits of Tian Shan , respectively, although both were under control of the General of Ili . The Southern Circuit ( Tianshan Nanlu ) was also known as Huibu ( 回部 , 'Muslim Region'), Huijiang ( 回疆 , 'Muslim Frontier'), Chinese Turkestan , Kashgaria, Little Bukharia, and East Turkestan . After quelling

11900-593: The reign of the Karakhanids much of the region converted to Islam . From the 13th to the 16th centuries, the western Tarim was part of the larger Muslim Turkic-Mongol Chaghatay , Timurid and Eastern Chagatai Empires. In the 17th century, the local Yarkent Khanate ruled Altishahr until its conquest by the Buddhist Dzungars from the Dzungarian Basin to the north. In the 1750s,

12019-399: The same region is Kashgaria . Qing sources refer to the region primarily as Nanlu , or the 'Southern Circuit'. Other Qing terms for the region include Huijiang ( 回疆 , the 'Muslim Frontier'), Huibu ( 回部 , the 'Muslim Region'), Bacheng (the 'Eight Cities'), or Nanjiang ('Southern Frontier'). In the 18th century, prior to the Qing conquest of Xinjiang in 1759 , the oasis towns around

12138-488: The stability of their dynasty. The first was the bureaucratic institutions and the neo-Confucian culture that they adopted from earlier dynasties. Manchu rulers and Han Chinese scholar-official elites gradually came to terms with each other. The examination system offered a path for ethnic Han to become officials. Imperial patronage of the Kangxi Dictionary demonstrated respect for Confucian learning, while

12257-613: The throne in violation of the custom that the new emperor be of the next generation, and another regency began. Ci'an suddenly died in the spring of 1881, leaving Cixi as sole regent. From 1889, when Guangxu began to rule in his own right, until 1898, the Empress Dowager lived in semi-retirement, spending the majority of the year at the Summer Palace . In 1897, two German Roman Catholic missionaries were murdered in southern Shandong province (the Juye Incident ). Germany used

12376-466: The time. Nurhaci , leader of the House of Aisin-Gioro and vassal of the Ming dynasty, unified Jurchen clans (known later as Manchus) and founded the Later Jin dynasty in 1616, renouncing the Ming overlordship. His son Hong Taiji was declared Emperor of the Great Qing in 1636. As Ming control disintegrated, peasant rebels captured the Ming capital Beijing, but the Ming general Wu Sangui opened

12495-406: The vanguard, while Manchu bannermen were used predominantly for quick strikes with maximum impact, so as to minimize 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

12614-470: The world. The term 'Chinese people' ( 中國人 ; Zhōngguórén ; Manchu: ᡩᡠᠯᡳᠮᠪᠠᡳ ᡤᡠᡵᡠᠨ ‍ᡳ ᠨᡳᠶᠠᠯᠮᠠ 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

12733-493: The worship of idols were all banned. However, success led to internal feuds, defections and corruption. In addition, British and French troops, equipped with modern weapons, had come to the assistance of the Qing army. Nonetheless, it was not until 1864 that Qing forces under Zeng Guofan succeeded in crushing the revolt. After the outbreak of this rebellion, there were also revolts by the Muslims and Miao people of China against

12852-489: The worst slaughter. 400,000 Green Standard Army soldiers were used against the Three Feudatories in addition to the 200,000 bannermen. The 61-year reign of the Kangxi Emperor was the longest of any emperor in Chinese history, and marked the beginning of the High Qing era , the zenith of the dynasty's social, economic and military power. The early Manchu rulers established two foundations of legitimacy that help to explain

12971-531: Was a Manchu -led imperial dynasty of China and the last imperial dynasty in Chinese history . The dynasty, proclaimed in Shenyang in 1636, seized control of Beijing in 1644, which is 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, February 12, 1912. In Chinese historiography , the Qing dynasty

13090-619: Was an ethnocultural synthesis that arose in Asia during the 14th century among the ruling elites of the Golden Horde and the Chagatai Khanate . The ruling Mongol elites of these khanates eventually assimilated into the Turkic populations that they conquered and ruled over, thus becoming known as Turco-Mongols . These elites gradually adopted Islam , as well as Turkic languages , while retaining Mongol political and legal institutions. The Turco-Mongols founded many Islamic successor states after

13209-483: 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

13328-614: 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

13447-431: Was gradually Turkified and lost its Mongol identity, while the descendants of Batu's original Mongol warriors constituted the upper class. They were commonly called Tatars by Russians and other Europeans. Russians preserved this common name for this group down to the 20th century. Whereas most members of this group identified themselves by their ethnic or tribal names, most also considered themselves to be Muslims. Most of

13566-485: Was incited by the murder of French nuns set off by the belligerence of local French diplomats. Starting with the Cochinchina Campaign in 1858, France expanded control of Indochina. By 1883, France was in full control of the region and had reached the Chinese border. The Sino-French War began with a surprise attack by the French on the Chinese southern fleet at Fuzhou. After that the Chinese declared war on

13685-583: Was made into a single province in 1884. Until the 8th century AD, much of the Tarim Basin was inhabited by Tocharians who spoke an Indo-European language and built city states in the oases along the rim of the Taklamakan Desert . The collapse of the Uyghur Khanate in modern Mongolia and settlement of Uyghur diaspora in the Tarim led to the prevalence of the Turkic languages . During

13804-457: 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

13923-539: 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

14042-450: Was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China . The multi-ethnic Qing dynasty assembled the territorial base for modern China . It was the largest imperial dynasty in the history of China and in 1790 the fourth-largest empire in world history in terms of territorial size. With over 426 million citizens in 1907 , it was the most populous country in the world at

14161-696: Was to establish the Canton System in 1756, which restricted maritime trade to Guangzhou and gave monopoly trading rights to private Chinese merchants . This was successful for a time, and the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company had long before been granted similar monopoly rights by their governments. In 1793, the British East India Company, with the support of

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