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150-746: No treaty or formal agreement bound the alliance together. Some Western historians define the first phase of hostilities, starting in August 1900, as "more or less a civil war", though the Battle of the Taku Forts in June pushed the Qing government to support the Boxers. With the success of the invasion, the later stages developed into a punitive colonial expedition, which pillaged Beijing and North China for more than

300-600: A jäger company, single regiments of cavalry and field artillery and various support and logistics units. On arrival in China, it incorporated the marine- Expeditionskorps that had preceded it to China by a few weeks. Most of the German forces arrived too late to take part in any of the major actions. The first elements of the Expeditionskorps arrived at Taku on September 21, after the legations had been relieved. As

450-564: 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

600-537: A British military observer felt that their aggressiveness, densely-packed formations, and overly aggressive attacks cost them excessive and disproportionate casualties. For example, during the Tianjin fighting, the Japanese suffered more than half of the allied casualties, 400 out of 730, but made up less than one quarter (3,800) of the force of 17,000. Similarly at Beijing, the Japanese accounted for almost two thirds of

750-622: 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

900-485: 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

1050-463: 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

1200-666: 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

1350-613: 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

1500-519: 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

1650-454: 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 ,

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1800-575: A result, most of the Expeditionskorps was mainly employed for garrison duties. They fought a number of smaller engagements against pockets of remaining Boxers. The Expeditionskorps was disbanded and recalled to Germany in early 1901. Three battalions of marines, the II/9th, and the I and II/11th RIMa which were stationed in French Indochina were sent to China. They joined the 1st Brigade commanded by General Henri-Nicolas Frey . In July 1900,

1950-485: 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

2100-485: 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

2250-809: 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

2400-650: A single cruiser, SMS  Zenta , on station at the beginning of the rebellion, based at the Russian concession of Port Arthur . Detachments of sailors from the Zenta were the only Austro-Hungarian forces to see action. Some were taking part in defending the legations under siege, and another detachment was involved in the rescue attempts. In June, the Austro-Hungarians helped hold the Tianjin railway against Boxer forces and fired upon several armed junks on

2550-588: A threat to the dynasty. A few miles offshore in the Yellow Sea were a large number of Western and Japanese warships. On June 15, Chinese forces deployed electric mines in the Hai River before the battle to prevent the Eight-Nation Alliance from sending ships to attack. With their supply and communication lines to Tianjin threatened, the commanders of the ships met on June 16. Control of

2700-922: A unified federation until 1901. As such, several of the colonies, independently of each other, sent contingents of naval and army personnel to support the British contingent. For example, South Australia sent its entire navy: the gunboat HMCS Protector . Australia was not an official member of the Eight-Nation Alliance, and its forces arrived too late to see significant action. Britain provided 10,000 troops, many of whom were Indian troops , made out of units of Baluchis, Sikhs, Gurkhas, Rajputs and Punjabis. The 1st , 4th , and 14th Sikhs ; 3rd Madras Native Infantry , 4th Goorkas , 22nd and 30th Bombay Native Infantry , 24th Punjab Infantry , 1st Madras Pioneers , No. 2 Company Bombay Sappers , No. 3 Company Madras Sappers , No. 4 Company Bengal Sappers , and

2850-656: A year. The fighting ended in 1901 with the signing of the Boxer Protocol . The Boxers, a peasant movement, had attacked and killed foreign missionaries, nationals, and Chinese Christians across northern China in 1899 and 1900. The Qing government and its Imperial Army supported the Boxers and, under the Manchu general Ronglu , besieged foreign diplomats and civilians taking refuge in the Legation Quarter in Beijing (then romanized as Peking). The diplomatic compound

3000-400: 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

3150-453: 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

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3300-470: Is unknown, but the forts were described as flowing in "rivers of blood". However, Robert B. Edgerton says that Chinese casualties were "probably not heavy". The attack by the allied navies on the Taku Forts had a profound impact. The first reports of the battle arriving in Beijing from Governor Lu Yu in Tianjin emphasized the positive—and failed to mention to the Empress Dowager Cixi that

3450-833: The 1st Bengal Lancers , among other Indian units, all served during the Rebellion. Numerous Indian soldiers earned the China War Medal 1900 with the "Relief of Pekin" clasp for contributing to the relief of Peking and the International Legations from June 10 to August 14, 1900. Germany had gained a presence in China after the Juye Incident in which two German missionaries had been murdered in November 1897. The concession in Jiaozhou Bay , with

3600-573: The 2nd Bersaglieri Regiment , 4th Bersaglieri Regiment , 5th Bersaglieri Regiment , and 8th Bersaglieri Regiment . In addition, the 24th Infantry Regiment of the Brigade "Como" , volunteers from the Alpini , a battery of machine guns, and some engineers were also sent to China. A battery of field guns was also supplied by the Italian Navy. The total force of 1,965 officers and men, which composed

3750-756: The 5th Infantry Division under Lieutenant General Yamaguchi Motomi ; the remainder were 540 naval rikusentai (Marines) from the Imperial Japanese Navy . At the beginning of the Boxer Rebellion, the Japanese had only 215 troops in northern China stationed at Tianjin, nearly all of whom were naval rikusentai from the Kasagi and the Atago , under the command of Captain Shimamura Hayao . The Japanese were able to contribute 52 men to

3900-626: 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 ,

4050-815: 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

4200-631: 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

4350-641: 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

4500-687: 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

4650-594: 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 ,

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4800-711: The Hai River near Tongzhou in Beijing. They took part in the seizure of the Taku Forts commanding the approaches to Tianjin, and the boarding and capture of four Chinese destroyers by Capt. Roger Keyes of HMS  Fame . The Austro-Hungarian Navy sent the cruisers SMS  Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia , SMS  Kaiserin Elisabeth , SMS  Aspern and a company of marines to China. Arriving in September they were too late since most of

4950-541: The Imperial Palace for Xi'an and sent Li Hongzhang for peace talks with the alliance. As allied troops moved from Beijing into the North China countryside, they executed unknown numbers of people accused or suspected of being or resembling Boxer rebels, which became the subject of an early short film. A U.S. Marine wrote that he witnessed German and Russian troops raping and then bayoneting women. While

5100-958: The Kasagi and Atago had joined British, Russian and German sailors to seize the Taku forts, near Tianjin. The British, in light of the precarious situation, were compelled to ask Japan for additional reinforcements since the Japanese had the only readily available forces in the region. Britain at the time was heavily engaged in the Boer War, and so much of the British Army was tied down in South Africa. In addition, deploying large numbers of troops from its garrisons in India would take too much time and weaken internal security there. Overriding personal doubts, Foreign Minister Aoki Shūzō calculated that

5250-603: 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, the dynasty faced internal revolts, economic disruption, official corruption, foreign intrusion, and

5400-459: The Monocacy to a safer position. Chinese gunnery from the forts aimed at the ships was accurate, also hitting HMS Whiting , SMS Iltis , and Lion and driving Giliak aground. The Russians turned on the searchlight of Giliak , exposing them to Chinese guns. Giliak and another ship were severely damaged. 18 Russians were killed and 65 were wounded. The most serious offensive threat to

5550-677: 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

5700-412: 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 ,

5850-413: The Seymour Expedition . On 12 June the advance of the Seymour Expedition was halted some 30 miles from the capital, by mixed Boxer and Chinese regular army forces. The vastly-outnumbered allies withdrew to the vicinity of Tianjin and had suffered more than 300 casualties. The army general staff in Tokyo had become aware of the worsening conditions in China and had drafted ambitious contingency plans, but

6000-406: 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 ,

6150-443: 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

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6300-404: The USS Oregon and USS Newark . The main American formations deployed to relieve the siege were the 9th Infantry and 14th Infantry regiments, elements of the 6th Cavalry regiment , the 5th Artillery regiment, and a Marine battalion, all under the command of Colonel Adna Chaffee . Herbert Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover were living in the foreign compound during the siege when Mr. Hoover

6450-422: 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,

6600-622: 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

6750-467: 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

6900-430: The storming of Tianjin on 14 July, and the allies later consolidated and awaited the remainder of the 5th Division and other coalition reinforcements. The siege of legations was lifted on 14 August; the Japanese force of 13,000 was the largest single contingent, making up about 40% of the approximately 33,000-strong allied expeditionary force. Japanese troops involved in the fighting had acquitted themselves well although

7050-418: 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

7200-441: The 1959 musical The Sound of Music , was decorated for bravery aboard SMS Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia during the rebellion. At the outset of the Boxer Rebellion, Britain was engaged in the Second Boer War in South Africa. Consequently, with the army tied down by the war, the British had to rely on the China Squadron and troops largely from India . The Royal Navy 's China Squadron, stationed off Tianjin, consisted of

7350-461: The 2,000 men in the Seymour Expedition attempting to get to Beijing to reinforce the legation guards. In Tianjin were 2,400 Allied soldiers, mostly Russians. All of these forces were menaced by thousands of " Boxers ", members of an indigenous peasant movement that aimed to end foreign influence in China. The Qing government of China was wavering between supporting the Boxers in their anti-foreign crusade or suppressing them because they represented

7500-419: The 2nd and 3rd Battalions of infantry embarked from Toulon but did not reach China until September. In October, following losses and rotations of duty, the first three battalions sent were included in the 16th regiment of marines by order of General Régis Voyron , commander in chief of the French Expeditionary Corps in China. On 1 January 1901, the 16th RIMa was renamed the 16th Regiment of colonial infantry. At

7650-436: The Allied attack were four modern German-built destroyers laying alongside the dock at Taku. These warships could have easily overpowered the Allied ships, but inexplicably they remained docked even after the Chinese opened fire. Two British destroyers, HMS Whiting and HMS Fame (the former commanded by Lieutenant Colin Mackenzie and the latter by Roger Keyes ), each towing a whaleboat with 10 men aboard, darted alongside

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7800-444: The Boxers while the Chinese army was ordered to resist all foreign military forces within Chinese territory. Allied powers remained in control of the forts until the end of the Boxer Rebellion in September 1901. In mid-June 1900, allied forces in northern China were vastly outnumbered. In Beijing there were 450 soldiers and marines from eight countries protecting the diplomatic legations. Somewhere between Tianjin and Beijing were

7950-425: 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

8100-418: The Chinese ships and boarded them. The Chinese only offered weak resistance before fleeing and leaving their ships in the hands of the British. The artillery duel continued inconclusively until nearly dawn, when the Allies stripped their ships of crew and mounted a ground assault on the Northwest Fort. 200 Russians and Austrians led the way followed by 380 British and Italians with 300 Japanese bringing up

8250-437: The East Asian Squadron. With the increasing threat of the Boxers, a small armed group from the III. Seebatallion was sent to Beijing and Tianjin to protect German interests there while the majority of the remaining forces stayed behind to prevent attacks against Qingdao. The siege of the foreign legations in Beijing soon convinced Germany and the other European powers that more forces were needed to be sent to China to reinforce

8400-413: 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

8550-426: The French defend the Pei Tang Catholic cathedral, and another defended the European Legations in Beijing during the 55-day siege. Italian sailors also took part in the attacks on the Taku forts and in capturing Tianjin. A larger contingent was later dispatched from Italy, including 83 officers, 1,882 troops, and 178 horses. The contingent included a battalion of Bersaglieri , which was formed from one company each from

8700-432: 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

8850-425: The Italian expeditionary force against the Boxers, was officially referred to as the Italian Royal Troops in China . In August 1900, when the larger force reached the capital, the Italians had seven cruisers and 2,543 men in the country. They were involved in numerous operations along the coast and in the interior of northern China. The larger part of the approximately 2,000 Italian soldiers and officers who fought in

9000-410: 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

9150-447: 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

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9300-440: 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

9450-458: 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

9600-416: 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

9750-418: 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 . 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

9900-412: 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),

10050-500: 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

10200-411: The Second Opium War. Another 10,000 plus volumes were destroyed in 1900 by the Eight-Nation Alliance. The Hanlin Academy houses a collection of precious books, orphans, books of the Song dynasty , literature and history materials, and precious paintings. The Eight-Nation Alliance looted the collections. Some of these looted books remain in the custody of museums in London and Paris. Austria-Hungary had

10350-408: The Taku or Battle of Dagu Forts ( Chinese : 大沽口炮台之戰 ) was a short engagement during the Boxer Rebellion between the Chinese Qing dynasty military and forces belonging to the Eight Nation Alliance in June 1900. European and Japanese naval forces captured the Taku forts after a brief but bloody battle with units of the Qing dynasty . Their loss prompted the Qing government to side with

10500-436: The Taku Forts. Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( / tʃ ɪ ŋ / CHING ), officially the Great Qing , 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

10650-449: The Taku forts at the mouth of the Hai River was the key to maintaining a foothold in northern China. Vice-Admiral Hildebrandt, from the Imperial Russian Navy , through Lieutenant Bakhmetev, sent a message to the commander of the forts, who then sent a message by telegraph to the Governor of Zhili Province , stating that they proposed to "occupy provisionally, by consent or by force" the Taku Forts and demanded that Chinese forces surrender

10800-682: The United States, the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion was known as the China Relief Expedition . The United States was able to play a major role in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion largely because of the presence of American forces deployed in the Philippines since the U.S. annexation after the Spanish–American War in 1898. Of the foreigners under siege in Beijing, there were 56 American sailors and Marines from

10950-669: 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')

11100-503: The abdication of the last emperor, February 12, 1912. In Chinese historiography , the Qing dynasty 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

11250-585: 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

11400-463: The advantages of participating in an allied coalition were too attractive to ignore. Prime Minister Yamagata likewise concurred, but others in the cabinet demanded that guarantees from the British in return for the risks and costs of the major deployment of Japanese troops. On 6 July the 5th Infantry Division was alerted for possible deployment to China, but no timetable was set for its deployment. On 8 July, with more ground troops urgently needed to lift

11550-549: The allied forces. The first troops dispatched from Germany were the marine- Expeditionskorps which consisted of the I. and II. Seebatallions . They were soon followed by the Ostasiatisches Expeditionskorps (East Asian Expeditionary Corps), which was a force of about 15,000 of mostly volunteers from the regular Army under the command of General Alfred Count von Waldersee . It comprised initially four and later six two-battalion infantry regiments and

11700-532: The allies had captured the forts. The battle pushed the Qing government definitively to the side of the Boxers and the Chinese army was instructed to resist foreign military forces on Chinese soil. The next day, June 18, Admiral Seymour and his two thousand men were attacked by the Chinese army along the railroad running from Tianjin and Beijing and Seymour decided to abandon his objective of reaching Beijing and instead retreated to Tianjin. On June 19, an ultimatum

11850-736: The allies were in Beijing, they looted the palaces, yamens , and government buildings inflicting incalculable loss of cultural relics, books on literature and history (including the famous Yongle Dadian ) and damage to cultural heritage (including the Forbidden City , the Summer Palace , Xishan and the Old Summer Palace ). More than 3,000 gold-plated bronze Buddhas , 1,400 artistic products and 4,300 bronzes in Songzhu Temple (嵩祝寺) were looted. The gold plating on

12000-637: The battleships Barfleur and Centurion , the cruisers Alacrity , Algerine , Aurora , Endymion , and Orlando , and the destroyers Whiting and Fame . British forces were the third-largest contingent in the alliance and consisted of the following units: Naval Brigade , 12th Battery Royal Field Artillery , Hong Kong & Singapore Artillery, 2nd Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers , 1st Bengal Lancers , 7th Rajput Infantry , 24th Punjab Infantry , 1st Sikh Infantry , Hong Kong Regiment , 1st Chinese Regiment , Royal Engineers , and other support personnel. The Australian colonies did not become

12150-520: The campaign against the Boxers were recalled from Beijing after the end of the conflict. Italy obtained a 151-acre (61 ha) concession area in Tianjin and the right to occupy the Shanhai Pass fort. A small naval squadron and a naval garrison were maintained in China to protect Italian interests there. Japan provided the largest contingent of troops; 20,840, as well as 18 warships. Of the total number, 20,300 were Imperial Japanese Army troops of

12300-517: 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

12450-549: 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

12600-469: 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

12750-474: 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

12900-860: The compound with small arms and one old cannon discovered and unearthed by Chinese Christians, who turned it over to the allies. It was nicknamed the International Gun because the barrel was British, the carriage Italian, the shells Russian and the crew American. Also under siege in Beijing was the North Cathedral, the Beitang of the Catholic Church. The Beitang was defended by 43 French and Italian soldiers, 33 foreign Catholic priests and nuns, and about 3,200 Chinese Catholics . The defenders suffered heavy casualties from lack of food and Chinese mines that exploded in tunnels dug beneath

13050-539: The compound. On 14 August 1900, the allies marched to Beijing from Tianjin to relieve the Legation Quarter siege. The allied troops invaded and occupied Beijing on 14 August 1900. They defeated the Qing Imperial Army's Wuwei Corps in several engagements and quickly brought an end to the siege and also the Boxer Rebellion. Empress Dowager Cixi , the emperor and high government officials fled

13200-536: 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

13350-658: The copper tanks in front of the Forbidden City palaces was scraped off by allied troops, leaving scratch marks that can be seen even now. The Yongle Dadian that was compiled by 2,100 scholars during the Ming Yongle period (1403–1408), with a total of 22,870 volumes, was partially destroyed in the Second Opium War in 1860. Later, it was collected in the Imperial Palace on Nanchizi Street. It

13500-435: 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

13650-482: 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

13800-510: The deadline but opened fire from the forts with every single gun at the Allied ships simultaneously at about 00:45 on June 17. The Russian gunboat Korietz was heavily damaged in the opening salvo. The Monocacy , despite its distance from the battle and the assurances of its officers to the 37 women and children aboard that they were “in a position of absolute safety” took a Chinese shell in its bow which hurt nobody. The captain quickly moved

13950-488: 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

14100-600: 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

14250-419: 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,

14400-501: 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

14550-571: 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

14700-652: 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

14850-516: 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

15000-605: The end of the campaign, it moved to a new base in Tianjin, with its headquarters in the former buildings of the Chinese admiralty. In 1898, the Italians had demanded San Mun Bay as a concession, but the Chinese refused. The Italian Navy then dispatched a squadron to San Mun Bay, but no further action was taken. The squadron remained there, and in the summer of 1900, when the Boxer Rebellion broke out, detachments from Italian cruisers were sent to Beijing. Italian forces were initially made up of sailors from warships. Some of them helped

15150-540: 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

15300-519: 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 ,

15450-582: The fighting had ended, and the legations had been relieved. The cruisers and the Zenta were involved in the shelling and capture of several Chinese forts. The Austro-Hungarians suffered minimal casualties during the rebellion. After the Boxer Uprising, a cruiser was maintained permanently on the Chinese coast, and a detachment of marines was deployed at the Austro-Hungarian embassy in Beijing. Lieutenant Georg Ludwig von Trapp , made famous in

15600-445: 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

15750-530: 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

15900-623: 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

16050-411: The forts and on several modern gunboats docked along the river consisted of about 2,000 men. The Chinese also began laying mines near the mouth of the river and installing torpedo tubes in the forts. In the evening of June 16, the foreign warships began entering the river and taking up their stations from which the Taku Forts could be occupied or assaulted. The Chinese did not wait for the expiration of

16200-490: The forts as a place of refuge for civilians in the vicinity. It was an audacious demand by the foreign sailors. Only ten ships, including the non-combatant Monocacy , could cross over the banks at the river’s mouth to enter the Hai River—two hundred yards wide—from where the four forts could be occupied or assaulted. Only 900 men could be assembled to undertake the operation. By contrast, the Chinese soldiers and sailors in

16350-533: The forts before 2 a.m. on June 17. Of the Allied countries represented, only the United States Navy ’s Rear Admiral Louis Kempff demurred, stating that he had no authority to undertake hostilities against China. Kempff said that an attack was an "act of war", and therefore refused to participate. However, Kempff agreed that an aging American gunboat, the USS Monocacy , could be stationed near

16500-784: 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

16650-484: The government, in the wake of the Triple Intervention five years earlier, refused to deploy a large contingent of troops unless it was requested by the western powers. Three days later a provisional force of 1,300 troops, commanded by Major General Fukushima Yasumasa , was deployed to northern China. Fukushima was chosen because he spoke English, which let him communicate with the British commander. The force landed near Tianjin on 5 July. On 17 June naval Rikusentai from

16800-591: 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

16950-442: 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

17100-589: 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

17250-519: 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

17400-474: The losses, 280 of 453, but constituted slightly less than half of the assault force. Russia supplied the second largest force, after Japan, with 12,400 troops consisting mainly of garrisons from Port Arthur and Vladivostok . On 30 November 1900, Admiral Yevgeni Ivanovich Alekseyev compelled the Chinese military governor of Shenyang , Zeng Qi, to sign an agreement that effectively ended Chinese sovereignty over Manchuria and placed it under Russian control. In

17550-500: 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

17700-497: 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

17850-536: 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

18000-917: 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

18150-526: 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

18300-443: 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

18450-400: 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

18600-610: 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

18750-599: The port of Qingdao , was used as a naval base for the East Asia Squadron and a trading port. The German concession was governed and garrisoned by the Imperial German Navy . At the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion in June 1900, the garrison of the concession was composed of the III. Seebataillon , with 1,126 men, a marine/naval artillery battery, about 800 men of a Kommando Detachment and sailors from

18900-496: 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

19050-459: The rear. In a bit of luck for the allies, the gunpowder magazine exploded just as the ground assault began, and in the confusion afterwards the Japanese had the honor of storming the fort. The British and Italians then led the way on the assault of the North Fort, which was soon captured. Two forts remained on the south side of the river. The Allies turned all their guns, and the guns in

19200-536: 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,

19350-422: 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

19500-534: 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

19650-441: 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, 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

19800-476: The siege of the foreign legations at Beijing, the British ambassador offered the Japanese government one million pound sterling in exchange for Japanese participation. Shortly afterward, advance units of the 5th Division departed for China, bringing Japanese strength to 3,800 members of the 17,000-strong allied force. The commander of the 5th Division, Lieutenant General Yamaguchi Motoomi, had taken operational control from Fukushima. Japanese troops were involved in

19950-488: 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

20100-489: 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

20250-444: The two Chinese forts they had captured, on these two forts. They blew up another powder magazine in one, and shortly afterwards the Chinese soldiers abandoned the forts. The Allied ground force then crossed the river and captured the forts with almost no opposition. The battle of the Taku Forts was over at 6:30 a.m. The Allies had suffered 172 casualties among the 900 soldiers and sailors engaged. The number of Chinese casualties

20400-406: 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

20550-470: 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

20700-493: 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

20850-489: 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

21000-483: 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

21150-521: Was delivered to the diplomats in the Legation Quarter in Beijing informing them that they had 24 hours to depart the capital. When the foreigners refused to leave, fearing for their safety, the Siege of the Legations began on June 20. The Taku forts remained in foreign hands for the remainder of the Boxer Rebellion. Allied officers praised the courage and skill the Chinese had demonstrated in defending

21300-597: Was found and destroyed completely by the alliance in 1900. Part of the Yongle Dadian was used for the construction of fortifications. The Complete Library of the Four Treasuries (or Siku Quanshu ) was compiled by 360 scholars during the Qing Qianlong period. It collected 3,461 ancient books, totaling 79,309 volumes. The whole book consisted of seven sets. One set was destroyed in 1860 during

21450-614: 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

21600-414: 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

21750-457: 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

21900-412: 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

22050-427: Was the most populous country in the world at 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

22200-399: 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

22350-409: Was under siege by the Wuwei Rear Division of the Chinese Army and some Boxers ( Yihetuan ), for 55 days, from 20 June to 14 August 1900. A total of 473 foreign civilians, 409 soldiers from eight countries, and about 3,000 Chinese Christians took refuge in the Legation Quarter. Under the command of the British minister to China, Claude Maxwell MacDonald , the legation staff and security personnel defended

22500-405: Was working for the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company . Mr. Hoover helped erect barricades and formed a protective force of the able-bodied men. Mrs. Hoover helped set up a hospital, nursed the wounded, set up a dairy, took part in the night watch, took tea to sentries and carried a Mauser .38 semi-automatic pistol. Battle of the Taku Forts (1900) Boxer Protocol The Battle of

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