Misplaced Pages

#539460

192-644: The original temple was first established as "Huiqing'an" ( 慧庆庵 ) in the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), which was the last feudal dynasty in China, the modern temple was founded in 1938 by abbot Puming ( 普明 ) and initially called "Huiju Chan Temple" ( 慧居禅寺 ). During the Second Sino-Japanese War , the Qingyang High School relocated to here and the temple was used as its campus. After the 3rd Plenary Session of

384-559: A Moghul prince who ruled Turfan , had sent an embassy requesting the resumption of trade with China, which had been interrupted by the fall of the Ming dynasty. The mission was sent without solicitation, but the Qing agreed to receive it, allowing it to conduct tribute trade in Beijing and Lanzhou (Gansu). But this agreement was interrupted by a Muslim rebellion that engulfed the northwest in 1646 (see

576-695: A Muslim leader known in Chinese sources as Milayin ( 米喇印 ) revolted against Qing rule in Ganzhou ( Gansu ). He was soon joined by another Muslim named Ding Guodong ( 丁國棟 ). Proclaiming that they wanted to restore the Ming, they occupied a number of towns in Gansu, including the provincial capital Lanzhou . These rebels' willingness to collaborate with non-Muslim Chinese suggests that they were not only driven by religion. Both Milayin and Ding Guodong were captured and killed by Meng Qiaofang (孟喬芳; 1595–1654) in 1648, and by 1650

768-566: A queue identical to those of the Manchus. The punishment for non-compliance was death. This policy of symbolic submission helped the Manchus in telling friend from foe. For Han officials and literati, however, the new hairstyle was shameful and demeaning (because it breached a common Confucian directive to preserve one's body intact), whereas for common folk cutting their hair was the same as losing their virility . Because it united Chinese of all social backgrounds into resistance against Qing rule,

960-554: 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

1152-608: 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

1344-480: 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

1536-649: 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. Shunzhi Emperor The Shunzhi Emperor (15 March 1638 – 5 February 1661), also known by his temple name Emperor Shizu of Qing , personal name Fulin ,

1728-412: 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

1920-644: 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

2112-599: 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

SECTION 10

#1732854921540

2304-510: 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

2496-402: A one-week siege. Dorgon's brother Prince Dodo then ordered the slaughter of Yangzhou's entire population . As intended, this massacre terrorized other Jiangnan cities into surrendering to the Qing. Indeed, Nanjing surrendered without a fight on 16 June after its last defenders had made Dodo promise he would not hurt the population. The Qing soon captured the Ming emperor (who died in Beijing

2688-449: 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 ,

2880-618: A reprimand for his accepting bribes did not reassure the Manchu elite, which saw eunuch power as a degradation of Manchu power. The Thirteen Offices would be eliminated (and Wu Liangfu executed) by Oboi and the other regents of the Kangxi Emperor in March 1661 soon after the Shunzhi Emperor's death. In 1646, when Qing armies led by Bolo had entered the city of Fuzhou, they had found envoys from

3072-459: A resurgence of Ming loyalist resistance, but by 1661 his armies had defeated the Qing's last enemies, Koxinga and the Prince of Gui , both of whom would succumb the following year. The Shunzhi Emperor died at the age of 22 of smallpox , a highly contagious disease that was endemic in China, but against which the Manchus had no immunity . He was succeeded by his third son who assumed the throne as

3264-599: A scene of this visit carved in the Potala Palace in Lhasa , which he had started building in 1645. Meanwhile, north of the Manchu homeland, adventurers Vassili Poyarkov (1643–46) and Yerofei Khabarov (1649–53) had started to explore the Amur River valley for Tzarist Russia . In 1653 Khabarov was recalled to Moscow and replaced by Onufriy Stepanov , who assumed command of Khabarov's Cossack troops. Stepanov went south into

3456-478: 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

3648-478: 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

3840-724: 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

4032-476: A young northern Chinese who was fluent in Manchu. The "Six Edicts" ( Liu yu 六諭) that the Shunzhi Emperor promulgated in 1652 were the predecessors to the Kangxi Emperor's " Sacred Edicts " (1670): "bare bones of Confucian orthodoxy" that instructed the population to behave in a filial and law-abiding fashion. In another move toward Chinese-style government, the sovereign reestablished the Hanlin Academy and

SECTION 20

#1732854921540

4224-400: 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

4416-449: 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

4608-519: Is now Hunan province), he patiently built up his forces; only in late 1658 did well-fed and well-supplied Qing troops mount a multipronged campaign to take Guizhou and Yunnan. In late January 1659, a Qing army led by Manchu prince Doni took the capital of Yunnan, sending the Yongli Emperor fleeing into nearby Burma , which was then ruled by King Pindale Min of the Toungoo dynasty . The last sovereign of

4800-567: 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 ,

4992-828: 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

5184-617: 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

5376-670: 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

5568-665: 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

5760-578: 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 ,

5952-538: The Eight Banners . In 1629 he led an incursion to the outskirts of Beijing, during which he captured Chinese craftsmen who knew how to cast Portuguese cannon. In 1635 Hong Taiji renamed the Jurchens the " Manchus ", and in 1636 changed the name of his polity from "Later Jin" to " Qing ". After capturing the last remaining Ming cities in Liaodong, by 1643 the Qing were preparing to attack the struggling Ming dynasty, which

Huiju Temple - Misplaced Pages Continue

6144-581: The Grand Secretariat in 1658. These two institutions based on Ming models further eroded the power of the Manchu elite and threatened to revive the extremes of literati politics that had plagued the late Ming, when factions coalesced around rival grand secretaries. To counteract the power of the Imperial Household Department and the Manchu nobility, in July 1653 the Shunzhi Emperor established

6336-491: The Hanlin Academy , and limited membership in the Deliberative Council of Princes and Ministers to Manchus and Mongols. The regents also adopted aggressive policies toward the Qing's Chinese subjects: they executed dozens of people and punished thousands of others in the wealthy Jiangnan region for literary dissent and tax arrears, and forced the coastal population of southeast China to move inland in order to starve

6528-539: The Holy Roman Empire , for guidance on matters ranging from astronomy and technology to religion and government. In late 1644, Dorgon had put Schall in charge of preparing a new calendar because his eclipse predictions had proven more reliable than those of the official astronomer . After Dorgon's death Schall developed a personal relationship with the young emperor, who called him "grandfather" ( mafa in Manchu). At

6720-625: The Kangxi Emperor and went on to reign for sixty years. Because fewer documents have survived from the Shunzhi era than from later eras of the Qing dynasty, this era is a relatively little-known period of Qing history. In the 1580s, when China was ruled by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), a number of Jurchen tribes lived in Manchuria . In a series of campaigns from the 1580s to the 1610s, Nurhaci (1559–1626),

6912-587: 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

7104-641: The Manchu language ), both to distinguish his family from other Gioro lines and to allude to an earlier dynasty that had been founded by Jurchens, the Jin ("golden") dynasty that had ruled northern China from 1115 to 1234. In 1616 Nurhaci formally announced the foundation of the "Later Jin" dynasty , effectively declaring his independence from the Ming. Over the next few years he wrested most major cities in Liaodong from Ming control. His string of victories ended in February 1626 at

7296-466: The Qing conquest , but had now become entrenched rulers of enormous domains in southern China. The civil war (1673–1681) tested the loyalty of the new Qing subjects, but Qing armies eventually prevailed. Once victory had become certain, a special examination for "eminent scholars of broad learning" ( Boxue hongru 博學鴻儒) was held in 1679 to attract Chinese literati who had refused to serve the new dynasty. The successful candidates were assigned to compile

7488-595: 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

7680-796: The Ryūkyū Kingdom , Annam , and the Spanish in Manila . These tributary embassies that had come to see the now fallen Longwu Emperor of the Southern Ming were forwarded to Beijing, and eventually sent home with instructions about submitting to the Qing. The King of the Ryūkyū Islands sent his first tribute mission to the Qing in 1649, Siam in 1652, and Annam in 1661, after the last remnants of Ming resistance had been removed from Yunnan , which bordered Annam. Also in 1646 sultan Abu al-Muhammad Haiji Khan ,

7872-568: 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 ,

Huiju Temple - Misplaced Pages Continue

8064-463: 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 ,

8256-609: The Sungari River , along which he exacted " yasak " (fur tribute) from native populations such as the Daur and the Duchers , but these groups resisted because they were already paying tribute to the Shunzhi Emperor ("Shamshakan" in Russian sources). In 1654 Stepanov defeated a small Manchu force that had been despatched from Ningguta to investigate Russian advances. In 1655 another Qing commander,

8448-467: The Taiwan -based Kingdom of Tungning run by descendants of Koxinga . After the Kangxi Emperor managed to imprison Oboi in 1669, he reverted many of the regents' policies. He restored institutions his father had favored, including the Grand Secretariat , through which Chinese officials gained an important voice in government. He also defeated the rebellion of the Three Feudatories , three Chinese military commanders who had played key military roles in

8640-443: 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

8832-422: 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,

9024-622: 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

9216-474: The civil examinations for selecting government officials be reestablished. From then on they were held regularly every three years as under the Ming. In the very first palace examination held under Qing rule in 1646, candidates, most of whom were northern Chinese, were asked how the Manchus and Han Chinese could be made to work together for a common purpose. The 1649 examination inquired about "how Manchus and Han Chinese could be unified so that their hearts were

9408-400: The era names of Shaowu ( 紹武 ) and Yongli . Short of official costumes, the Shaowu court had to purchase robes from local theater troops. The two Ming regimes fought each other until 20 January 1647, when a small Qing force led by Li Chengdong captured Guangzhou, killed the Shaowu Emperor, and sent the Yongli court fleeing to Nanning in Guangxi . In May 1648, however, Li mutinied against

9600-420: The official history of the fallen Ming dynasty. The rebellion was defeated in 1681, the same year the Kangxi Emperor initiated the use of variolation to inoculate children of the imperial family against smallpox. When the Kingdom of Tungning finally fell in 1683, the military consolidation of the Qing regime was complete. The institutional foundation laid by Dorgon, and the Shunzhi and Kangxi emperors allowed

9792-467: 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

SECTION 50

#1732854921540

9984-476: The siege of Ningyuan , where Ming commander Yuan Chonghuan defeated him with the help of recently acquired Portuguese cannon . Probably wounded during the battle, Nurhaci died a few months later. Nurhaci's son and successor Hong Taiji (1592–1643) continued his father's state-building efforts: he concentrated power into his own hands, modeled the Later Jin's government institutions on Chinese ones, and integrated Mongol allies and surrendered Chinese troops into

10176-423: The " Longwu Emperor " Zhu Yujian, Prince of Tang—a ninth-generation descendant of Ming founder Zhu Yuanzhang —and one in Zhejiang around "Regent" Zhu Yihai , Prince of Lu. But the two loyalist groups failed to cooperate, making their chances of success even lower than they already were. In July 1646, a new Southern Campaign led by Prince Bolo sent Prince Lu's Zhejiang court into disarray and proceeded to attack

10368-580: The "Righteous Emperor" ( yi huangdi 義皇帝). On the same day of mid-January 1651, however, several officers of the White Banners led by former Dorgon supporter Ubai arrested Dorgon's brother Ajige for fear he would proclaim himself as the new regent; Ubai and his officers then named themselves presidents of several Ministries and prepared to take charge of the government. Meanwhile, Jirgalang , who had been stripped of his title of regent in 1647, gathered support among Banner officers who had been disgruntled during Dorgon's rule. In order to consolidate support for

10560-410: The "hair cutting command" of 1645, which forced all Qing male subjects to shave their forehead and braid their remaining hair into a queue resembling that of the Manchus . After Dorgon's death on the last day of 1650, the young Shunzhi Emperor started to rule personally. He tried, with mixed success, to fight corruption and to reduce the political influence of the Manchu nobility. In the 1650s, he faced

10752-467: The 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in 1982, the local government restored and refurbished the temple. In the following year, Huiju Temple was inscribed as a National Key Buddhist Temple in Han Chinese Area by the State Council of China . In 1986, Wuchan ( 悟禅 ) was proposed as the new abbot of the temple. He supervised the reconstruction of Shanmen , Hall of Skanda , Hall of Guru , and Buddhist Texts Library . The complex include

10944-418: 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

11136-454: The Banner officers who gave Jirgalang their support, and Jirgalang appointed them to the Council of Deliberative Princes to reward them. On 1 February, Jirgalang announced that the Shunzhi Emperor, who was about to turn thirteen, would now assume full imperial authority. The regency was thus officially abolished. Jirgalang then moved to the attack. In late February or early March 1651 he accused Dorgon of usurping imperial prerogatives: Dorgon

11328-425: 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

11520-413: 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

11712-493: The Forbidden City at the age of twenty-two. The Manchus feared smallpox more than any other disease because they had no immunity to it and almost always died when they contracted it. By 1622 at the latest, they had already established an agency to investigate smallpox cases and isolate sufferers to avoid contagion . During outbreaks, royal family members were routinely sent to "smallpox avoidance centers" ( bidousuo 避痘所) to protect themselves from infection. The Shunzhi Emperor

SECTION 60

#1732854921540

11904-432: 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

12096-410: 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

12288-447: 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

12480-407: The Longwu regime in Fujian. Zhu Yujian was caught and summarily executed in Tingzhou (western Fujian) on 6 October. His adoptive son Koxinga fled to the island of Taiwan with his fleet. Finally in November, the remaining centers of Ming resistance in Jiangxi province fell to the Qing. In late 1646 two more Southern Ming monarchs emerged in the southern province of Guangzhou , reigning under

12672-430: The Manchu Banners, with the permission of the Board of Revenue if they were registered daughters of officials or commoners, or the permission of their banner company captain if they were unregistered commoners. Only later in the dynasty were these policies allowing intermarriage rescinded. Under the reign of Dorgon—whom historians have variously called "the mastermind of the Qing conquest" and "the principal architect of

12864-399: The Manchu prince to seize this opportunity to present themselves as avengers of the fallen Ming and to claim the Mandate of Heaven for the Qing. The last obstacle between Dorgon and Beijing was Ming general Wu Sangui , who was garrisoned at Shanhai Pass at the eastern end of the Great Wall . Himself caught between the Manchus and Li Zicheng's forces, Wu requested Dorgon's help in ousting

13056-440: 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

13248-458: 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

13440-416: 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

13632-418: 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

13824-530: The Ming throne (including descendants of the last Ming emperor) should be executed along with their supporters. On 7 June, just two days after entering the city, Dorgon issued special proclamations to officials around the capital, assuring them that if the local population accepted to shave their forehead, wear a queue, and surrender, the officials would be allowed to stay at their post. He had to repeal this command three weeks later after several peasant rebellions erupted around Beijing, threatening Qing control over

14016-590: The Mongol Minggadari (d. 1669), defeated Stepanov's forces at fort Kumarsk on the Amur, but this was not enough to chase the Russians. In 1658, however, Manchu general Šarhūda (1599–1659) attacked Stepanov with a fleet of 40 or more ships that managed to kill or capture most Russians. This Qing victory temporarily cleared the Amur valley of Cossack bands, but Sino-Russian border conflicts would continue until 1689, when

14208-449: The Muslim rebels had been crushed in campaigns that inflicted heavy casualties. Dorgon's unexpected death on 31 December 1650 during a hunting trip triggered a period of fierce factional struggles and opened the way for deep political reforms. Because Dorgon's supporters were still influential at court, Dorgon was given an imperial funeral and was posthumously elevated to imperial status as

14400-412: 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),

14592-401: The Qing sovereign to Christianity was crushed when the Shunzhi Emperor became a devout follower of Chan Buddhism in 1657. The emperor developed a good command of Chinese that allowed him to manage matters of state and to appreciate Chinese arts such as calligraphy and drama. One of his favorite texts was "Rhapsody of a Myriad Sorrows" ( Wan chou qu 萬愁曲), by Gui Zhuang (歸莊; 1613–1673), who

14784-455: The Qing to erect an imperial edifice of awesome proportion and to turn it into "one of the most successful imperial states the world has known." Ironically, however, the prolonged Pax Manchurica that followed the Kangxi consolidation made the Qing unprepared to face aggressive European powers with modern weaponry in the nineteenth century. Although only nineteen imperial consorts are recorded for

14976-507: The Qing, and the concurrent rebellion of another former Ming general in Jiangxi helped Yongli to retake most of south China. This resurgence of loyalist hopes was short-lived. New Qing armies managed to reconquer the central provinces of Huguang (present-day Hubei and Hunan ), Jiangxi, and Guangdong in 1649 and 1650. The Yongli emperor had to flee again. Finally on 24 November 1650, Qing forces led by Shang Kexi captured Guangzhou and massacred

15168-762: 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

15360-717: The Qing. To prepare for the arrival of this " living Buddha ," the Shunzhi Emperor ordered the building of the White Dagoba ( baita 白塔) on an island on one of the imperial lakes northwest of the Forbidden City, at the former site of Qubilai Khan 's palace. After more invitations and diplomatic exchanges to decide where the Tibetan leader would meet the Qing emperor, the Dalai Lama arrived in Beijing in January 1653. The Dalai Lama later had

15552-454: The Shunzhi Emperor had really named these four Manchu nobles as regents, because they and Empress Dowager Zhaosheng clearly tampered with the emperor's testament before promulgating it. The emperor's will expressed his regret about his Chinese-style ruling (his reliance on eunuchs and his favoritism toward Chinese officials), his neglect of Manchu nobles and traditions, and his headstrong devotion to his consort rather than to his mother. Though

15744-481: The Shunzhi Emperor had supposedly expressed regret for abandoning Manchu traditions gave authority to the nativist policies of the Kangxi Emperor's four regents . Citing the testament, Oboi and the other regents quickly abolished the Thirteen Eunuch Bureaus. Over the next few years, they enhanced the power of the Imperial Household Department , which was run by Manchus and their bondservants , eliminated

15936-525: The Shunzhi Emperor in the Aisin-Gioro genealogy made by the Imperial Clan Court , burial records show that he had at least thirty-two of them. There were two empresses in his reign, both relatives of his mother. He had a total of fourteen children, but only four sons (Fuquan, Xuanye, Changning, and Longxi) and one daughter (Princess Gongque) lived to be old enough to marry. Unlike later Qing emperors,

16128-473: The Shunzhi Emperor was enthroned as emperor of China in Beijing . From 1643 to 1650, political power lay mostly in the hands of the prince regent Dorgon. Under his leadership, the Qing conquered most of the territory of the fallen Ming dynasty , chased Ming loyalist regimes deep into the southwestern provinces, and established the basis of Qing rule over China proper despite highly unpopular policies such as

16320-475: The Shunzhi Emperor was preparing to hold a special examination to celebrate the glories of his reign and the success of the southwestern campaigns, Zheng sailed up the Yangtze River with a well-armed fleet, took several cities from Qing hands, and went so far as to threaten Nanjing . When the emperor heard of this sudden attack he is said to have slashed his throne with a sword in anger. But the siege of Nanjing

16512-514: The Southern Ming stayed there until 1662, when he was captured and executed by Wu Sangui, the former Ming general whose surrender to the Manchus in April 1644 had allowed Dorgon to start the Qing conquest of China . Zheng Chenggong ("Koxinga"), who had been adopted by the Longwu Emperor in 1646 and ennobled by Yongli in 1655, also continued to defend the cause of the Southern Ming. In 1659, just as

16704-591: The Southern Ming, retook Guilin (Guangxi province) from the Qing. Within a month, most of the commanders who had been supporting the Qing in Guangxi reverted to the Ming side. Despite occasionally successful military campaigns in Huguang and Guangdong in the next two years, Li failed to retake important cities. In 1653, the Qing court put Hong Chengchou in charge of retaking the southwest. Headquartered in Changsha (in what

16896-637: The Thirteen Offices ( 十三衙門 ), or Thirteen Eunuch Bureaus, which were supervised by Manchus, but manned by Chinese eunuchs rather than Manchu bondservants . Eunuchs had been kept under tight control during Dorgon's regency, but the young emperor used them to counter the influence of other power centers such as his mother the Empress Dowager and former regent Jirgalang. By the late 1650s eunuch power became formidable again: they handled key financial and political matters, offered advice on official appointments, and even composed edicts. Because eunuchs isolated

17088-643: 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')

17280-453: 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

17472-572: 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

17664-418: The bandits and restoring the Ming. When Dorgon asked Wu to work for the Qing instead, Wu had little choice but to accept. Aided by Wu Sangui's elite soldiers, who fought the rebel army for hours before Dorgon finally chose to intervene with his cavalry, the Qing won a decisive victory against Li Zicheng at the Battle of Shanhai Pass on 27 May. Li's defeated troops looted Beijing for several days until Li left

17856-509: 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

18048-464: The capital on 4 June with all the wealth he could carry. After six weeks of mistreatment at the hands of rebel troops, the Beijing population sent a party of elders and officials to greet their liberators on 5 June. They were startled when, instead of meeting Wu Sangui and the Ming heir apparent, they saw Dorgon, a horseriding Manchu with his shaved forehead, present himself as the Prince Regent. In

18240-555: The capital region. Dorgon greeted the Shunzhi Emperor at the gates of Beijing on 19 October 1644. On 30 October the six-year-old monarch performed sacrifices to Heaven and Earth at the Altar of Heaven . The southern cadet branch of Confucius ' descendants who held the title Wujing boshi 五經博士 and the sixty-fifth generation descendant of Confucius to hold the title Duke Yansheng in the northern branch both had their titles reconfirmed on 31 October. A formal ritual of enthronement for Fulin

18432-412: The cause of the emperor's death, rumors soon started to circulate that he had not died but in fact retired to a Buddhist monastery to live anonymously as a monk , either out of grief for the death of his beloved consort, or because of a coup by the Manchu nobles his will had named as regents. These rumors seemed not so incredible because the emperor had become a fervent follower of Chan Buddhism in

18624-532: 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

18816-409: The city when they contracted smallpox—the young monarch still succumbed to that illness. The emperor's last will , which was made public on the evening of 5 February, appointed four regents for his young son: Oboi , Soni , Suksaha , and Ebilun , who had all helped Jirgalang to purge the court of Dorgon's supporters after Dorgon's death on the last day of 1650. It is difficult to determine whether

19008-495: The city's population, killing as many as 70,000 people. Meanwhile, in October 1646, Qing armies led by Hooge (the son of Hong Taiji who had lost the succession struggle of 1643) reached Sichuan, where their mission was to destroy the kingdom of bandit leader Zhang Xianzhong . Zhang was killed in a battle against Qing forces near Xichong in central Sichuan on 1 February 1647. Also late in 1646 but further north, forces assembled by

19200-413: 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

19392-468: 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

19584-527: 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

19776-633: The corruption and influence-peddling that was rife in the bureaucracy, and that many moralistic officials from the north attributed to the existence of southern literary clubs and to the decline of classical scholarship. During his short reign, the Shunzhi Emperor encouraged Han Chinese to participate in government activities and revived many Chinese-style institutions that had been either abolished or marginalized during Dorgon's regency. He discussed history, classics , and politics with grand academicians such as Chen Mingxia (see previous section) and surrounded himself with new men such as Wang Xi (王熙; 1628–1703),

19968-435: 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

20160-478: 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

20352-480: 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

20544-581: 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

20736-419: 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,

20928-494: 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

21120-619: 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

21312-438: The emperor fell into dejection for months, until he contracted smallpox on 2 February 1661. On 4 February 1661, officials Wang Xi (王熙, 1628–1703; the emperor's confidant ) and Margi (a Manchu) were called to the emperor's bedside to record his last will. On the same day, his seven-year-old third son Xuanye was chosen to be his successor, probably because he had already survived smallpox. The emperor died on 5 February 1661 in

21504-526: The emperor had intended, Feng Quan's return only intensified factional strife. In several controversies at court in 1653 and 1654, the southerners formed one bloc opposed to the northerners and the Manchus. In April 1654, when Chen Mingxia spoke to northern official Ning Wanwo ( 寧完我 ; d. 1665) about restoring the style of dress of the Ming court, Ning immediately denounced Chen to the emperor and accused him of various crimes including bribe-taking, nepotism , factionalism, and usurping imperial prerogatives. Chen

21696-509: The emperor had often issued self-deprecating edicts during his reign, the policies his will rejected had been central to his government since he had assumed personal rule in the early 1650s. The will as it was formulated gave "the mantle of imperial authority" to the four regents, and served to support their pro-Manchu policies during the period known as the Oboi regency , which lasted from 1661 to 1669. Because court statements did not clearly announce

21888-535: The emperor in burial—suggests that the Shunzhi Emperor's death was not staged. After being kept in the Forbidden City for 27 days of mourning, on 3 March 1661 the emperor's corpse was transported in a lavish procession to Jingshan 景山 (a hillock just north of the Forbidden City), after which a large amount of precious goods were burned as funeral offerings. Only two years later, in 1663, was the body transported to its final resting place. Contrary to Manchu customs at

22080-503: The emperor in the two Yellow Banners (which had belonged to the Qing monarch since Hong Taiji) and to gain followers in Dorgon's Plain White Banner, Jirgalang named them the "Upper Three Banners" ( shang san qi 上三旗; Manchu: dergi ilan gūsa ), which from then on were owned and controlled by the emperor. Oboi and Suksaha , who would become regents for the Kangxi Emperor in 1661, were among

22272-630: 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

22464-516: 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

22656-475: 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

22848-544: The entire population, killing between 74,000 and 100,000 people. These massacres ended armed resistance against the Qing in the Lower Yangtze. A few committed loyalists became hermits , hoping that for lack of military success, their withdrawal from the world would at least symbolize their continued defiance against foreign rule. After the fall of Nanjing, two more members of the Ming imperial household created new Southern Ming regimes: one centered in coastal Fujian around

23040-514: 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 ,

23232-445: 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

23424-518: The following halls: Shanmen , Mahavira Hall , Hall of Four Heavenly Kings , Hall of Guanyin , Bell tower , Drum tower , Hall of Guru , Dharma Hall , Buddhist Texts Library , etc. The Mahavira Hall is 12-metre (39 ft) long, 15-metre (49 ft) wide and 10-metre (33 ft) high. The hall enshrining the Three-Life Buddha, namely Sakyamuni , Amitabha and Bhaisajyaguru . In front of Sakyamuni stand Manjushri and Samantabhadra on

23616-466: 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

23808-461: The following year) and seized Jiangnan's main cities, including Suzhou and Hangzhou ; by early July 1645, the frontier between the Qing and the Southern Ming had been pushed south to the Qiantang River . On 21 July 1645, after Jiangnan had been superficially pacified, Dorgon issued a most inopportune edict ordering all Chinese men to shave their forehead and to braid the rest of their hair into

24000-618: 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

24192-887: 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

24384-539: The great Manchu enterprise"—the Qing subdued almost all of China and pushed loyalist " Southern Ming " resistance into the far southwestern reaches of China. After repressing anti-Qing revolts in Hebei and Shandong in the Summer and Fall of 1644, Dorgon sent armies to root out Li Zicheng from the important city of Xi'an ( Shaanxi province), where Li had reestablished his headquarters after fleeing Beijing in early June 1644. Under

24576-431: The hair cutting command greatly hindered the Qing conquest. The defiant population of Jiading and Songjiang was massacred by former Ming general Li Chengdong (李成東; d. 1649), respectively on 24 August and 22 September. Jiangyin also held out against about 10,000 Qing troops for 83 days. When the city wall was finally breached on 9 October 1645, the Qing army led by Ming defector Liu Liangzuo (劉良佐; d. 1667) massacred

24768-574: 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

24960-468: The height of his influence in 1656 and 1657, Schall reports that the Shunzhi Emperor often visited his house and talked to him late into the night. He was excused from prostrating himself in the presence of the emperor, was granted land to build a church in Beijing, and was even given imperial permission to adopt a son (because Fulin worried that Schall did not have an heir), but the Jesuits' hope of converting

25152-442: 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

25344-575: 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

25536-511: 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

25728-546: The last paragraph of the "Conquest of China" section above). Tribute and trade with Hami and Turfan, which had aided the rebels, were eventually resumed in 1656. In 1655, however, the Qing court announced that tributary missions from Turfan would be accepted only once every five years. In 1651 the young emperor invited to Beijing the Fifth Dalai Lama , the leader of the Yellow Hat Sect of Tibetan Buddhism , who, with

25920-463: The late 1650s, even letting monks move into the imperial palace. Modern Chinese historians have considered the Shunzhi Emperor's possible retirement as one of the three mysterious cases of the early Qing. But much circumstantial evidence—including an account by one of these monks that the emperor's health greatly deteriorated in early February 1661 because of smallpox, and the fact that a concubine and an Imperial Bodyguard committed suicide to accompany

26112-573: The leader of the Jianzhou Jurchens , unified most Jurchen tribes under his rule. One of his most important reforms was to integrate Jurchen clans under flags of four different colors—yellow, white, red, and blue—each further subdivided into two to form an encompassing social and military system known as the Eight Banners . Nurhaci gave control of these Banners to his sons and grandsons. Around 1612, Nurhaci renamed his clan Aisin Gioro ("golden Gioro" in

26304-549: The left and right. 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

26496-642: The lower Yangtze River , where in June 1644 a Ming imperial prince had established a regime loyal to the Ming. Factional bickering and numerous defections prevented the Southern Ming from mounting an efficient resistance. Several Qing armies swept south, taking the key city of Xuzhou north of the Huai River in early May 1645 and soon converging on Yangzhou , the main city on the Southern Ming's northern line of defense. Bravely defended by Shi Kefa , who refused to surrender, Yangzhou fell to Manchu artillery on 20 May after

26688-472: The midst of this upheaval, Dorgon installed himself in the Wuying Palace ( 武英殿 ), the only building that remained more or less intact after Li Zicheng had set fire to the palace complex on 3 June. Banner troops were ordered not to loot; their discipline made the transition to Qing rule "remarkably smooth." Yet at the same time as he claimed to have come to avenge the Ming, Dorgon ordered that all claimants to

26880-475: The military help of Khoshot Mongol Gushri Khan , had recently unified religious and secular rule in Tibet . Qing emperors had been patrons of Tibetan Buddhism since at least 1621 under the reign of Nurhaci , but there were also political reasons behind the invitation. Namely, Tibet was becoming a powerful polity west of the Qing, and the Dalai Lama held influence over Mongol tribes, many of which had not submitted to

27072-422: The monarch from the bureaucracy, Manchu and Chinese officials feared a return to the abuses of eunuch power that had plagued the late Ming. Despite the emperor's attempt to impose strictures on eunuch activities, the Shunzhi Emperor's favorite eunuch Wu Liangfu (吳良輔; d. 1661), who had helped him defeat the Dorgon faction in the early 1650s, was caught in a corruption scandal in 1658. The fact that Wu only received

27264-493: 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

27456-497: 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

27648-521: 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

27840-879: 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

28032-568: 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

28224-481: The names of the Shunzhi Emperor's sons did not include a generational character. Before the Qing court moved to Beijing in 1644, Manchu women used to have personal names, but after 1644 these names "disappear from the genealogical and archival records". Imperial consorts were usually known by their titles and the name of their patrilineal clan, while imperial daughters were given a title and rank by which they then became known only after their betrothal. Although five of

28416-469: The new emperor, but decided that Dorgon and Jirgalang (a nephew of Nurhaci who controlled the Bordered Blue Banner) would act as the five-year-old child's regents . Fulin was officially crowned emperor of the Qing dynasty on 8 October 1643; it was decided that he would reign under the era name "Shunzhi." Because the Shunzhi reign is not well documented, it constitutes a relatively little-known period of Qing history. On 17 February 1644, Jirgalang, who

28608-443: 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

28800-400: 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

28992-506: 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

29184-422: The place of honor north of the palace, followed by the White Banners east, the Red Banners west, and the Blue Banners south. This distribution accorded with the order established in the Manchu homeland before the conquest and under which "each of the banners was given a fixed geographical location according to the points of the compass." Despite tax remissions and large-scale building programs designed to facilitate

29376-418: The pressure of Qing armies, Li was forced to leave Xi'an in February 1645, and he was killed—either by his own hand or by a peasant group that had organized for self-defense in this time of rampant banditry—in September 1645 after fleeing though several provinces. From newly captured Xi'an, in early April 1645 the Qing mounted a campaign against the rich commercial and agricultural region of Jiangnan south of

29568-433: 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

29760-432: 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,

29952-422: 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

30144-606: The reins of government, the Shunzhi Emperor issued an edict announcing that he would purge corruption from officialdom. This edict triggered factional conflicts among literati that would frustrate him until his death. One of his first gestures was to dismiss grand academician Feng Quan (馮銓; 1595–1672), a northern Chinese who had been impeached in 1645 but was allowed to remain in his post by Prince Regent Dorgon. The Shunzhi Emperor replaced Feng with Chen Mingxia (ca. 1601–1654), an influential southern Chinese with good connections in Jiangnan literary societies. Though later in 1651 Chen

30336-476: 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

30528-441: 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

30720-408: The same and they worked together without division." Under the Shunzhi Emperor's reign, the average number of graduates per session of the metropolitan examination was the highest of the Qing dynasty ("to win more Chinese support"), until 1660 when lower quotas were established. To promote ethnic harmony, in 1648 an imperial decree formulated by Dorgon allowed Han Chinese civilians to marry women from

30912-442: The same mother), and Hong Taiji's eldest son Hooge —started to vie for the throne. With his brothers Dodo and Ajige , Dorgon (31 years old) controlled the Plain and Bordered White Banners , Daišan (60) was in charge of the two Red Banners, whereas Hooge (34) had the loyalty of his father's two Yellow Banners. The decision about who would become the new Qing emperor fell to the Deliberative Council of Princes and Ministers , which

31104-400: The signature of the Treaty of Nerchinsk fixed the borders between Russia and the Qing. Though the Qing under Dorgon's leadership had successfully pushed the Southern Ming deep into southern China, Ming loyalism was not dead yet. In early August 1652, Li Dingguo , who had served as general in Sichuan under bandit king Zhang Xianzhong (d. 1647) and was now protecting the Yongli Emperor of

31296-422: 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

31488-489: 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

31680-408: The time, had first been the wife of another Manchu noble. She gave birth to a son (the Shunzhi Emperor's fourth) in November 1657. The emperor would have made him his heir apparent, but he died early in 1658 before he was given a name. The Shunzhi Emperor was an open-minded emperor and relied on the advice of Johann Adam Schall von Bell , a Jesuit missionary from Cologne in the Germanic parts of

31872-458: The time, which usually dictated that a deceased person should be cremated, the Shunzhi Emperor was buried. He was interred in what later came to be known as the Eastern Qing Tombs , 125 kilometers (75 miles) northeast of Beijing, one of two Qing imperial cemeteries. His tomb is part of the Xiao ( 孝 ) mausoleum complex (known in Manchu as the Hiyoošungga Munggan), which was the first mausoleum to be erected on that site. The fake will in which

32064-466: The transition, in 1648 many Chinese civilians still lived among the newly arrived Banner population and there was still animosity between the two groups. Agricultural land outside the capital was also marked off ( quan 圈) and given to Qing troops. Former landowners now became tenants who had to pay rent to their absentee Bannermen landlords. This transition in land use caused "several decades of disruption and hardship." In 1646, Dorgon also ordered that

32256-406: 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

32448-410: 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

32640-439: 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

32832-433: 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

33024-486: The young monarch deposed his new Empress in 1653. The following year Xiaozhuang arranged another imperial marriage with her Khorchin Mongol clan, this time matching her son with her own grand-niece. Though Fulin also disliked his second empress (known posthumously as Empress Xiaohuizhang ), he was not allowed to demote her. She never bore him children. Starting in 1656, the Shunzhi Emperor lavished his affection on Consort Donggo , who, according to Jesuit accounts from

33216-484: Was a capable military leader but looked uninterested in managing state affairs, willingly yielded control of all official matters to Dorgon. After an alleged plot by Hooge to undermine the regency was exposed on 6 May of that year, Hooge was stripped of his title of Imperial Prince and his co-conspirators were executed. Dorgon soon replaced Hooge's supporters (mostly from the Yellow Banners) with his own, thus gaining closer control of two more Banners. By early June 1644, he

33408-429: Was a close friend of anti-Qing intellectuals Gu Yanwu and Wan Shouqi (萬壽祺; 1603–1652). "Quite passionate and attach[ing] great importance to qing (love)," he could also recite by heart long passages of the popular Romance of the Western Chamber . In September 1660, Consort Donggo , the Shunzhi Emperor's favourite consort, suddenly died as a result of grief over the loss of a child. Overwhelmed with grief,

33600-410: Was also dismissed on charges of influence peddling, he was reinstated in his post in 1653 and soon became a close personal advisor to the sovereign. He was even allowed to draft imperial edicts just as Ming Grand Secretaries used to. Still in 1653, the Shunzhi Emperor decided to recall the disgraced Feng Quan, but instead of balancing the influence of northern and southern Chinese officials at court as

33792-423: 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

33984-440: Was crumbling under the combined weight of financial bankruptcy, devastating epidemics, and large-scale bandit uprisings fed by widespread starvation. When Hong Taiji died on 21 September 1643 without having named a successor, the fledgling Qing state faced a possibly serious crisis. Several contenders—namely Nurhaci's second and eldest surviving son Daišan , Nurhaci's fourteenth and fifteenth sons Dorgon and Dodo (both born to

34176-518: Was demoted from "Prince Regent" to "Assistant Uncle Prince Regent" ( Fu zheng shuwang 輔政叔王). In June 1645, Dorgon eventually decreed that all official documents should refer to him as "Imperial Uncle Prince Regent" ( Huang shufu shezheng wang 皇叔父攝政王), which left him one step short of claiming the throne for himself. One of Dorgon's first orders in the new Qing capital was to vacate the entire northern part of Beijing to give it to Bannermen , including Han Chinese Bannermen. The Yellow Banners were given

34368-585: Was executed by strangulation on 27 April 1654. In November 1657, a major cheating scandal erupted during the Shuntian provincial-level examinations in Beijing. Eight candidates from Jiangnan who were also relatives of Beijing officials had bribed examiners in the hope of being ranked higher in the contest. Seven examination supervisors found guilty of receiving bribes were executed, and several hundred people were sentenced to punishments ranging from demotion to exile and confiscation of property. The scandal, which soon spread to Nanjing examination circles, uncovered

34560-402: Was found guilty and all his posthumous honors were removed. Jirgalang continued to purge former members of Dorgon's clique and to bestow high ranks and nobility titles upon a growing number of followers in the Three Imperial Banners, so that by 1652 all of Dorgon's former supporters had been either killed or effectively removed from government. On 7 April 1651, barely two months after he seized

34752-437: 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

34944-434: Was held on 8 November, during which the young emperor compared Dorgon's achievements to those of the Duke of Zhou , a revered regent from antiquity. During the ceremony, Dorgon's official title was raised from "Prince Regent" to "Uncle Prince Regent" ( Shufu shezheng wang 叔父攝政王), in which the Manchu term for "Uncle" ( ecike ) represented a rank higher than that of imperial prince. Three days later Dorgon's co-regent Jirgalang

35136-493: Was in firm control of the Qing government and its military. In early 1644, just as Dorgon and his advisors were pondering how to attack the Ming , peasant rebellions were dangerously approaching Beijing . On 24 April of that year, rebel leader Li Zicheng breached the walls of the Ming capital, pushing the Chongzhen Emperor to hang himself on a hill behind the Forbidden City . Hearing the news, Dorgon's Chinese advisors Hong Chengchou and Fan Wencheng (范文程; 1597–1666) urged

35328-414: 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

35520-457: 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

35712-495: Was particularly fearful of the disease, because he was young and lived in a large city, near sources of contagion. Indeed, during his reign at least nine outbreaks of smallpox were recorded in Beijing, each time forcing the emperor to move to a protected area such as the "Southern Park" (Nanyuan 南苑), a hunting ground south of Beijing where Dorgon had built a "smallpox avoidance center" in the 1640s. Despite this and other precautions—such as rules forcing Chinese residents to move out of

35904-412: 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

36096-442: Was relieved and Zheng Chenggong repelled, forcing Zheng to take refuge in the southeastern coastal province of Fujian. Pressured by Qing fleets, Zheng fled to Taiwan in April 1661 but died that same summer. His descendants resisted Qing rule until 1683, when the Kangxi Emperor successfully took the island. After Fulin came to rule on his own in 1651, his mother the Empress Dowager Zhaosheng arranged for him to marry her niece, but

36288-427: 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

36480-438: Was the Manchus' main policymaking body until the emergence of the Grand Council in the 1720s. Many Manchu princes argued that Dorgon, a proven military leader, should become the new emperor, but Dorgon refused and insisted that one of Hong Taiji's sons should succeed his father. To recognize Dorgon's authority while keeping the throne in Hong Taiji's descent line, the members of the council named Hong Taiji's ninth son, Fulin, as

36672-414: Was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty , and the first Qing emperor to rule over China proper . Upon the death of his father Hong Taiji , a committee of Manchu princes chose the 5-year-old Fulin as successor. The princes also appointed two co-regents: Dorgon , the 14th son of Nurhaci , and Jirgalang , one of Nurhaci's nephews, both of whom were members of the Qing imperial clan . In November 1644,

36864-399: 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

#539460