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China's Grandeur under the Qing

The emperors of the late Ming faced the same challenges as had emperors before them: to keep costs in line with revenues, defend China's borders, curb corruption, maintain roads and dams, and carry out a host of other tasks of government. From 1580 on, however, the challenges were too great and the emperors themselves were not strong enough to deal with the many issues facing the throne, especially the pirate raids along the coast and the growing Manchu threat to the northeast. These pressures finally overwhelmed the government, and the Ming dynasty fell in 1644 when the Manchus conquered China and established the Qing (Ch'ing) dynasty (1644-1911).

The Manchus had studied China from afar and learned well how to both conquer and rule it. They quickly made it clear that they were the rulers and the Chinese were the ruled. They made Manchu dress obligatory and required all Chinese males to shave their foreheads and braid their hair in the back, for this was the Manchu style. They made sure that Manchus headed all military and government agencies, but they made sure that Chinese represented half of all important offices. They continued important Chinese traditions and models, for example, they revived the examination system for bureaucrats. Gradually many Chinese literati began to cooperate with the new foreign rulers.

From 1661 until 1799, China had only three emperors: Kangxi (r. 1661-1722), Yongzheng (r. 1722-1736), and Qianlong (r. 1736-1796). By any measure, their reigns covered some of the most impressive years in all of Chinese history. China in this period was still the largest and most sophisticated empire in the world: agriculture flourished, trade expanded, and China's population grew from an estimated 150 million at the end of the seventeenth century to more than 300 million a hundred years later.  Culture flourished: many great literary works were written, including the outstanding novel Dream of the Red Chamber; Kangxi commissioned a huge dictionary and encyclopedia, eventually totaling 5,000 volumes (similar to the eighteenth century French philosophers' Encyclopedia project.) Qianlong was a great patron of art and his imperial collection was unmatched. It was under the Manchus that China attained its greatest size, with military campaigns defeating the Mongols and incorporating the western lands known as Xinjiang or New Territories. China at that time was larger than all the European nations combined and one of the largest land-based empires in world history.

Recommended Activities

Geographic View of Late Imperial China

Have students locate maps of Ming and Qing China in your textbook, a library resource, or on the World Wide Web (see, for example, http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall//images.html).

Copy the maps and proceed with the following activity:

Look at the borders of the Ming Dynasty and read the previous section on the challenges facing early Ming emperors, such as the Yongle emperor. (See the Ming Voyages unit).

Group 1: Imagine that you were an adviser to a Ming emperor (such as Yongle or his successors). What would you identify as the major foreign threats to China?  What would you counsel the emperor to do to deal about these significant threats? What would be the problems with your approach? The benefits?  Make the strongest possible case for your policy suggestions (Don't forget, you can be executed if you suggest something the emperor doesn't like or is a failure).

Group 2: Compare the maps of the Ming dynasty with those of the Qing dynasty. What areas show the greatest expansion during the Qing? Why? Reread parts of your textbook that discuss Qing expansion. Why did the Qing government choose these particular areas for growth? How does this help to explain the Qing dynasty's three centuries of rule?

Have Groups 1 and 2 present their findings to each other. How do they compare?

Optional  activity:

Group 3: Compare the expansionist activities of the Chinese empire under the Ming and Qing rule with those of other civilizations at the same time: In particular of the three Islamic empires--the Ottoman, the Mughal, and the Safavid, but also of the Russian empire, and some European nations--Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, France, and England.

Acknowledgment: Dr. Sue Gronewald, a specialist in Chinese history, was the consultant and author for this unit.