The+Qing+Empire

M.I: The Manchu who were greatly interested in Chinese life had entered the walls and taken over the Ming dynasty and founded the Qing dynasty, there embraced all aspects of the Ming dynasty and encouraged people from before they invaded to keep doing their daily jobs. · The Manchu nomad’s conquest of China was unexpected and sudden. · Nurhaci  who was a local leader and an architect of unity among the tribes combined the cavalry of each tribe into extremely cohesive fighting units within eight banner armies that were named after the flags that identified each. · Nurhaci brought much of Manchuria which included people that were non-Manchu and even though he remained the nominal vassal of the Chinese Ming emperor, his forces prevailed in harassing the Chinese that lived north of the Greta Wall, and during this period the Manchu elite’s adoption of Chinese ways were greatly accelerated. · The Manchu bureaucracy was organized along Chinese lines, court ceremonies adopted, and scholar-officials found lucrative employment in the growing barbarian state north of the Great Wall. · Due to the weak Ming regime, the Manchu’s were called on to help put down a widespread rebellion but once they had entered, they posed a bigger threat than the rebels because they exploited the political divisions and social unrest that were destroying Ming authority and at the end they found themselves as the Masters of China. · It had taken the banner armies nearly two decades before centers of Ming and rebel resistance in the south and west were destroyed and within a year the Manchu’s had boldly advanced on the Ming capital at Beijing. · The Manchu regime adopted the dynastic name Qing and proved themselves worthy by ruling an area bigger than any of the last predecessors with the exception of the Tang dynasty. · The Manchu regime made it clear that it wanted to retain the most of what had happened during the Ming dynasty which included who was in office, the political system and ceremonies. · The Manchu’s didn’t discard the examination system but even educated their own sons in the Chinese classics. They called themselves Sons of Heaven and rooted their claims to be legitimate rulers of China in their practices of the traditional Confucian virtues which they succeded like Kangxi had. M.I: The economy in the early centuries of the Qing dynasty flourished and profited a lot more people, although the society still continued to have the rigid rule from their predecessors. · The Manchu determination to preserve much of the Chinese political system was paralleled by and equally conservative approach to Chinese society as a whole. The work of Zhu Xi continued to dominate official thinking and among the elite, the extended family remained a core unit of the social order. Anything different from this received suspicion. · Women were still confined to the household and not wanted by parents because the dowry was expensive which made boys more desirable, the males were now allowed to choose brides lower in the status and the male population outnumbered the female population. · Men still dominated and only the women in the low rank continued to work in the fields and sell produce in local markets. Women hoped to have a strong backing from a father or brother after being married and it was considered good luck if she was the first chosen wife because if she lived long and gave birth to sons, she could exercise some control in the family compound, the elites women did the same and sometimes control was exercised over other women and younger men. · After coming in control, the Manchu’s alleviated the distress that had led to rebellions which included taxes and state demands, incentives such as tax free tenure were offered and the repair of things such as existing dikes, canals and roadways and extending irrigation works were worked on. Peasants were encouraged to grow crops that were in demand and to plant two or three crops per year. · <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Attempt to control land lord classes wasn’t successful, but the land lord classes found new ways to make business and therefore a gap formed between rural gentry, the ordinary laborers and the peasants was increased. Practices such as nail growing were adopted by gentry class to showcase that they didn’t participate in labor work. · <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">The commercial and urban expansion gained strength and both state and mercantile classes profited enormously from the upcoming goods. Profits from overseas trade gave rise to a wealthy new group of merchants known as the compradors who specialized in the import-export trade on China’s South Coast. <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">M.I: · <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">The bureaucratic foundations of the Chinese Empire were rotting from within starting with the exam system which at first had been honest and selected the people who were able to do the job but was now gilded by cheating and favoritism. Despite formal restrictions, sons of high officials were guaranteed a place in the bureaucracy and those who had money were able to corrupt the examiners and get their sons a position in the bureaucracy. · <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">When the cheating had become so blatant those students who failed held a public demonstration to protest the bribes given to the examiners by the wealthy salt merchants who only sort to influence local officials and judges and enhancing their family fortunes and not giving their sons the classical Confucian education that stressed the responsibilities of the educated ruling classes and their obligation to serve people. · <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">The diversion of revenue from state projects to enrich individual families caused catastrophes for those who were in the army and the famers who lived in northeastern China were the repairs of the dikes had taken place. · <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">The neglection of the dikes flooded hundreds of square mile of heavily cultivated farmland and whipped out livestock which led to perhaps thousands of peasants to die from famine and disease. · <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Signs that the dynasty was declining were seen in the vagabond bands that clogged the roads and the beggars and the banditary that was becoming dominate and people them assumed that like other Chinese dynasties someone else was going to come and take over. They predicted the future from the past. M.I: Due to the Europeans advancement in military and the numerous victories they were having, China was forced to let their merchants sell what they wanted and to welcome and accept European ambassadors. · The Manchu treated the Europeans like nomads because they were their equal in sophistication and complexity. · The Opium war broke out in 1839. · Scientific Revolution compensated for Great Britain’s small population numbers. · Since Great Britain imported goods from China, they paid in silver bullion which made them unhappy and the solution to their problem became Opium which was grown in eastern India and China but most people preferred the one from eastern India and some got it legally while others got it illegally. · Opium became addictive and made people slothful while putting the Chinese economy in danger due to the high amounts of silver that were leaving the country. · Qing emperors had laws that were against Opium and began to enforce them by sending incorruptible people like Lin Zexu who was sent to shut down Opium operations and in doing so he destroyed warehouses were it was stored and made road blockages. · Due to Lin’s actions, European merchants demanded military action and one they war was about to erupt, the Qing emperor sent Lin into exile. · After the victories that the Europeans kept having, they demanded that China have an open trade and to have diplomatic exchanges which China agreed to because of the European battleships and firepower gave them little choice but to oblige. M.I: After the Chinese defeat in the Opium war, rebellions movements gained power and once those were squashed, the government refused to make the necessary reforms to revive the empire. · Even though it wasn’t evident, China’s defeat in the Opium war caused a lot of rebellions but the greatest was the Taiping rebellion that gained a lot of power and whose leader was Hong Xiuguan. · Taiping fighters included a regiment for Hakka women and they demorized the ill- disciplined Qing army that was sent to destroy them. · The Taiping established a capital at Nanjing and rebel leaders began quarreling among themselves and came up with polices that alienated their people and broke all their promises. · A Ban was placed on Opium and Hong’s bizarre variations on Christian teachings alienated Europeans who threw their support behind the gravely imperiled Qing dynasty. · In the 19th century the Taiping movement posed a serious alternative to both the Qing dynasty and Confucian civilization because it offered programs for social reform, land distribution and the liberation of women. · The attack on the scholar-gentry proved to led to the defeat of the Taiping movement because of the honest and able Qing officials who were able to gather enough people to fend off their next assault. · Leaders like Zeng Guofan and his allies made reforms that removed corruption from the government and were solely responsible for China’s self strengthening movement that countered the challenge from the west by encouraging western investment in railways and factories and having a modernized army that led to the breakdown of the Taipings movement. · Being stubborn the Manchu rulers refused the far- reaching reforms that were their only hope of reviving their regime. · The ultra conservative dowager empress Cixi was against reforms and any one that was for them was executed or driven out of China and she even defied the westernizes by rechanneling funds which led them to have more control over China’s internal affairs and made the Manchu lose the support of the provincial officials. M.I:  · Secret societies began to form and even though some failed, aspects of it proved a way to help prepare for the rebellion against the Manchu’s. · Most of the societies were made up of the offspring of the scholar-gentry who wanted more than get rid of the Manchu’s but build a new strong Chinese nation. · San Yat-Sen who was among the aspiring revolutionaries emerged as their most articulate advocate. · Revolutionaries drew heavily from western ideas but were hostile of the involvement of European powers in China and condemned the Manchu’s for not being able to control them. · Men started to defy China’s traditions and joined societies that got rid of the people in power or carried out on their own. · Puyi, who was the last remaining in power, was a young boy who was disposed of and a strong provincial lord took over. · The end was signified when the last Confucian exam was given in 1905.