Exploring Chinese History
History
 
- Pre- Modern Era -
 

1279 CE - 1912 CE

This chronicle explores Chinese History during the Pre- Modern Era. The focus is primarily on the late Qing (Manchu) dynasty and the fall of Imperial China. Other topics include the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty and the Ming dynasty.

The dates covered are from 1279 CE up to 1912 CE.

Exploration of the Pre- Modern Era is divided into dynastic and historical periods:

  • Summary
  • Outline
  • Comprehensive

By the mid-thirteenth century, the Mongols had subjugated north China, Korea, and the Muslim kingdoms of Central Asia and had twice penetrated Europe. With the resources of his vast empire, Kublai Khan (1215-94), a grandson of Genghis Khan (1167?-1227) and the supreme leader of all Mongol tribes, began his drive against the Southern Song. Even before the extinction of the Song dynasty, Kublai Khan had established the first alien dynasty to rule all China--the Yuan (1279-1368).

Although the Mongols sought to govern China through traditional institutions, using Chinese (Han) bureaucrats, they were not up to the task.

As in other periods of alien dynastic rule of China, a rich cultural diversity developed during the Yuan dynasty. The major cultural achievements were the development of drama and the novel and the increased use of the written vernacular. The Mongols' extensive West Asian and European contacts produced a fair amount of cultural exchange.

Rivalry among the Mongol imperial heirs, natural disasters, and numerous peasant uprisings led to the collapse of the Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty (1368-1644) was founded by a Han Chinese peasant and former Buddhist monk turned rebel army leader.

The Ming maritime expeditions stopped rather suddenly after 1433, the date of the last voyage. Historians have given as one of the reasons the great expense of large-scale expeditions at a time of preoccupation with northern defenses against the Mongols.

Long wars with the Mongols, incursions by the Japanese into Korea, and harassment of Chinese coastal cities by the Japanese in the sixteenth century weakened Ming rule, which became, as earlier Chinese dynasties had, ripe for an alien takeover. In 1644 the Manchus took Beijing from the north and became masters of north China, establishing the last imperial dynasty, the Qing (1644- 1911).

Although the Manchus were not Han Chinese and were strongly resisted, especially in the south, they had assimilated a great deal of Chinese culture before conquering China Proper.

The Manchus continued the Confucian civil service system. Although Chinese were barred from the highest offices, Chinese officials predominated over Manchu officeholders outside the capital, except in military positions.

Ever suspicious of Han Chinese, the Qing rulers put into effect measures aimed at preventing the absorption of the Manchus into the dominant Han Chinese population.

The Qing regime was determined to protect itself not only from internal rebellion but also from foreign invasion. After China Proper had been subdued, the Manchus conquered Outer Mongolia (now the Mongolian People's Republic) in the late seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century they gained control of Central Asia as far as the Pamir Mountains and established a protectorate over the area the Chinese call Xizang but commonly known in the West as Tibet.

The chief threat to China's integrity did not come overland, as it had so often in the past, but by sea, reaching the southern coastal area first.

The success of the Qing dynasty in maintaining the old order proved a liability when the empire was confronted with growing challenges from seafaring Western powers.

By the nineteenth century, China was experiencing growing internal pressures of economic origin.

As elsewhere in Asia, in China the Portuguese were the pioneers, establishing a foothold at Macao (Aomen), from which they monopolized foreign trade at the Chinese port of Guangzhou (Canton). Soon the Spanish arrived, followed by the British and the French.

Trade between China and the West was carried on in the guise of tribute: foreigners were obliged to follow the elaborate, centuries-old ritual imposed on envoys from China's tributary states.

The Manchus were sensitive to the need for security along the northern land frontier and therefore were prepared to be realistic in dealing with Russia.

Trade was not the sole basis of contact with the West. Since the thirteenth century, Roman Catholic missionaries had been attempting to establish their church in China.

During the eighteenth century, the market in Europe and America for tea, a new drink in the West, expanded greatly. Additionally, there was a continuing demand for Chinese silk and porcelain. But China, still in its pre-industrial stage, wanted little that the West had to offer, causing the Westerners, mostly British, to incur an unfavorable balance of trade.

In 1839 the Qing government, after a decade of unsuccessful anti-opium campaigns, adopted drastic prohibitory laws against the opium trade. The emperor dispatched a commissioner, Lin Zexu (1785- 1850), to Guangzhou to suppress illicit opium traffic.

The British retaliated with a punitive expedition, thus initiating the first Anglo-Chinese war, better known as the Opium War (1839-42). Unprepared for war and grossly underestimating the capabilities of the enemy, the Chinese were disastrously defeated, and their image of their own imperial power was tarnished beyond repair.

Under the Treaty of Nanjing, China ceded the island of Hong Kong (Xianggang) to the British; abolished the licensed monopoly system of trade; opened 5 ports to British residence and foreign trade; limited the tariff on trade to 5 percent ad valorem; granted British nationals extraterritoriality (exemption from Chinese laws); and paid a large indemnity.

During the mid-nineteenth century, China's problems were compounded by natural calamities of unprecedented proportions, including droughts, famines, and floods.

South China had been the last area to yield to the Qing conquerors and the first to be exposed to Western influence. It provided a likely setting for the largest uprising in modern Chinese history- the Taiping Rebellion.

The Taiping rebels were led by Hong Xiuquan (1814-64), a village teacher and unsuccessful imperial examination candidate. Hong formulated an eclectic ideology combining the ideals of pre-Confucian utopianism with Protestant beliefs.

To defeat the rebellion, the Qing court needed, besides Western help, an army stronger and more popular than the demoralized imperial forces.

The rude realities of the Opium War, the unequal treaties, and the mid-century mass uprisings caused Qing courtiers and officials to recognize the need to strengthen China.

Amid these activities came an attempt to arrest the dynastic decline by restoring the traditional order.  The restoration, however, which applied "practical knowledge" while reaffirming the old mentality, was not a genuine program of modernization.

The effort to graft Western technology onto Chinese institutions became known as the Self-Strengthening Movement. The movement was championed by scholar-generals like Li Hongzhang (1823-1901) and Zuo Zongtang (1812-85), who had fought with the government forces in the Taiping Rebellion.

But despite its leaders' accomplishments, the Self Strengthening Movement did not recognize the significance of the political institutions and social theories that had fostered Western advances and innovations. This weakness led to the movement's failure. Modernization during this period would have been difficult under the best of circumstances.

The first step in the foreign powers' effort to carve up the empire was taken by Russia, which had been expanding into Central Asia.

At this time the foreign powers also took over the peripheral states that had acknowledged Chinese suzerainty and given tribute to the emperor.

In the 103 days from June 11 to September 21, 1898, the Qing emperor, Guangxu (1875-1908), ordered a series of reforms aimed at making sweeping social and institutional changes.

The imperial edicts for reform covered a broad range of subjects, including stamping out corruption and remaking, among other things, the academic and civil-service examination systems, legal system, governmental structure, defense establishment, and postal services.

Opposition to the reform was intense among the conservative ruling elite, especially the Manchus, who, in condemning the announced reform as too radical, proposed instead a more moderate and gradualist course of change.

The conservatives then gave clandestine backing to the anti-foreign and anti-Christian movement of secret societies known as Yihetuan (Society of Righteousness and Harmony). The movement has been better known in the West as the Boxers (from an earlier name--Yihequan, Righteousness and Harmony Boxers).

In the decade that followed, the court belatedly put into effect some reform measures. These included the abolition of the moribund Confucian-based examination, educational and military modernization patterned after the model of Japan, and an experiment, if half-hearted, in constitutional and parliamentary government.

Failure of reform from the top and the fiasco of the Boxer Uprising convinced many Chinese that the only real solution lay in outright revolution, in sweeping away the old order and erecting a new one patterned preferably after the example of Japan.

The republican revolution broke out on October 10, 1911, in Wuchang, the capital of Hubei Province, among discontented modernized army units whose anti-Qing plot had been uncovered. It had been preceded by numerous abortive uprisings and organized protests inside China.

To prevent civil war and possible foreign intervention from undermining the infant republic, Sun agreed to Yuan's demand that China be united under a Beijing government headed by Yuan. On February 12, 1912, the last Manchu emperor, the child Puyi, abdicated. On March 10, in Beijing, Yuan Shikai was sworn in as provisional president of the Republic of China.

Mongolian Interlude | The Chinese Regain Power | The Rise of the Manchus | Emergence of Modern China | The Western Powers Arrive | The Opium War, 1839- 1842 | The Taiping Rebellion, 1851- 1864 | The Self-Strengthening Movement | The Hundred Days Reform and the Aftermath | The Boxer Rebellion, 1899- 1901 | The Republican Revolution of 1911

  1. Mongolian Interlude
    • Vast empire of Kublai Khan
      • Mongols subjugated north China, Korea, and the Muslim kingdoms of Central Asia
      • Kublai Khan begins drive against Southern Song
      • Yuan dynasty established- first alien dynasty to rule all China
    • Managing China
      • Mongols tried to employ Han bureaucrats
      • Han discriminated against
      • Mongols preferred non-Chinese from vast Mongol Empire for government positions
      • Chinese employed in non-Chinese regions of the empire
    • Cultural development
      • Major cultural achievements
        • Novel
        • Drama
        • Written vernacular
      • Vast empire provided frequent cultural exchange
        • Western musical instruments introduced to China
        • Chinese printing techniques, porcelain production, playing cards, and medical literature introduced in Europe
        • Production of thin glass and cloisonné popular in China
        • The Venetian Marco Polo visited Yuan court
      • Religious evolution
        • Conversion of Chinese in northwest and southwest to Islam from Central Asia
        • Nestorianism, Roman Catholicism enjoyed period of toleration
        • Buddhism flourished
        • Native Taoism endured Mongol persecution
    • Technological development
      • Advances in travel literature, cartography and geography, and scientific education
      • Public works
        • Road and water communications reorganized, improved
        • Granaries built throughout empire
        • City of Beijing rebuilt
          • New palace grounds
            • Artificial lakes, hills and mountains, and parks
        • Grand Canal completely renovated with terminus in Beijing
      • Agricultural innovations
        • Introduction of sorghum
        • Chinese and Mongol travelers to West provided assistance in hydraulic engineering

     

  2. The Chinese Regain Power
    • Collapse of the Yuan dynasty
      • Rivalry among Mongol imperial heirs
      • Natural disasters
      • Peasant uprisings
    • The Ming dynasty
      • Founded by Buddhist monk turned rebel leader
      • Capital moved from Nanjing to Beijing
      • Chinese armies reconquered Annam
    • Major regional power
      • Naval expeditions
        • Tribute or 'Treasure' fleets
        • Sailed Indian ocean and eastern African coast
        • Stopped suddenly in 1433
          • Neo-Confucian pressure
    • 'Golden Age'
      • Stability
        • Government, arts, population (100 million), economy, society, politics
        • Promoted belief that they had the most satisfactory civilization on earth
          • Nothing foreign was needed
    • Fall of the Ming dynasty
      • Long wars with the Mongols
      • Incursions by Japanese into Korea

     

  3. The Rise of the Manchus
    • Last imperial dynasty (Qing) established in 1644
    • Sinicization of ruling Manchus
      • Assimilated Chinese culture before conquering China Proper
      • Manchus retained many institutions of Ming and earlier Chinese derivation
      • They continued Confucian court practices, temple rituals
      • Continued Confucian civil service system
      • Chinese barred from highest offices
        • Chinese predominated over Manchus outside the capital, except military positions
      • Manchu emperors supported Chinese literary, historical projects
        • Survival of China's ancient literature attributed to projects
    • Manchurian purity
      • Han Chinese prohibited from migrating into Manchu homeland
      • Manchus forbidden to engage in trade, manual labor
      • Intermarriage between the two groups forbidden
    • Expansion
      • China Proper subdued
      • Outer Mongolia conquered
      • Gained control of Central Asia as far as Pamir Mountains
      • Established protectorate over Tibet
      • Taiwan incorporated into China for first time
      • Qing emperors received tribute from border states
    • Threats
      • Western traders, missionaries, soldiers of fortune arrived before Manchus in southern coast

     

  4. Emergence of Modern China
    • Autumn of the Qing dynasty
      • Empire's inability to evaluate nature of new challenge, respond flexibly resulted Qing fall and collapse of dynastic rule
      • Empire confronted with challenges from Western powers
      • Centuries of peace encouraged little change in attitudes of ruling elite
        • Neo-Confucian scholars believed in cultural superiority of Chinese civilization
        • Innovation, adoption of foreign ideas viewed as heresy
        • Imperial purges of those who deviated from orthodoxy
    • Economic turmoil
      • Bulging population (300,000,000) led to unemployment
      • Scarcity of land led to rural discontent
      • Corruption of bureaucratic, military systems
      • Urban pauperism
    • Revolution begins
      • Localized revolts erupted in parts of empire in early 19th century
      • Anti-Manchu secret societies gained ground
        • White Lotus, Triads

     

  5. The Western Powers Arrive
    • Portuguese established foothold at Macao (Aomen)
      • Monopolize foreign trade at Guangzhou (Canton)
    • Spanish, British, French arrive
    • No conception at imperial court that Europeans would expect to be treated as cultural, political equals
      • Russian exception
        • Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689)
          • Established border between Siberia and Manchuria (northeast China) along Heilong Jiang (Amur River)
          • China's first bilateral agreement with Europe
        • Treaty of Kiakhta (1727)
          • Delimited remainder of eastern Sino- Russian border
    • Trade
      • Officially rebuffed
        • Chinese assumption that the empire was not in need of foreign products
      • Practically accepted; foreign trade flourished
      • After 1760 all foreign trade confined to Guangzhou
        • Foreign traders limited to officially licensed Chinese merchant firms (about a dozen)
    • Non official contact with West
      • Roman Catholic missionaries
        • Jesuits
          • Converted only 100,000 by 1800
        • Contributed to Chinese knowledge
          • Cannon casting, calendar making, geography, mathematics, cartography, music, art, and architecture
        • Christianity fitted into Chinese framework
        • Christian movement weakened
          • Condemned for tolerating Confucian ancestor rites by Papal decision (1704)

     

  6. The Opium War, 1839- 1842
    • Also called 'Arrow War'
    • Trade imbalance
      • Western demand for Chinese goods
        • Tea, silk, porcelain
      • No Chinese demand for Western (British) goods
    • Third-party trade
      • Western goods sold to India, Southeast Asia
      • Raw materials and semi processed goods bought
        • Demand for raw materials in China
    • Illegal opium primary British export to China (early 19th century)
      • Balanced trade deficit
        • Opium trade resulted from corrupt officials, greedy merchants
    • Drastic laws enacted by government (1839) prohibited opium trade
      • Qing commissioner sent to Guangzhou (Lin Zexu 1785- 1850)
        • Suppressed opium traffic
        • Seized stocks of opium
          • Destroyed 20,000 chests of British opium
        • Detained entire foreign community
    • British retaliation
      • Qing underestimated capability of enemy
      • Defeat tarnished image of their own imperial power
    • Unequal Treaty
      • Treaty of Nanjing (1842)
        • Signed on British warship Arrow
        • Hong Kong ceded to British
        • 5 ports opened to foreign residence and trade
        • Granted British nationals extraterritoriality
        • Abolished licensed monopoly system of trade

     

  7. The Taiping Rebellion, 1851- 1864
    • Largest uprising in modern Chinese history
    • Territory encompassed Nanjing, Tianjin
    • Over 30 million people reported killed
    • Causes
      • Government neglect of public works
        • Natural disasters
          • Droughts, famines, floods
          • Government inaction
      • Economic tensions, military defeats at Western hands, anti-Manchu sentiments
    • Hong Xiuquan (1814-64)
      • Teacher and unsuccessful imperial examination candidate
      • Ideology combined ideals of pre-Confucian utopianism with Protestant beliefs
    • Hong's followers
      • Consisting of believers and other armed peasant groups, secret societies
    • Guizhou Province uprising (1851)
      • Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace (Taiping Tianguo)
        • Hong self-appointed king
    • New order
      • Reconstitute legendary ancient state
        • Peasant- owned and tilled land
      • Slavery, concubinage, arranged marriage, opium smoking, foot binding, judicial torture, worship of idols to be eliminated
    • Rebellion's defeat
      • Advocacy of radical social reforms
      • Failed to establish stable base areas
      • Western military aid
        • French, British
          • More inclined toward weak Qing than uncertain Taiping
      • Zeng Guofan (1811-72)
        • Appointed imperial commissioner, governor-general of Taiping-controlled territories
        • Zeng's army under the command of eminent scholar-generals
        • Success gave new power to emerging Han Chinese elite

     

  8. The Self-Strengthening Movement
    • Opium war, unequal treaties, mass uprisings produced need to strengthen China
      • Western practical methods for self- strengthening
        • Western science, languages studied
        • Military bases, manufacturing, diplomatic practices established according to Western models
    • Tongzhi Restoration
      • Begun to arrest dynastic, imperial decline
      • Engineered by Tongzhi Emperor (1862-74)'s mother Empress Dowager Ci Xi (1835-1908)
      • Restore traditional order, apply practical knowledge
      • Not genuine program to modernize
    • Lack of practical understanding
      • Social, political reform needed
      • 'Old Ways' led to foreign domination
      • Bureaucracy deeply influenced by Neo-Confucian orthodoxy
    • Lack of 'Self-Strength'
      • Foreign powers carve into Chinese Empire
        • Russia invades Manchuria
        • Russian diplomats secured secession of all Manchuria north of Heilong Jiang and east of Wusuli Jiang (Ussuri River) (1860 )
        • Britain acquired 99-year lease on Kowloon (New Territories), Hong Kong (1898)
        • Belgium, Germany gained influence in China
        • Foreign settlements in treaty ports became extraterritorial
          • Safety guaranteed by foreign military presence
      • Vassal states overtaken by Western powers
        • French
          • Protectorate established over Cambodia (1864)
          • Cochin China (southern Vietnam) colonized
          • Annam (Vietnam Proper) taken in war (1884-85)
        • British
          • Gained control over Burma
        • Russians
          • Gained control over Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang)
        • Japanese
          • Taiwan, Penghu Islands ceded in Treaty of Shimonoseki (1894-95)
          • Hegemony established over Korea
      • 'Open Door Policy'
        • Proposed by the United States
        • All foreign countries would have equal duties, privileges in all treaty ports

     

  9. The Hundred Days Reform and the Aftermath
    • 11 June to 21 September 1898 (103 days)
    • Qing emperor, Guangxu (1875-1908) ordered social, institutional reforms
    • Effort reflected thinking of a group of progressive scholar-reformers
      • Impressed the court with urgency of making innovations for nation's survival
      • Influenced by Japanese success with modernization
      • Reformers declared China needed more than "self-strengthening"
        • Innovation must be accompanied by institutional, ideological change
    • Edicts for reform covered broad range of subjects
      • Stamping out corruption and remaking academic and civil-service examination systems, legal system, governmental structure, defense establishment, postal services
      • Attempted to modernize agriculture, medicine, and mining
      • Promoted practical studies instead of Neo-Confucian orthodoxy
    • Reform changes were to be brought about under de facto constitutional monarchy
    • Opposition intense among ruling elite
      • Manchus proposed moderate and gradualist course of change
    • Coup d'etat (21 September 1898)
      • Supported by ultraconservatives, Yuan Shikai (1859-1916)
      • Engineered by Empress Dowager Ci Xi
      • Forced Guangxu into seclusion
      • Ci Xi took over government as regent
      • All new edicts rescinded
      • 6 chief advocates of reform excecuted
      • 2 reform leaders Kang Youwei (1858-1927), Liang Qichao (1873-1929) fled abroad
        • Founded the Baohuang Hui (Protect the Emperor Society) toward constitutional monarchy in China

     

  10. The Boxer Rebellion, 1899- 1901
    • Secret societies
      • Known as Yihetuan (Society of Righteousness and Harmony)
      • Known in West as Boxers from the earlier name Yihequan (Righteousness and Harmony Boxers)
      • Anti-foreign, anti-Christian movement
      • Backed in secret by conservative elements of government
    • 1900
      • Boxer bands spread over north China, killing Chinese Christians, burning missionary facilities
      • Boxers besieged the foreign concessions in Beijing and Tianjin (June)
      • Offended countries sent reinforcements
      • Qing declared war on invaders
      • Foreign reinforcements prevail, occupy north China
    • Protocol of 1901
      • Ended hostilities
      • 10 high officials executed
      • Hundreds punished
      • Legation Quarter expanded
      • Some Chinese fortifications razed
      • Foreign troops stationed in China

     

  11. The Republican Revolution of 1911
    • Court enacted reform measures (1906)
      • Abolition of Confucian-based examination
      • Educational and military modernization
        • Patterned after Japan
      • Experiment in constitutional, parliamentary government
      • Establishment of new armies
    • Mandate of Heaven is lost
      • Failure of reform, Boxer Uprising convinced Chinese that the solution lay in outright revolution
      • Old order to be removed with new one patterned after Japan
    • Sun Yat-sen (Sun Yixian, 1866- 1925)
      • Founded Tongmeng Hui (United League) in Tokyo with Huang Xing (1874-1916) (1905)
        • Movement supported by overseas Chinese funds
        • Gained political support with regional military officers, reformers who fled China after Hundred Days' Reform
    • Three Principles of the People (san min zhuyi)
      • Nationalism
        • Called for overthrowing the Manchus, ending foreign hegemony over China
      • Democracy
        • Popularly elected republican form of government
      • People's Livelihood
        • Aimed at helping common people through regulation of ownership of means of production and land
    • 10 October 1911
      • Begun in Wuchang, Hubei Province by discontented modernized army units
        • Anti-Qing plot had been uncovered
      • Preceded by numerous abortive uprisings, organized protests inside China
      • Revolt spread to neighboring cities
        • Tongmeng Hui members throughout country rose in immediate support of Wuchang revolutionary forces
      • 15 of the 24 provinces declared their independence from Qing empire (November)
    • 2,500 year old Chinese Imperial system ends; Chinese Republic is born
      • Sun Yat-sen returned to China from United States, inaugurated in Nanjing as provisional president of new Chinese republic (1 January 1912)
      • Power in Beijing already passed to commander-in-chief of the imperial army (Yuan Shikai)
      • To prevent civil war, possible foreign intervention, Sun agreed to Yuan's demand that China be united under a Beijing government headed by Yuan
      • The last Manchu emperor, the child Puyi (Aisinjioro Pu Yi), abdicated (12 February 1912)
      • Yuan Shikai sworn in as provisional president of the Republic of China (10 March 1912)

Mongolian Interlude | The Chinese Regain Power | The Rise of the Manchus | Emergence of Modern China | The Western Powers Arrive | The Opium War, 1839- 1842 | The Taiping Rebellion, 1851- 1864 | The Self-Strengthening Movement | The Hundred Days Reform and the Aftermath | The Boxer Rebellion, 1899- 1901 | The Republican Revolution of 1911

Mongolian Interlude

By the mid-thirteenth century, the Mongols had subjugated north China, Korea, and the Muslim kingdoms of Central Asia and had twice penetrated Europe. With the resources of his vast empire, Kublai Khan (1215-94), a grandson of Genghis Khan (1167?-1227) and the supreme leader of all Mongol tribes, began his drive against the Southern Song. Even before the extinction of the Song dynasty, Kublai Khan had established the first alien dynasty to rule all China--the Yuan (1279-1368).

Although the Mongols sought to govern China through traditional institutions, using Chinese (Han) bureaucrats, they were not up to the task. The Han were discriminated against socially and politically. All important central and regional posts were monopolized by Mongols, who also preferred employing non-Chinese from other parts of the Mongol domain--Central Asia, the Middle East, and even Europe--in those positions for which no Mongol could be found. Chinese were more often employed in non-Chinese regions of the empire.

As in other periods of alien dynastic rule of China, a rich cultural diversity developed during the Yuan dynasty. The major cultural achievements were the development of drama and the novel and the increased use of the written vernacular. The Mongols' extensive West Asian and European contacts produced a fair amount of cultural exchange. Western musical instruments were introduced to enrich the Chinese performing arts. From this period dates the conversion to Islam, by Muslims of Central Asia, of growing numbers of Chinese in the northwest and southwest. Nestorianism and Roman Catholicism also enjoyed a period of toleration. Lamaism (Tibetan Buddhism) flourished, although native Taoism endured Mongol persecutions. Confucian governmental practices and examinations based on the Classics, which had fallen into disuse in north China during the period of disunity, were reinstated by the Mongols in the hope of maintaining order over Han society. Advances were realized in the fields of travel literature, cartography and geography, and scientific education. Certain key Chinese innovations, such as printing techniques, porcelain production, playing cards, and medical literature, were introduced in Europe, while the production of thin glass and cloisonné became popular in China. The first records of travel by Westerners date from this time. The most famous traveler of the period was the Venetian Marco Polo, whose account of his trip to "Cambaluc," the Great Khan's capital (now Beijing), and of life there astounded the people of Europe. The Mongols undertook extensive public works. Road and water communications were reorganized and improved. To provide against possible famines, granaries were ordered built throughout the empire. The city of Beijing was rebuilt with new palace grounds that included artificial lakes, hills and mountains, and parks. During the Yuan period, Beijing became the terminus of the Grand Canal, which was completely renovated. These commercially oriented improvements encouraged overland as well as maritime commerce throughout Asia and facilitated the first direct Chinese contacts with Europe. Chinese and Mongol travelers to the West were able to provide assistance in such areas as hydraulic engineering, while bringing back to the Middle Kingdom new scientific discoveries and architectural innovations. Contacts with the West also brought the introduction to China of a major new food crop--sorghum--along with other foreign food products and methods of preparation.

The Chinese Regain Power

Rivalry among the Mongol imperial heirs, natural disasters, and numerous peasant uprisings led to the collapse of the Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty (1368-1644) was founded by a Han Chinese peasant and former Buddhist monk turned rebel army leader. Having its capital first at Nanjing (which means Southern Capital) and later at Beijing (Northern Capital), the Ming reached the zenith of power during the first quarter of the fifteenth century. The Chinese armies reconquered Annam, as northern Vietnam was then known, in Southeast Asia and kept back the Mongols, while the Chinese fleet sailed the China seas and the Indian Ocean, cruising as far as the east coast of Africa. The maritime Asian nations sent envoys with tribute for the Chinese emperor. Internally, the Grand Canal was expanded to its farthest limits and proved to be a stimulus to domestic trade.

The Ming maritime expeditions stopped rather suddenly after 1433, the date of the last voyage. Historians have given as one of the reasons the great expense of large-scale expeditions at a time of preoccupation with northern defenses against the Mongols. Opposition at court also may have been a contributing factor, as conservative officials found the concept of expansion and commercial ventures alien to Chinese ideas of government. Pressure from the powerful Neo-Confucian bureaucracy led to a revival of strict agrarian-centered society. The stability of the Ming dynasty, which was without major disruptions of the population (then around 100 million), economy, arts, society, or politics, promoted a belief among the Chinese that they had achieved the most satisfactory civilization on earth and that nothing foreign was needed or welcome.

Long wars with the Mongols, incursions by the Japanese into Korea, and harassment of Chinese coastal cities by the Japanese in the sixteenth century weakened Ming rule, which became, as earlier Chinese dynasties had, ripe for an alien takeover. In 1644 the Manchus took Beijing from the north and became masters of north China, establishing the last imperial dynasty, the Qing (1644- 1911).

The Rise of the Manchus

Although the Manchus were not Han Chinese and were strongly resisted, especially in the south, they had assimilated a great deal of Chinese culture before conquering China Proper. Realizing that to dominate the empire they would have to do things the Chinese way, the Manchus retained many institutions of Ming and earlier Chinese derivation. They continued the Confucian court practices and temple rituals, over which the emperors had traditionally presided.

The Manchus continued the Confucian civil service system. Although Chinese were barred from the highest offices, Chinese officials predominated over Manchu officeholders outside the capital, except in military positions. The Neo-Confucian philosophy, emphasizing the obedience of subject to ruler, was enforced as the state creed. The Manchu emperors also supported Chinese literary and historical projects of enormous scope; the survival of much of China's ancient literature is attributed to these projects.

Ever suspicious of Han Chinese, the Qing rulers put into effect measures aimed at preventing the absorption of the Manchus into the dominant Han Chinese population. Han Chinese were prohibited from migrating into the Manchu homeland, and Manchus were forbidden to engage in trade or manual labor. Intermarriage between the two groups was forbidden. In many government positions a system of dual appointments was used--the Chinese appointee was required to do the substantive work and the Manchu to ensure Han loyalty to Qing rule.

The Qing regime was determined to protect itself not only from internal rebellion but also from foreign invasion. After China Proper had been subdued, the Manchus conquered Outer Mongolia (now the Mongolian People's Republic) in the late seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century they gained control of Central Asia as far as the Pamir Mountains and established a protectorate over the area the Chinese call Xizang but commonly known in the West as Tibet. The Qing thus became the first dynasty to eliminate successfully all danger to China Proper from across its land borders. Under Manchu rule the empire grew to include a larger area than before or since; Taiwan, the last outpost of anti-Manchu resistance, was also incorporated into China for the first time. In addition, Qing emperors received tribute from the various border states.

The chief threat to China's integrity did not come overland, as it had so often in the past, but by sea, reaching the southern coastal area first. Western traders, missionaries, and soldiers of fortune began to arrive in large numbers even before the Qing, in the sixteenth century. The empire's inability to evaluate correctly the nature of the new challenge or to respond flexibly to it resulted in the demise of the Qing and the collapse of the entire millennia-old framework of dynastic rule.

Emergence of Modern China

The success of the Qing dynasty in maintaining the old order proved a liability when the empire was confronted with growing challenges from seafaring Western powers. The centuries of peace and self-satisfaction dating back to Ming times had encouraged little change in the attitudes of the ruling elite. The imperial Neo-Confucian scholars accepted as axiomatic the cultural superiority of Chinese civilization and the position of the empire at the hub of their perceived world. To question this assumption, to suggest innovation, or to promote the adoption of foreign ideas was viewed as tantamount to heresy. Imperial purges dealt severely with those who deviated from orthodoxy.

By the nineteenth century, China was experiencing growing internal pressures of economic origin. By the start of the century, there were over 300 million Chinese, but there was no industry or trade of sufficient scope to absorb the surplus labor. Moreover, the scarcity of land led to widespread rural discontent and a breakdown in law and order. The weakening through corruption of the bureaucratic and military systems and mounting urban pauperism also contributed to these disturbances. Localized revolts erupted in various parts of the empire in the early nineteenth century. Secret societies, such as the White Lotus sect in the north and the Triad Society in the south, gained ground, combining anti-Manchu subversion with banditry.

The Western Powers Arrive

As elsewhere in Asia, in China the Portuguese were the pioneers, establishing a foothold at Macao (Aomen), from which they monopolized foreign trade at the Chinese port of Guangzhou (Canton). Soon the Spanish arrived, followed by the British and the French.

Trade between China and the West was carried on in the guise of tribute: foreigners were obliged to follow the elaborate, centuries-old ritual imposed on envoys from China's tributary states. There was no conception at the imperial court that the Europeans would expect or deserve to be treated as cultural or political equals. The sole exception was Russia, the most powerful inland neighbor.

The Manchus were sensitive to the need for security along the northern land frontier and therefore were prepared to be realistic in dealing with Russia. The Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) with the Russians, drafted to bring to an end a series of border incidents and to establish a border between Siberia and Manchuria (northeast China) along the Heilong Jiang (Amur River), was China's first bilateral agreement with a European power. In 1727 the Treaty of Kiakhta delimited the remainder of the eastern portion of the Sino- Russian border. Western diplomatic efforts to expand trade on equal terms were rebuffed, the official Chinese assumption being that the empire was not in need of foreign--and thus inferior--products. Despite this attitude, trade flourished, even though after 1760 all foreign trade was confined to Guangzhou, where the foreign traders had to limit their dealings to a dozen officially licensed Chinese merchant firms.

Trade was not the sole basis of contact with the West. Since the thirteenth century, Roman Catholic missionaries had been attempting to establish their church in China. Although by 1800 only a few hundred thousand Chinese had been converted, the missionaries--mostly Jesuits--contributed greatly to Chinese knowledge in such fields as cannon casting, calendar making, geography, mathematics, cartography, music, art, and architecture. The Jesuits were especially adept at fitting Christianity into a Chinese framework and were condemned by a papal decision in 1704 for having tolerated the continuance of Confucian ancestor rites among Christian converts. The papal decision quickly weakened the Christian movement, which it proscribed as heterodox and disloyal.

The Opium War, 1839- 1842

During the eighteenth century, the market in Europe and America for tea, a new drink in the West, expanded greatly. Additionally, there was a continuing demand for Chinese silk and porcelain. But China, still in its pre-industrial stage, wanted little that the West had to offer, causing the Westerners, mostly British, to incur an unfavorable balance of trade. To remedy the situation, the foreigners developed a third-party trade, exchanging their merchandise in India and Southeast Asia for raw materials and semi processed goods, which found a ready market in Guangzhou. By the early nineteenth century, raw cotton and opium from India had become the staple British imports into China, in spite of the fact that opium was prohibited entry by imperial decree. The opium traffic was made possible through the connivance of profit-seeking merchants and a corrupt bureaucracy.

In 1839 the Qing government, after a decade of unsuccessful anti-opium campaigns, adopted drastic prohibitory laws against the opium trade. The emperor dispatched a commissioner, Lin Zexu (1785- 1850), to Guangzhou to suppress illicit opium traffic. Lin seized illegal stocks of opium owned by Chinese dealers and then detained the entire foreign community and confiscated and destroyed some 20,000 chests of illicit British opium. The British retaliated with a punitive expedition, thus initiating the first Anglo-Chinese war, better known as the Opium War (1839-42). Unprepared for war and grossly underestimating the capabilities of the enemy, the Chinese were disastrously defeated, and their image of their own imperial power was tarnished beyond repair. The Treaty of Nanjing (1842), signed on board a British warship by two Manchu imperial commissioners and the British plenipotentiary, was the first of a series of agreements with the Western trading nations later called by the Chinese the "unequal treaties." Under the Treaty of Nanjing, China ceded the island of Hong Kong (Xianggang) to the British; abolished the licensed monopoly system of trade; opened 5 ports to British residence and foreign trade; limited the tariff on trade to 5 percent ad valorem; granted British nationals extraterritoriality (exemption from Chinese laws); and paid a large indemnity. In addition, Britain was to have most-favored-nation treatment, that is, it would receive whatever trading concessions the Chinese granted other powers then or later. The Treaty of Nanjing set the scope and character of an unequal relationship for the ensuing century of what the Chinese would call "national humiliations." The treaty was followed by other incursions, wars, and treaties that granted new concessions and added new privileges for the foreigners.

The Taiping Rebellion, 1851- 1864

During the mid-nineteenth century, China's problems were compounded by natural calamities of unprecedented proportions, including droughts, famines, and floods. Government neglect of public works was in part responsible for this and other disasters, and the Qing administration did little to relieve the widespread misery caused by them. Economic tensions, military defeats at Western hands, and anti-Manchu sentiments all combined to produce widespread unrest, especially in the south. South China had been the last area to yield to the Qing conquerors and the first to be exposed to Western influence. It provided a likely setting for the largest uprising in modern Chinese history- the Taiping Rebellion.

The Taiping rebels were led by Hong Xiuquan (1814-64), a village teacher and unsuccessful imperial examination candidate. Hong formulated an eclectic ideology combining the ideals of pre-Confucian utopianism with Protestant beliefs. He soon had a following in the thousands who were heavily anti-Manchu and antiestablishment . Hong's followers formed a military organization to protect against bandits and recruited troops not only among believers but also from among other armed peasant groups and secret societies. In 1851 Hong Xiuquan and others launched an uprising in Guizhou Province. Hong proclaimed the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace (Taiping Tianguo, or Taiping for short) with himself as king. The new order was to reconstitute a legendary ancient state in which the peasantry owned and tilled the land in common; slavery, concubinage, arranged marriage, opium smoking, foot binding, judicial torture, and the worship of idols were all to be eliminated. The Taiping tolerance of the esoteric rituals and quasi-religious societies of south China--themselves a threat to Qing stability--and their relentless attacks on Confucianism--still widely accepted as the moral foundation of Chinese behavior-- contributed to the ultimate defeat of the rebellion. Its advocacy of radical social reforms alienated the Han Chinese scholar-gentry class. The Taiping army, although it had captured Nanjing and driven as far north as Tianjin, failed to establish stable base areas. The movement's leaders found themselves in a net of internal feuds, defections, and corruption. Additionally, British and French forces, being more willing to deal with the weak Qing administration than contend with the uncertainties of a Taiping regime, came to the assistance of the imperial army. Before the Chinese army succeeded in crushing the revolt, however, 14 years had passed, and well over 30 million people were reported killed.

To defeat the rebellion, the Qing court needed, besides Western help, an army stronger and more popular than the demoralized imperial forces. In 1860, scholar-official Zeng Guofan (1811-72), from Hunan Province, was appointed imperial commissioner and governor-general of the Taiping-controlled territories and placed in command of the war against the rebels. Zeng's Hunan army, created and paid for by local taxes, became a powerful new fighting force under the command of eminent scholar-generals. Zeng's success gave new power to an emerging Han Chinese elite and eroded Qing authority. Simultaneous uprisings in north China (the Nian Rebellion) and southwest China (the Muslim Rebellion) further demonstrated Qing weakness.

The Self-Strengthening Movement

The rude realities of the Opium War, the unequal treaties, and the mid-century mass uprisings caused Qing courtiers and officials to recognize the need to strengthen China. Chinese scholars and officials had been examining and translating "Western learning" since the 1840s. Under the direction of modern-thinking Han officials, Western science and languages were studied, special schools were opened in the larger cities, and arsenals, factories, and shipyards were established according to Western models. Western diplomatic practices were adopted by the Qing, and students were sent abroad by the government and on individual or community initiative in the hope that national regeneration could be achieved through the application of Western practical methods.

Amid these activities came an attempt to arrest the dynastic decline by restoring the traditional order. The effort was known as the Tongzhi Restoration, named for the Tongzhi Emperor (1862-74), and was engineered by the young emperor's mother, the Empress Dowager Ci Xi (1835-1908). The restoration, however, which applied "practical knowledge" while reaffirming the old mentality, was not a genuine program of modernization.

The effort to graft Western technology onto Chinese institutions became known as the Self-Strengthening Movement. The movement was championed by scholar-generals like Li Hongzhang (1823-1901) and Zuo Zongtang (1812-85), who had fought with the government forces in the Taiping Rebellion. From 1861 to 1894, leaders such as these, now turned scholar-administrators, were responsible for establishing modern institutions, developing basic industries, communications, and transportation, and modernizing the military. But despite its leaders' accomplishments, the Self Strengthening Movement did not recognize the significance of the political institutions and social theories that had fostered Western advances and innovations. This weakness led to the movement's failure. Modernization during this period would have been difficult under the best of circumstances. The bureaucracy was still deeply influenced by Neo-Confucian orthodoxy. Chinese society was still reeling from the ravages of the Taiping and other rebellions, and foreign encroachments continued to threaten the integrity of China.

The first step in the foreign powers' effort to carve up the empire was taken by Russia, which had been expanding into Central Asia. By the 1850s, tsarist troops also had invaded the Heilong Jiang watershed of Manchuria, from which their countrymen had been ejected under the Treaty of Nerchinsk. The Russians used the superior knowledge of China they had acquired through their century-long residence in Beijing to further their aggrandizement. In 1860 Russian diplomats secured the secession of all of Manchuria north of the Heilong Jiang and east of the Wusuli Jiang (Ussuri River). Foreign encroachments increased after 1860 by means of a series of treaties imposed on China on one pretext or another. The foreign stranglehold on the vital sectors of the Chinese economy was reinforced through a lengthening list of concessions. Foreign settlements in the treaty ports became extraterritorial--sovereign pockets of territories over which China had no jurisdiction. The safety of these foreign settlements was ensured by the menacing presence of warships and gunboats.

At this time the foreign powers also took over the peripheral states that had acknowledged Chinese suzerainty and given tribute to the emperor. France colonized Cochin China, as southern Vietnam was then called, and by 1864 established a protectorate over Cambodia. Following a victorious war against China in 1884-85, France also took Annam. Britain gained control over Burma. Russia penetrated into Chinese Turkestan (the modern-day Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region). Japan, having emerged from its century-and-a- half-long seclusion and having gone through its own modernization movement, defeated China in the war of 1894-95. The Treaty of Shimonoseki forced China to cede Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to Japan, pay a huge indemnity, permit the establishment of Japanese industries in four treaty ports, and recognize Japanese hegemony over Korea. In 1898 the British acquired a ninety-nine-year lease over the so-called New Territories of Kowloon (Jiulong in pinyin), which increased the size of their Hong Kong colony. Britain, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, and Belgium each gained spheres of influence in China. The United States, which had not acquired any territorial cessions, proposed in 1899 that there be an "open door" policy in China, whereby all foreign countries would have equal duties and privileges in all treaty ports within and outside the various spheres of influence. All but Russia agreed to the United States overture.

The Hundred Days' Reform and the Aftermath

In the 103 days from June 11 to September 21, 1898, the Qing emperor, Guangxu (1875-1908), ordered a series of reforms aimed at making sweeping social and institutional changes. This effort reflected the thinking of a group of progressive scholar-reformers who had impressed the court with the urgency of making innovations for the nation's survival. Influenced by the Japanese success with modernization, the reformers declared that China needed more than "self-strengthening" and that innovation must be accompanied by institutional and ideological change.

The imperial edicts for reform covered a broad range of subjects, including stamping out corruption and remaking, among other things, the academic and civil-service examination systems, legal system, governmental structure, defense establishment, and postal services. The edicts attempted to modernize agriculture, medicine, and mining and to promote practical studies instead of Neo-Confucian orthodoxy. The court also planned to send students abroad for firsthand observation and technical studies. All these changes were to be brought about under a de facto constitutional monarchy.

Opposition to the reform was intense among the conservative ruling elite, especially the Manchus, who, in condemning the announced reform as too radical, proposed instead a more moderate and gradualist course of change. Supported by ultraconservatives and with the tacit support of the political opportunist Yuan Shikai (1859-1916), Empress Dowager Ci Xi engineered a coup d'etat on September 21, 1898, forcing the young reform-minded Guangxu into seclusion. Ci Xi took over the government as regent. The Hundred Days' Reform ended with the rescindment of the new edicts and the execution of six of the reform's chief advocates. The two principal leaders, Kang Youwei (1858-1927) and Liang Qichao (1873-1929), fled abroad to found the Baohuang Hui (Protect the Emperor Society) and to work, unsuccessfully, for a constitutional monarchy in China.

The Boxer Rebellion, 1899- 1901

The conservatives then gave clandestine backing to the anti-foreign and anti-Christian movement of secret societies known as Yihetuan (Society of Righteousness and Harmony). The movement has been better known in the West as the Boxers (from an earlier name--Yihequan, Righteousness and Harmony Boxers). In 1900 Boxer bands spread over the north China countryside, burning missionary facilities and killing Chinese Christians. Finally, in June 1900, the Boxers besieged the foreign concessions in Beijing and Tianjin, an action that provoked an allied relief expedition by the offended nations. The Qing declared war against the invaders, who easily crushed their opposition and occupied north China. Under the Protocol of 1901, the court was made to consent to the execution of ten high officials and the punishment of hundreds of others, expansion of the Legation Quarter, payment of war reparations, stationing of foreign troops in China, and razing of some Chinese fortifications.

In the decade that followed, the court belatedly put into effect some reform measures. These included the abolition of the moribund Confucian-based examination, educational and military modernization patterned after the model of Japan, and an experiment, if half-hearted, in constitutional and parliamentary government. The suddenness and ambitiousness of the reform effort actually hindered its success. One effect, to be felt for decades to come, was the establishment of new armies, which, in turn, gave rise to warlordism.

The Republican Revolution of 1911

Failure of reform from the top and the fiasco of the Boxer Uprising convinced many Chinese that the only real solution lay in outright revolution, in sweeping away the old order and erecting a new one patterned preferably after the example of Japan. The revolutionary leader was Sun Yat-sen (Sun Yixian, 1866- 1925), a republican and anti-Qing activist who became increasingly popular among the overseas Chinese and Chinese students abroad, especially in Japan. In 1905 Sun founded the Tongmeng Hui (United League) in Tokyo with Huang Xing (1874-1916), a popular leader of the Chinese revolutionary movement in Japan, as his deputy. This movement, generously supported by overseas Chinese funds, also gained political support with regional military officers and some of the reformers who had fled China after the Hundred Days' Reform. Sun's political philosophy was conceptualized in 1897, first enunciated in Tokyo in 1905, and modified through the early 1920s. It centered on the Three Principles of the People (san min zhuyi): "nationalism, democracy, and people's livelihood." The principle of nationalism called for overthrowing the Manchus and ending foreign hegemony over China. The second principle, democracy, was used to describe Sun's goal of a popularly elected republican form of government. People's livelihood, often referred to as socialism, was aimed at helping the common people through regulation of the ownership of the means of production and land.

The republican revolution broke out on October 10, 1911, in Wuchang, the capital of Hubei Province, among discontented modernized army units whose anti-Qing plot had been uncovered. It had been preceded by numerous abortive uprisings and organized protests inside China. The revolt quickly spread to neighboring cities, and Tongmeng Hui members throughout the country rose in immediate support of the Wuchang revolutionary forces. By late November, fifteen of the twenty-four provinces had declared their independence of the Qing empire. A month later, Sun Yat-sen returned to China from the United States, where he had been raising funds among overseas Chinese and American sympathizers. On January 1, 1912, Sun was inaugurated in Nanjing as the provisional president of the new Chinese republic. But power in Beijing already had passed to the commander-in-chief of the imperial army, Yuan Shikai, the strongest regional military leader at the time. To prevent civil war and possible foreign intervention from undermining the infant republic, Sun agreed to Yuan's demand that China be united under a Beijing government headed by Yuan. On February 12, 1912, the last Manchu emperor, the child Puyi, abdicated. On March 10, in Beijing, Yuan Shikai was sworn in as provisional president of the Republic of China.

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