leaving the early modern period…• Dynasties founded by virtuous rulers;

corrupt heirs lose Mandate of Heaven; conquered by foreign invaders or peasant rebels

• Recent explanations: periods of extreme technological development, population growth, and economic & cultural change lead to political instability

• When conquerors were non-Han (often steppe people), they were only partly assimilated

• Legacy of middle period: China as a diverse, often conflicted, multiethnic empire

Part III: China in the World System -- the last dynastyQing (1644-1911)

The “16th-century crisis”?

• revolution in world monetary structures• sharp fluctuations in the levels of

international and domestic trade • dramatic increases in governmental

expenditure• significant changes in the growth rates and

geographical distribution of population• deteriorating climatic conditions• outbreaks of epidemic disease

Late-Ming problems and controversies

• Influx of foreign silver: destabilized Ming economy, led to rapid inflation

• Expense of foreign wars depleted imperial coffers, led to higher taxation

• Overtaxed farmers fled land, leading to decrease in food production

• “little ice age” of the 17th century• Widespread corruption, problem of

eunuchs

The Ming is attacked from within

• Li Zicheng: deserted soldier & unsuccessful official

• Becomes leader of a group of bandits in very remote part of the country

• 1644: attacks Peking; the last Ming emperor commits suicide

A Jurchen state takes shape• Considered themselves

descended from the Jin Dynasty

• Jurchen tribes mountain/nomadic: trappers, traders, gold, etc.

• By late Ming, start settling just north of the wall and become more sedentary & agricultural; intermarry with Chinese and adopt many elements of Chinese culture

• Still, not really a central, unifying political/military forceKorean painting of Jurchen warriors

Nurhaci (1559-1626)

• Rewarded by Ming for defending Korea from Japan

• Begins to expand power among Jurchen tribes

• Develops written Manchu script & declares himself “khan”

• Attacks Liaodong peninsula• Captures Shenyang

(1621), Liaoyang (1625); makes Shenyang his capital

Banner system

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Nurhaci leads the Battle of Sarhu (1619)

Nurhaci captures Liaoyang (1621)

Hong Taiji (1592-1643) & Sinification

• Establishes Chinese-style bureaucracy, with competitive examinations

• Hires Chinese advisors and establishes ethnic Chinese banners

• 1636: names his dynasty the “Qing”

• 1638: conquers Korea, forces tribute

• Begins raiding areas north of Peking, but cannot cross Great Wall

Dorgon

• Regent after Hong Taiji’s death

• Leads the armies that cross Great Wall, conquer China

aside on the Great Wall…

• 6,352 km (3,948 miles) long, from Shanhaiguan to Jiayuguan

• Average dimensions roughly 18 feet wide and 25 feet high, 40 feet high at the watchtowers

• Most watchtowers not garrisoned at any given time. Troops regularly redeployed between watchtowers. The goal was to keep invading enemy guessing how many defending soldiers might be occupying a given watchtower.

How the Manchus conquered China

• Ming court already been defeated by Li Zicheng

• Ming general Wu Sangui allows Qing to enter through Shanhai pass

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The queue – early, mid, late Qing

Manchus require Chinese to adopt queue—“keep your hair and lose your head”

Dress styles for Manchu women (below) – quite distinctive from Han Chinese (left)

Manchu women prohibited from binding their feet

Sinicization?

• Early adoption of Confucian bureaucratic style

• Most high officials ethnically Han

• Emphasis on proper Confucian ritual; persecution of heterodox religious groups

Kangxi Emperor as a scholar

Qianlong Emperor – more Chinese than Chinese

• Cultivation of both Chinese literary arts and Manchu martial culture

• Revival of Manchu language

• Patronage of Lamaist Buddhism

• Qianlong portrayed as the Buddha Thangka (Lord of Infinite Light, in celestial paradise)

The “small Potala” in Chengde, the Qing summer palace

Qing political & social institutions

• Emphasis on Confucian propriety and moral order

• Civil examination system girds state-gentry alliance

• Women’s roles – conservative reaction to late-Ming tolerance, anxiety regarding economic & social change

“Bureaucratic Veneer”

• one official for every 119,000 people (1700)

• After population explosion in 19th century, one official for every 320,000 (1900)

• Today, one official for every 2,000 people

Officials of the Zongli Yamen, in charge of foreign affairs, late 19th c.

Dealing with other ethnicities

• Lifanyuan—established in 1638 to administer relations with other non-Han groups

• Ethnic Han Chinese not allowed to settle in frontier areas like Xinjiang or Manchuria

Problems of foreign encroachment…

• By the seventeenth century, European traders trying to increase contact with East Asia and China

• Can Chinese leaders find a way to deal with foreigners outside tributary system?

Adam Brand, In the Presence of the Qing Emperor in Beijing, 1706

Arrival of the Jesuits, 1579• Come towards the

twilight of Ming rule• Emphasis on

Enlightenment science• Personified by the

great scholar Matteo Ricci (1552-1610); with Xu Guangqi, translated parts of Euclid's Elements into Chinese

Matteo Ricci & Xu Guangqi, frontspiece to their translation of the Elements

“Rites Controversy,” 1705-1706

• Could Chinese Christians still honor ancestors through home altars, etc.?

• Early Jesuits: ancestor tablets, etc. reflected respect, not idolatry

• Franciscans & Dominicans: idolatry, incompatible with Catholocism

• Why so heated on both sides?

• Christians: reflected European conflicts over proper religious practice, anxiety concerning dilution of Catholic doctrine

• China: Qing emperors concerned to protect Confucian orthodoxy

Tea Trade• Tea—80% of the China trade; trade surplus (In China’s

favor) was 16 million ounces of silver• By the late 1820’s, enough tea was imported to England

to give every man, woman, and child two pounds a year

Tea warehouse in Canton

Opium Trade

• First introduced to China in 1600’s, via Dutch; later produced in British colonies in India & elsewhere

• By early 1800’s, up to 3-5% of the population addicted

• Opium use & trade outlawed by Qing, but trade continued to grow

• By 1830’s, trade deficit (in China’s disfavor) was 9 million ounces of silver a year

First Opium War, 1839-1942

Treaty of Nanjing leads to unequal treaties and compromises Qing sovereignty

Rise of Japan as a modern threat

“After the Fall of Weihaiwei, the Commander of the Chinese Beiyang Fleet, Admiral Ding Juchang, Surrenders” after 1894-95 war

China in the age of imperialism

How would China modernize?

• Goal of a wealthy nation, strong military

• Chinese officials trying to find a way to modernize within tradition – preserve Confucianism, but adopt technology

Chinese POWs in Japanese captivity after the war

Late-Qing cartoon: temperatures rising, constitutionalism gaining

Fall of the Qing & Republic (1912-1949)

• Sun Yat-sen emerges as national leader

• Drive to repair China’s international stature, reclaim lost territory

• Nationalism• Socialism• Democracy—after a

period of military tutelage