History of Manchu China

[astralis]

mihais, rollingwave,

What I'd like to ask is why China didn't turned more like Japan in the sense of maintaining the Imperial institution while searching for modernization?Japan also suffered humiliation at foreign hands,albeit not as severe as China,but still...

late qing modernization (and for that matter, most of the fighting) were done by the provincial governor-generals, not by the center. there was an uneven amount of pressure to modernize, so you had a polyglot where some governors (like li hongzhang, viceroy of zhili, one of the strongest and wealthiest of the chinese provinces) modernized and the rest didn't.

the japanese equivalent, the old daimyos, were duking it out for power in the Boshin War and had every incentive to modernize.

the revolutionary period around the meiji era also forced the japanese to reform politically, whereas the chinese only started to do so once their most competent governors were passing away and it became clear that without their leadership, the chinese state would explode. which it did anyway.

[astralis]

rollingwave,

in China it meant toppling the ruling dynasty, and both went into a state of civil war due to that, but Japan was able to claim the situation much sooner, there's where as in China the situation was not truely settled until 1949.

interesting note, the qing wrote up a constitution in 1908 that not-so-subtly copied from the meiji one. to include that the qing emperors were descended from an ancient inviolable line and would rule eternally. no mention of mandate of heaven.

in any case, i'd give CKS some credit, too, for settling the civil war. the KMT cleanup campaigns of the late 20s/the northern expedition pretty much cut down the field so that when mao beat chiang he had no other warlords to deal with.

[Mihais]

Thanks.What was very interesting to observe was the Qing system of division of power,each warlord with its own army or navy.The naval battle of Foochow showed the limitations of it.
Why the pool of talented individuals suddenly dried then?It may seem like an old prejudice,like the colonel mentioned,but Chinese bureaucracy was a well established institution.They might not have been particularly keen or able to understand the modern world,but you could almost always find exceptional individuals to promote.

[astralis]

mihais,

Why the pool of talented individuals suddenly dried then?It may seem like an old prejudice,like the colonel mentioned,but Chinese bureaucracy was a well established institution.They might not have been particularly keen or able to understand the modern world,but you could almost always find exceptional individuals to promote.

the problem was that the governor-generals of the period had hung on to power so long that there was no one half as capable that could take over. no one ever replaced li hongzhang (known back then as "china's bismarck") for instance. and after 1905, the imperial tests for the bureaucracy were eliminated.

they all died at a particularly bad time for china, when the old dowager empress cixi also passed away. she was one mean b*tch, no question about it...but once she went (and the Emperor having died months before her) there was no one either at the helm, or at the provinces.

[kyli]

Even though the provincial governor-generals enjoyed consideration powers in Qing Dynasty, their true powers and independence were resulted from the Taiping Rebellion. In the late Qing, dowager empress Cixi and the bureaucrats were increasingly relying on the provincial governor-generals to exert controls over the country. The Boxer Rebellion could be viewed as how little control Cixi had over provincial governor-generals.

China's struggles to implement the top-down modernization were resulted from its significantly weakened position after decades of wars(Taping Rebellion, Nien Rebellion and Panthay Rebellion and Cixi's intentionally explored the divisions of the powerful governor generals. As a result, these powerful governor generals only wanted to maintain status quo instead of challenging the Qing.

[Persey]

I've decided to concentrate on the period between 907-960 AD.

Here is the intro paragraph to my paper...

Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907-960 AD)

During this period, there were many short lived dynasties and kingdoms as rival warlords and army commanders fought for power. North China was ruled by a succession of 5 brief dynasties, while South China was divided into 10 kingdoms.

Thoughts and/or suggestions??? :)

[gunnut]

Hi,

I actually need help with the history of Manchu China and Siberia.

I am doing a paper on "military conquests of Manchu China and Siberia".

Any info regarding this subject would be greatly appreciated. Specifically, who ruled during each conquest and for how long. Details of the conquests would be
great as well.

Thanks! :)

Did you try starting from here?

Qing Dynasty - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kanxi's China was a powerful nation. Expanding into Russia. His decendants weren't as capable at maintaining the empire.

The Empress Dowager Cixi was a big reason for the end of Qing. Let's just say she's not Queen Victoria.

[gunnut]

I've decided to concentrate on the period between 907-960 AD.

Here is the intro paragraph to my paper...

Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907-960 AD)

During this period, there were many short lived dynasties and kingdoms as rival warlords and army commanders fought for power. North China was ruled by a succession of 5 brief dynasties, while South China was divided into 10 kingdoms.

Thoughts and/or suggestions??? :)

Yeah...they weren't Manchus...

[troung]

From Manchus to Turks in a single bound.

[Persey]

Yeah...they weren't Manchus...

Yeah, I know. Officer of Engineers convinced me to go in another direction.

[gunnut]

Yeah, I know. Officer of Engineers convinced me to go in another direction.

I think he meant another direction as in trace the failure of Qing backwards in time from the unequal treaties with foreign powers to the ultimate root cause in the beginning. There's the cultural issue, Chinese, especially the Hans (Manchus were influenced by Hans), believe they have the superior culture and there's nothing to be learned from the "barbarians." There were the famines that turn farmers into desperados. There was the court intrigue that resulted in a concubine ruling one of the largest empires in the world.

The first Opium War started the ball rolling. But what was the root cause of the Opium War?

[kyli]

The first Opium War started the ball rolling. But what was the root cause of the Opium War?

What else, Capitalism.

[RollingWave]

Thanks.What was very interesting to observe was the Qing system of division of power,each warlord with its own army or navy.The naval battle of Foochow showed the limitations of it.
Why the pool of talented individuals suddenly dried then?It may seem like an old prejudice,like the colonel mentioned,but Chinese bureaucracy was a well established institution.They might not have been particularly keen or able to understand the modern world,but you could almost always find exceptional individuals to promote.

As being pointed out, it was a series of event, you can not seperate the first from the later, what happened was...

A. The Taiping rebellion

B. Due to the erosion of the Qing's own military and politics, they could not contain the rebellion effectively with their avalible tool.

C. The result was that the only avalible option left was to grant indivdual governor and provinces greater independence, so they can go into total war mode and screw all the checks and balances.

D. It worked to the extend that the mobilzed local forces suceeded in restoring order, but once you open the pandora's box there's no real going back. the locally raised armies became rather privatized and the bases of the new BeiYang Army (and the future warlords). and the Qing effectively lost control of the southern provinces.

E. the Governors due to now much great independence can do things as they see fit, thus you see the spat of apparently competent governors towards the end.... because they can do things with much lesser limitations then their predecessors.

F. The Qing however, obviously want to reverse this trend. its never a great idea for any state to have local areas with such great independence... espeically in military.

G. Thus the next generation lacked such power as the court tries desperatly to reel back power to the central government, and the rejection of this trend was really the final spark to the revolution more than anything else.

I think he meant another direction as in trace the failure of Qing backwards in time from the unequal treaties with foreign powers to the ultimate root cause in the beginning. There's the cultural issue, Chinese, especially the Hans (Manchus were influenced by Hans), believe they have the superior culture and there's nothing to be learned from the "barbarians." There were the famines that turn farmers into desperados. There was the court intrigue that resulted in a concubine ruling one of the largest empires in the world.

The first Opium War started the ball rolling. But what was the root cause of the Opium War?

The Opium war is really a issue of unequal trade coupled with the lack of real international game rules, The British was losing silver at a pretty serious rate to China on the tea trade, with no real hope of China buying their products in return as China was a pretty darn self sufficent market.

So they resorted to Opium, even within the UK and US (yes the US was also part of the trading network by then, in fact the begining of Turkey based import mostly ran by the US was part of the tipping point to the war as sales went up to the point the Qing government could no longer overlook the situation.). There was quite a bit of backlash against a blantant obvious war to protect an obviously illegal trade network. But the hard line actions taken by the newly appointed Chinese minister Lin had forced the British's hand.

[Maeda Toshiie]

Did you try starting from here?

Qing Dynasty - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kanxi's China was a powerful nation. Expanding into Russia. His decendants weren't as capable at maintaining the empire.

The Empress Dowager Cixi was a big reason for the end of Qing. Let's just say she's not Queen Victoria.

Erm, nowadays, I don't consider using wiki as a starting point in research for college level and above work. It might work for subjects that most care less about (eg science and engineering in the not too hot fields and so less fanboi edits by idiots) but not for highly contentious topics such as history.

Library, freaking library.


As for Cixi, she kept the crumbling pieces together for a while longer. The rot set in way earlier and that rot was not something Guangxu could simply remove with reforms anytime soon. If Cixi died shortly after the Boxer Uprising and Guangxu took over, there is a good chance either a civil would have resulted or he'd be kicked out after a coup.

[RollingWave]

Erm, nowadays, I don't consider using wiki as a starting point in research for college level and above work. It might work for subjects that most care less about (eg science and engineering in the not too hot fields and so less fanboi edits by idiots) but not for highly contentious topics such as history.

Library, freaking library.


As for Cixi, she kept the crumbling pieces together for a while longer. The rot set in way earlier and that rot was not something Guangxu could simply remove with reforms anytime soon. If Cixi died shortly after the Boxer Uprising and Guangxu took over, there is a good chance either a civil would have resulted or he'd be kicked out after a coup.

Well, Wiki is a good place to start if you have no clue to the subject at all, as it at least does usually do a decent job of sumerizing the topic. where as most books in college / university level libraries probably assume you already know at least the basic premise of the subject and often more.

And yeah, Cixi was sorta like the Nicholas II of the Qing, a person that was clearly not incompetent but was dealt a horrible hand that there was really no way to play out of. If it weren't for her the Qing probably ended around the 1880s anyway. which may or may not have been a bad thing (doubtful that it would be that much better though. can you imagine if the Taiping actually won?? they make Mao look rational.)