An outline, era by era

China

late Ming, then Qing dynasty (1644)

Early Modern Era · ~1500 – ~1800

This entry covers China from the late Ming dynasty to the rise of the Qing dynasty in 1644. The Ming (1368 to 1644) was a native Chinese dynasty that ruled a huge agrarian empire, with a growing market economy tied to world trade through American silver. In the early 1600s the dynasty was strained by fiscal troubles, factional politics, famine and rebellion, and by the pressure of the Manchu state rising in the northeast.

In 1644 rebels led by Li Zicheng took Beijing, the last Ming emperor killed himself, and Manchu forces entered the capital. The Qing dynasty, founded by Manchus, went on to conquer the rest of China and ruled until 1912. Its early emperors, especially Kangxi and Qianlong, expanded the empire into Central Asia and Tibet and presided over a large population increase. This period shaped the borders and institutions of modern China.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. The Ming turn to silver and the Single Whip reform

    Event

    What happened

    In the sixteenth century the Ming government gradually converts taxes and labour service into payments in silver. The reform, called the Single Whip, is spread by officials in many regions from the 1550s and is adopted widely under the chief grand secretary Zhang Juzheng in the 1580s. At the same time, large amounts of silver reach China from Japan and, after 1571, from Spanish America through Manila.

    The rest is history

    The silver economy encouraged commerce and the growth of markets, but it also made the state dependent on foreign supply. When silver imports fell in the early seventeenth century, many historians argue, prices and tax burdens shifted and hardship rose, though the size of this effect is debated. These pressures formed part of the background to the crises that ended the Ming.

    Sources

    1. BookHuang, Ray. Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth-Century Ming China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
    2. Bookvon Glahn, Richard. Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000-1700. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

  2. The Wanli reign and the Korean war

    Event

    What happened

    The Wanli emperor reigns from 1572 to 1620. From 1592 Japan under Toyotomi Hideyoshi invades Korea, and Ming armies are sent to help the Korean court, with fighting lasting until 1598. Meanwhile the emperor increasingly withholds himself from court business, and many official posts go unfilled.

    The rest is history

    The Korean campaigns were costly, and with other wars of the period they drained the treasury. Factional disputes among officials grew, notably around the Donglin movement. Historians such as Ray Huang saw the Wanli years as a time when the government's capacity weakened, setting the stage for the dynasty's later collapse.

    Sources

    1. BookHuang, Ray. 1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981.
    2. BookTwitchett, Denis, and Frederick W. Mote, eds. The Cambridge History of China, Volume 8: The Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644, Part 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

  3. Nurhaci and the founding of the Later Jin

    Event

    What happened

    Nurhaci, a Jurchen leader in the northeast, unites many Jurchen groups in the late sixteenth century. In 1601 he begins organising his people into military units called banners, and in 1616 he proclaims the Later Jin state. In 1619 he defeats a large Ming army at Sarhu.

    The rest is history

    His son Hong Taiji continued the expansion, adopted the name Manchu for his people in 1635 and proclaimed the Qing dynasty in 1636. The banner system gave the Manchus a disciplined army that included Mongol and Chinese bannermen. This state was ready to act when Ming rule collapsed in 1644.

    Sources

    1. BookElliott, Mark C. The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
    2. BookCrossley, Pamela Kyle. A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

  4. Famine, rebellion and the fall of Beijing

    Event

    What happened

    In the 1620s and 1630s drought, famine and unpaid soldiers fuel revolts in northern and central China. Li Zicheng, a former post-station worker, becomes the leading rebel and declares a new dynasty in Xi'an in early 1644. In April 1644 his forces enter Beijing, and the Chongzhen emperor hangs himself on a hill behind the Forbidden City.

    The rest is history

    Wu Sangui, the Ming general guarding the Shanhai Pass against the Manchus, then allied with the Qing regent Dorgon, and their combined force defeated Li Zicheng near the pass. Qing forces entered Beijing in June 1644, and the Qing court soon moved there. Li Zicheng's regime in Beijing had lasted only weeks.

    Sources

    1. BookWakeman, Frederic. The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
    2. BookStruve, Lynn A. The Southern Ming, 1644-1662. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.

  5. The Qing conquest of the south

    Event

    What happened

    After taking Beijing, Qing armies move south. In 1645 they capture Yangzhou and Nanjing, where Ming princes had set up a rival court. In 1645 the Qing orders men to adopt the Manchu hairstyle, with the front of the head shaved and a queue worn at the back. Resistance, Ming loyalist regimes and local risings continue in the south for years.

    The rest is history

    The Southern Ming courts were defeated one after another, and the last claimant was killed in 1662. Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga), a loyalist, held out on the coast and in 1661 to 1662 drove the Dutch from Taiwan. His family's regime there fell to the Qing in 1683. The Three Feudatories revolt (1673 to 1681) was also suppressed, completing Qing control.

    Sources

    1. BookStruve, Lynn A. The Southern Ming, 1644-1662. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.
    2. BookAndrade, Tonio. Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China's First Great Victory over the West. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.

  6. The Kangxi emperor consolidates Qing rule

    Event

    What happened

    The Kangxi emperor takes the throne as a child in 1661 and rules until 1722. He ends the regency of Oboi in 1669 and defeats the Three Feudatories. In 1689 the Treaty of Nerchinsk sets a border with Russia, and in the 1690s he campaigns against the Zunghar leader Galdan.

    The rest is history

    Kangxi won the cooperation of Chinese scholars by sponsoring projects such as the Kangxi Dictionary and the Ming History. The Qing then kept expanding under Yongzheng and Qianlong, taking Xinjiang in the 1750s. By the late eighteenth century the empire was the largest in Chinese history.

    Sources

    1. BookSpence, Jonathan D. Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K'ang-hsi. New York: Knopf, 1974.
    2. BookPerdue, Peter C. China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.

  7. The Canton system of trade

    Event

    What happened

    After Qing control of Taiwan in 1683, the court lifts its coastal trade ban. In 1757 the Qianlong emperor limits European trade to the port of Canton (Guangzhou), where foreign merchants deal with a licensed guild of Chinese merchants known as the Cohong. Tea, silk and porcelain flow out, and silver flows in.

    The rest is history

    The arrangement lasted until the First Opium War ended it with the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842. In 1793 the Macartney embassy from Britain sought wider trade and was turned down. Historians debate how far the system reflected Chinese suspicion of foreigners, and how far it was a practical way to manage trade.

    Sources

    1. BookVan Dyke, Paul A. The Canton Trade: Life and Enterprise on the China Coast, 1700-1845. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005.
    2. BookHevia, James L. Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.

  8. Population growth and the Qing high age

    Event

    What happened

    Under the Qing, China's population grows strongly through the eighteenth century, helped by peace, new crops from the Americas such as maize and sweet potatoes, and the opening of new farmland. The Yongzheng emperor folds the head tax into the land tax in the 1720s.

    The rest is history

    Estimates suggest a rise from perhaps 150 million around 1700 to some 300 million or more by 1800, though figures are uncertain. Pressure on land led to migration into highlands and frontier regions. Historians link the strain of this growth to the unrest of the late 1700s, including the White Lotus Rebellion that began in 1796.

    Sources

    1. BookRowe, William T. China's Last Empire: The Great Qing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
    2. BookHo, Ping-ti. Studies on the Population of China, 1368-1953. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959.

  9. Wu Sangui opens the gate for a beauty

    Popular belief

    The legend

    The story goes that Wu Sangui let the Manchus through the Shanhai Pass because Li Zicheng's men had seized his beloved concubine, Chen Yuanyuan. In rage he is said to have joined the Manchus to win her back.

    The rest is history

    The tale was popularised by the poet Wu Weiye's poem Song of Yuanyuan, written in the 1650s, and by later fiction. Chen Yuanyuan was a real courtesan, but historians stress strategic reasons for his choice. Li Zicheng had held Wu's father, and the Ming cause was clearly lost, and Wu faced both rebels and Manchus. He was later made a Qing prince and in 1673 rebelled against the Qing.

    Sources

    1. BookWakeman, Frederic. The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
    2. PrimaryWu Weiye. Yuanyuan qu (Song of Yuanyuan). Chinese poem, 1650s.

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