Great Lecture on Chinese History: A Brief History of the Qing Dynasty

Author: Xia Jia?
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: The history of the Qing Dynasty spanning over two hundred years can broadly be divided into two periods: the early period before the Opium War of 1840 and the later period after 1840. The early Qing period can be further divided into three stages: the stage before 1644 in the Guandong region, the prosperous stage before 1796, and the stage of decline from then until 1840. The Guandong stage, although only a part of the Ming Dynasty history in the broader Chinese context, was the rise of the Qing Dynasty and had a significant impact on the development of the national situation at the time. In the prosperous stage, the suppression of the Revolt of the Three Feudatories and the implementation of the policy of "taxing land instead of people" marked political unification, stability, and economic recovery and development. The stage of decline began with the outbreak of the White Lotus Rebellion in five provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Hubei.
The later Qing period can also be divided into three stages: the stage of the "Celestial Empire's" dream shattered, the stage where the conservative faction both allied with and struggled against imperialism, and the stage where the entire court completely submitted to the exploitation of imperialism. The Second Opium War shattered the Qing rulers' long-held dream of their exclusive supremacy; before the Eight-Nation Alliance's attack on Beijing, the Qing conservative faction led by Empress Dowager Cixi, while allowing some officials to engage in Westernization, opposed any substantive reforms. After the Hundred Days' Reform, they even attempted to use the Boxer Movement to achieve their own supreme goals. Following the Boxer War and the Boxer Protocol, the Qing rulers became, in essence, the docile tools of imperialism for plunder and exploitation in China.