Chinese History for White People - Qing Dynasty

Until now, I've insisted quite strongly on the reliability of Chinese record keeping. But starting with Qing, that is no longer the case—for two reasons. The first is that the CCP censors “hate speech” against the Qing, so as to “prevent racial animosity against the Manchu citizens”¹. The second is that the Manchus found themselves in a situation not unlike the Mongols—a profoundly small ethnic minority ruling over a vast Han empire. And they decided the way to control this situation was by closing down public schools and removing everything from the curriculum except memorisation of Confucian philosophy². This had an impact on the record keeping.

The first Manchu Emperor, Aisin-Gioro³ Fulin, was a child, and the conquest and consolidation of the Empire were done by his regent, Prince Aisin-Gioro Dorgon. Initially, the transition was very smooth—preserving the capital bureaucracy in Beijing as well as having the support of Ming military defectors helps⁴. But the Manchu knew they occupied a precarious position, and held the Jurchen forces in reserve as much as possible as they battled the Ming rump state. Within a year of taking the throne, they issued the Queue Order, requiring men to prove their loyalty by shaving the front of their head bald in a Manchu style braid, and to wear Manchu clothing. To refuse to do so was seen as an expression of disloyalty to the new regime, punishable by death.

The Han viewed this order—which explicitly contradicted Confucian custom—as something of a cultural genocide. The Qing responded with extermination orders—most famously the Yangzhou⁵ massacre and the Jiading⁶ massacre. After this, what started as cultural resistance among Han became outright hatred, and refusing to cut hair became a mutually agreed upon symbol of rebellion. For women, the symbol of Han resistance was foot-binding, which took a memory of Ming's conservatism and intensified it into mutilation for women of every social class, not only upper class; even poor farmers would bind their daughters' feet. Men would carry their wives to the fields on their back, and the women would work through the day on their knees. The Qing opposed this practice from beginning to end, but could not enforce it as examining a maiden's feet was as intimate as examining her breasts. Once fully grown, the damage was, of course, irreversible.

Fulin died of smallpox at the age of 24, only a few short years after taking the throne from his regent. The next 3 Emperors would oversee what's considered the Golden Age of Qing, though by comparison to broader Chinese history, it is hardly anything of the sort. Fulin's successor, Aisin-Gioro Xuanye, was chosen because he had already survived smallpox⁷ as a child. He rebuilt a secret police to combat corruption, reemphasized Confucianism in the court to reconcile with the Han majority, encouraged birthrate by changing to an income tax rather than per person tax, and gave out subsidies for clearing new farmland. Aisin-Gioro Yinzhen wouldn't do too much of note, aside from being profoundly frugal and chasing down everyone who owed the government a debt. He also added some legal protections for prostitutes against caste discrimination.

In 1735, he would pass the throne to Aisin-Gioro Hongli. At that point in history, China was still the largest economy in the world. From this point on, that would swiftly deteriorate—thus the end of the “golden age”. Note that no technological progress of any kind was made even in this golden age—due to the Qing Inquisitions. These consisted of primarily of book burnings, as well as imprisoning people for memes⁸, and the campaign against literacy among Han people in general. But while Xuanye had 7 Inquisitions, and Yinzhen had 20, Hongli made it the focus of his reign⁹ with 130 Inquisitions¹⁰.

Hongli's reign also saw what might be the most corrupt man in history—at the very least in all of Chinese history. The infamous He Shen, who was simultaneously Minsiter of Revenue, Secretary of Defense, and at times even serving as regent. When the next Emperor, Aisin-Gioro Yongyan, finally arrested He Shen, they confiscated over 800 million taels of silver¹¹—equivalent to the entire revenue of the Qing government over 15 years. Yongyan is otherwise remembered for passing the prohibition on the rapidly growing problem of opium, giving Vietnam its name, and labeling Christianity as illegal sorcery, punishable by death to European missionaries and by enslavement to the Uyghur Muslims or Chinese Catholics.

But if there's one thing the British can't abide¹², it's obstruction of FREE TRADE. And since China had violated the Non-Aggression Principle by seizing their 2.37 million pounds of opium¹³, the Royal Navy launched an expedition in 1840 that would begin China's “Century of Humiliation”. Despite the fact that the Qing Navy was the largest in the world in both number of ships and size of ships, and the British 37 ship fleet scored a decisive victory. The British won for practically every reason you could name. They had superior technology due to Qing illiteracy and their ships were nearly twice as fast. China had not engaged in expansionist naval conquest and therefore were far less experienced than British Naval officers. As Minister of Revenue, He Shen had embezzled most of the defense spending, and because he was also Defense Minister, the Navy had no advocate to appeal to the Emperor against his corruption. Consequently, the vast majority of their gunpowder reserves turned out to be sand dyed black¹⁴.

To conclude the First Opium War, Emperor Aisin-Gioro Mianning signed the treaty of Nanking, which gave all British subjects in China indemnity and extraterritoriality¹⁵, as well as ceding Hong-Kong as British territory and paying 21 million dollars in reparations for war expenses and seized opium. Opium trade was still illegal for Chinese distributors, but China could not prosecute British (or American) opium merchants. This senseless prohibition (which was surely doomed to fail) frustrated FREE TRADE between consenting adults, which offended the sensibilities of western classical liberals.

In 1850, Aisin-Gioro Yizhu took the throne—and was immediately challenged by the largest rebellion in Chinese history—the Taiping rebellion. Which took the form of a Marxist Christian Theocracy.

Thirteen years prior, Hong Xiuquan—a Han scholar repeatedly rejected by the Qing imperial bureaucracy—had a very long fever dream where he met the god of Abraham¹⁶, who told him that Jesus was his older brother, and would instruct him on how to be a prophet so that Hong may slay the demons infesting China and rid it of its Confucian heresies. Jesus disapproved of Hong and beat him furiously, but God scolded Jesus so he reluctantly complied, being a strict and resentful teacher. Hong awoke from his fever a changed man, now full of grace and gentle mercy, only to encounter his first Christian missionary pamphlet 6 years later. Now with the proper context for his vision, he began aggressively evangelizing his Christian sect in open defiance of Qing law. When they tried to arrest his followers, they militarized¹⁷ instead of allowing themselves to be sold into slavery. The Qing army proved as toothless as their Navy, and were powerless¹⁸ when Taiping seceded entirely, organizing itself into an explicitly classless society that would repel the European capitalist imperialism and provide equality of outcome where the meek would be given according to their need¹⁹.

The Taiping built a strong and functional state in a short time, but made two fatal errors. First, all of its classless command structure started declaring themselves siblings to Jesus, and Hong found he couldn't contradict them without compromising his own legitimacy or falling to infighting. But this led to no small amount of dysfunction and subsequent corruption. Second—and more importantly—they successfully banned opium within their borders. This prompted the European powers²⁰ to directly finance the Qing military—even supplying modern weapons, officers, and soldiers. The rebellion continued for 14 years²¹, well into the next Emperor's reign, and the death toll is estimated to be between 20 and 30 million²², primarily by famine. Hong Xiuquan himself died of food poisoning while under siege, declaring to the end that God would save Nanjing.

While the Taiping Rebellion was ongoing, the Europeans wanted to renegotiate the Treaty of Nanking. The Casus Belli²³ are acknowledged to be mostly bullshit²⁴, though Qing held out a bit longer as Britain diverted their fleet to a much more pressing rebellion in India at the time. The American Commodore defied orders, breaking the US neutrality agreement and covering a British retreat of the ships present, and although the Russians made no contribution at all they still demanded concessions at the Treaty of Tientsin. The end result is that opium was completely legalized, there would be no further persecution of Christianity, Americans could take Chinese indentured servants, China would cede Russia the territory that would become the port of Vladivostok, reparations were paid to the Europeans, and all Nations involved could establish Embassies in Beijing.

Although Emperor Yizhu reluctantly signed the treaties, his ministers insisted western encroachment was an existential threat to the nation. The embassy delegations were repelled on the pretext they weren't allowed to bring their own military escort, and after another thorough ass kicking, the British now controlled Tianjin. In retaliation, the Qing mutilated and tortured POWs²⁵, including the British diplomat already in Beijing. This sort of barbarism had fallen out of fashion with Europeans, and prompted British and French forces to fully invade Beijing, causing the Emperor to flee the capital. To punish this breach of diplomatic conduct, they discussed whether they should sack the Forbidden City, but decided instead to loot and burn the Emperor's Summer Palace at Yuanmingyuan—reasoning that it was a punishment that fell on the Emperor alone and not his people²⁶. The artifacts looted remain in British possession to this day, and they as yet refuse to return them²⁷.

Emperor Yizhu dies of ill health while fleeing the capital, passing the throne to six year old Aisin-Gioro Zaichun, with Empress Cixi acting as regent. Zaichun would only hold power for a little over a year after he came of age, having many of his decisions reversed by Cixi, after which he promptly died of smallpox. With no heirs, Cixi would then choose a four year old Aisin-Gioro Zaitian as Emperor, and continue her regency. Cixi is infamously remembered for spending more money on herself than any Emperor in Chinese history—all while the military begged her for funding to repel the Europeans²⁸. Her reasoning can be captured simply in the quote, “I'd sooner give this country to our European friends than let the treacherous Han take anything!” When a rebellion occurred her forces couldn't deal with, she'd rely on European money and manpower to suppress it rather than build up the Qing army. So long as she represented European interests, her position was more secure than a Han majority army could ever offer her.

In 1894, pro-Japanese revolutionaries in Korea tried to overthrow the Joseon Dynasty. Qing was asked to protect its tributary state, and newly modernized Meiji Japan moved to back the rebels—starting the First Sino-Japanese war²⁹. Despite being chronically underfunded by a dysfunctional despotic state, the Qing navy had managed to built a fleet of industrialized ironclad steamships, and the British at the time predicted a total Chinese victory. The Japanese surprised everyone—including themselves, as even they were hesitant to challenge Chinese dominance—with swift total victory, and the ensuing land campaign pushed well into Manchuria. As a result, Korea changed from a Chinese tributary to a Japanese one, and Qing had to give Taiwan to Japan. The greatest consequence, however, was the humiliation that Japan was now recognized as the supreme power in East Asia.

In response to the loss, now adult Emperor Zaitian tried to pass “The 100 Days Reform”—massive sweeping changes including freedom of speech, freedom of petition, reducing bureaucratic bloat, copying western military training, increasing cannon production, removing archery from military curriculum, building more schools, and establishing copyright law. These reforms threatened the interests of many of Cixi's allies, and necessitated that Zaitian perform a coup against Cixi despite already sitting the Imperial throne. He failed. Cixi placed the Emperor under house arrest and executed everyone involved in the 100 Days Reform. Zaitian would later die at age 37 of arsenic poisoning in 1908AD precisely one day before Cixi died of old age.

Meanwhile, the invasion of Manchuria and the humiliation of losing even to the Japanese had convinced commoners throughout China that foreign imperialists were an existential threat to the Chinese people. A popular movement known as the Righteous and Harmonious Fists (Yihequan) began, encouraging commoners to just use martial arts to beat foreigners to death, and by 1900AD they laid siege to the foreign embassies in Beijing³⁰—which the west translated as the “Boxer Rebellion”³¹. The Eight-Nations Alliance mobilized 20,000 troops to Beijing to liberate their embassies, while Cixi hesitantly issued a declaration of war against the Alliance, endorsing the rebellion. Once again, China lost, the allied nations plundered Beijing, and Qing signed the Boxer Protocols promising to execute everyone who supported the rebellion (but not Cixi), as well as paying 450 million taels in reparations (more than Qing's annual tax revenue).

Betraying the people yet again, it was abundantly clear that the Qing were losing control of their state entirely. They attempted to transition into a constitutional monarchy and implement some fraction of the Hundred Days' Reforms, but the Qing had lost all credibility as rulers. The day she died, Cixi names 3 year old Aisin-Gioro Puyi as Emperor³², and within 4 years, the Xinhai Revolution would establish the Republican government in Nanjing under Sun Zhongshan. Puyi abdicated peacefully on the condition the Imperial family and their staff could continue living in the Imperial Palace³³. Once the Japanese invaded Manchuria in WW2 they invited him to rule there as Emperor, and then he quietly transitioned to life as a private citizen³⁴. Although targeted during Mao's Cultural Revolution, he was spared from the worst abuses before dying of cancer at age 61.

The Qing Dynasty—and Dynastic China as a whole—ended in 1912 after 2132 years. The very next day the last eunuch awoke from surgery to be told his services are no longer needed. And like him, China as a whole struggled to enter the 20th century.

Back to Ming Dynasty

Next to Republic of China

1. A more savvy plutocrat would observe the Uyghurs enjoy no such protection, and that the Manchu nobility hold seats of power within the CCP to this day. The final Emperor retired in peace and comfort. They remained wealthy and influential throughout the 20th century.

2. From this, it’s no mystery at all why China failed to industrialise until the 20th century. The Qing Emperor was well aware of the developments in Europe and maintained correspondence with most of their Kings. His court even understood the technology. It simply could not be implemented at sacle with uneducated illiterates, and certainly not in such a way that you could prevent them from gaining access to repeating rifles.

3. You will almost never see Qing Emperors referred to by their Manchu birth names—because they’re long and hard for Chinese people to remember. But I’ve called every Emperor by their birth name so far, as half of the Temple names are all Gaozong (much like Europe has 16 popes all named Benedict, and I think it’s much clearer to refer to them by the same name even before they ascended the throne, so I won’t be changing here.

4. Ethnic Han comprised 75% of their forces, Jurchens only 16% and Mongols 14%. A good half of Mongols had allied with the Jurchens, recognising the Jurchen leader as their Khan, and conquered the remainder of Mongolia well before they invaded the Ming.

5. A contemporary survivor reports 800,000 dead, but modern historians are confident this is an exaggerated figure used a propaganda for later rebellions against the Qing. We aren’t sure of the real number, however, as the Qing expunged records of these massacres. Yang Zhou likely didn’t have more than 300,000 population at the time, though the rape and destruction was very thorough, with Qing-Han soldiers participating. This massacre was done largely to punish remaining Ming military resistance.

6. Now a district of Shang Hai, this city was razed by the Qing and rebuilt by the Han resistance three times. The only surviving records of this event come from contemporary European missionaries. Although not outright censored by the CCP, this eventi s not taught in CCP modern history curricula.

7. Later Europeans would arrive ready to heroically vaccinate these primitive savages, only to have their minds blown (by their own account) that the Qing government had kept up with European development sand had already implemented a form of vaccination by rubbing ground up scabs of pox victims into a small incision.

8. For instance, you could go to jail for saying “see you tomorrow” because the first character in “tomorrow” is “Ming”, and you weren’t allowed to talk about the Ming. This is very reminiscent of modern CCP internet censorship, which won’t allow you to say 89 because nothing happened that year or “river crabs” because it rhymes with “harmony”, which was a CCP slogan people kept referring to sarcastically.

9. Hongli is also remembered for writing over 10,000 poems, all of which were shockingly awful. Consider “Snakeflake”, which reads, “One flake, two flakes, three, four flakes. Five flakes, six flakes, seven, eight flakes. Nine flakes, ten flakes, many flakes. Fly into aloe flowers and disappear.” The last ine was added by an Imperial editor. It sounds as bad in Chinese as it does in English.

10. Hongli went through every piece of art in the Imperial possession, stamping and engraving his name on nearly every painting and artefact, and writing annotations of his many thoughts on written works, directly on top of the text, not in the margins like a civilised human being. He also extorted people to donate their collection to the Imperial palace. The man is the absolute bane of Chinese historians and archeologists. Wikipedia gives him a weirdly positive treatment, claiming stamping his name on everything improved its value. Which is exactly as ridiculous as saying that Trump should add his signature to the Declaration of Independence to raise its value.

11. Not in actual silver. This was a combination of paper currency, estates, antiques, and various treasures. Wikipedia claims this sum is equal to 270 billion USD, ranking him among the wealthiest men in history.

12. If there’s a second thing the British can’t abide, it’s a massive trade imbalance. The British were pushing opium in China explicitly because they were losing 1/3rd of the world’s silver to China for tea and porcelain, with China having no market for British imports.

13. Opium was Britain’s single most profitable commodity of the entire 19th century, more profitable than British tea, which all stem from a single Camellia seed smuggled out of China in a plucky English merchant’s shoe on pain of death if discovered. Once cultivated in India, all British tea at the time descended from that one plant, while all the tea in China is sourced from hundreds of different species.

14. In one horrifying anecdote, the Emperor ordered the Navy to demonstrate their prowess to a European delegation. In order to succeed at the demonstration, they fired blanks from their cannons, and had ordered men to manually light powder kegs on the supposedly derelict target ships so they’d appear to sink from cannon fire. This, of course, was a suicide mission from the poor saps lighting the kegs.

15. Effectively, every British soldier and merchant had diplomatic immunity. If they raped or murdered Chinese citizens, it was up to the British to police it.

16. Who was a Chinese dude with a golden beard and a black dragon robe.

17. Also known as “turning the other cheek”. Interestingly, Hong’s sister, Hong Xuanjiao, was made one of the military commanders. Women had total equality, full-stop, under Hong’s new classless society, and there were many female officials in the Taiping state.

18. Even though it had been decades since He Shen’s corruption, by this point, the whole Qing government was rotten from the root, and the treasury had ran dry from bad policy in general--such as encouraging illiteracy, being unable to prevent the self-mutilation of half your working class, and also the whole opium epidemic thing. The Taiping, meanwhile, had rapidly assembled a fully modern industrial army and steamrolled Qing forces.

19. Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” was published in 1848; it’s unlikely Hong would have gotten a translated copy of it, and if he did, he made no mention of it whatsoever. But the language and ideas used in history’s primary sources were uncanny in their similarity.

20. The Catholic missionaries—who now had diplomatic immunity—had been eyeing this situation with utter confusion. On the one hand, a Christian movement in China seemed great. On the other hand, it also promoted a confused, garbled gospel coming from a probably heretical false-prophet? The Church basically sat aside and let this play out.

21. At least, this is when the Qing captured Nanjing and executed most of the Taiping leadership. Remnant Taiping armies continued to fight for another seven years.

22. The highest estimate is actually 100 million, but that seems a bit silly. The 30 million is considered credible, as China had a population of around 500 million at the time. Almost all of it was civilian casualties. This is a higher death toll than WWI and the An Lushan Rebellion, but it wasn’t quite as apocalyptic since it was less than 10% of total population, compared to Tang losing over 25% of their population.

23. Ostensibly, it had something to do with the British buying a second hand ship called the “Arrow” from some pirates. Pirate activity was pretty interesting in this era—most notably, the Pirate Queen Zheng Yisao, whose fleet sailed from 1801 to 1810, was arguably the most successful pirate in history. She rose to power by marrying her adopted son, Zhang Bao, after her husband died, taking control of a confederation of over 17,000 pirates and 226 ships, over 24 of which were under her direct command. Ultimately, the Qing dealt with her by buying her off, granting all her men immunity and allowing her to convert 80 of her ships into a merchant fleet. She comfortably retired afterwards as a salt tycoon.

24. The British Parliament themselves voted against any legitimacy in continuing the conflict with China, but the Prime Minister dissolved Parliament and did some DEMOCRACY to get the result he wanted anyway.

25. No small number of these POWs were Chinese “coolies”, who hated the Qing and cheeerfully helped the British cause as much mischief as possible. Indeed, the Chinese organised crime “Triads” began as anti-Qing revolutionary groups. Once the Qing Dynasty ended, they found themselves sitting on a pile of guns and opium, and the Nationalists were all too happy to hire them to assassinate political opponents.

26. Chinese people nonetheless are pretty pissed at the destruction of ancient historical buildings and the stealing of Chinese antique treasures.

27. To be fair, returning the artefacts to the CCP right when the cultural revolution was smashing everything seemed like a bad idea, while giving them to Hong Kong or Taiwan might provoke some Cold War hostilities.

28. Wikipedia claims “extensive research by Chinese historians” reveals defunding the military was actually Emperor Zaitian’s decision. This isn’t discussed at all on the Chinese side of the internet, and seems to be the opinion of a single academic. Given Zai Tian wasn’t allowed to even decide for himself what to eat for lunch, it seems weird Cixi would let him decide on military funding.

29. Known as the Jiawu war in China.

30. Future US president Herbert Hoover was barricaded in the US embassy at the time, when he was working for a mining company where he—according to his American biography—forced the Chinese at gunpoint to sell him their mining rights, all while complaining about how uncivlised Chinese people are.

31. Unironically, the “Kung Fu Rebellion” would be a better and much cooler translation.

32. Mostly remembered for taking absolutely adorable photographs in his tiny little imperial gown.

33. Where he spent his days digging up antiques from the Imperial collection and selling them in return for baskets of eggs.

34. His autobiography, “From Emperor to Citizen”, is available in English.