The Manchu (Ch’ing [Qing]) Dynasty
(compiled/edited by Prof. Fred Cheung)
[Main sources:
John King Fairbank, et al., eds., East Asia The
Great Tradition, and
Immanuel C.Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern
China.]
• The Manchu (Ch’ing [Qing]) Dynasty
witnessed both the zenith and the dark
side of Imperial Chinese history: in the
eighteenth century, the population and
territory of the Chinese Empire were the
largest they had ever been; yet the
nineteenth century brought disasters
internally and especially externally.
• The success story of the Manchus was like
that of the Mongols under Genghis Khan:
a powerful leader united his people, set
them on the march, won on the
horseback, and ruled China.
• The Creation of a Sinicized Manchu State.
• Nurhachi (1559-1626), the founder of the
Manchu state, followed the tradition of Genghis
Khan in fighting his way to power on the
pretext of avenging the deaths of his father and
grandfather. Nurhachi is said to have mobilized
his family and tribe and exterminated his rivals
by 1586. He fortified his home and married the
daughter of one powerful chief and the
granddaughter of another. Through 30 years of
negotiation, political marriages and alliances,
and warfare, Nurhachi united the 4 main
Jurchen tribes to the north and rose to power.
• Then, Nurhachi concentrated on uniting
his own people. His greatest
achievement was to develop new
administrative institutions, especially the
“Banner” system, which came into being
gradually after 1601. 300 warriors were
grouped at first under 4 banners, colored
yellow, white, blue, and red. 4 more were
later added, of the same colors but
bordered with red, except for the red
banner, which was bordered with white.
• Under these 8 banners, all the tribesmen
were enrolled and thus a transition was
made from tribal to bureaucratic
organization.
• In 1618, Nurhachi openly attacked the Ming
Dynasty, took part of Liaotung, and developed a
civil administration. In 1625, Nurhachi moved his
Capital to Mukden. After his death in 1626, he
was given the title of T’ai Tsu (Grand Progenitor).
He was followed by capable successors: his 8th
son: Abahai (1592-1643), and especially his 14th
son: Dorgon (1612-1650), who dutifully refused
the imperial title in favor of a 6-year-old young
nephew [Shun-chih, [r. 1644-1661], but actually
ruled as Regent; and finally, Nurhachi’s great
grandson: the K’ang-hsi Emperor, under whose
61-year reign from 1661 to 1722, the Manchu
Dynasty was firmly established.
• In 1627, Abahai attacked Korea, and
again in 163-1637, making it a vassal
state. He defeated the Inner Mongols and
made them his vassals, too. In 1636,
Abahai renamed his Dynasty the Ch’ing
(“Pure”).
• General Wu San-kuei (1612-1678) [& Chen
Yuan-yuan]
• Rebel Li Tzu-ch’eng
• Emperor K’ang-hsi (r. 1661-1722)
• K’ang-hsi’s main ideological success was with
the Chinese scholars. He himself was well
versed in the Classics and had strong
intellectual interests.
• In 1679, K’ang-hsi held a special examination to
select the compilers of the Ming History and
succeeded in getting 152 top scholars to take it,
out of 188 whom he invited.
• He also selected Chinese scholars, calligraphers,
and artists to serve within the palace.
Important works were produced under his
patronage, often with a preface by him. These
included the famous K’ang-hsi Dictionary, an
administrative geography of the Empire, and the
complete works of Chu Hsi.
• He also supported a massive encyclopedia,
Synthesis of Books and Illustrations of Ancient
and Modern Times (Ku-chin t’u-shu chi-ch’eng),
• Thus, K’ang-hsi had become an ardent and
great patron of scholarship.
• Much of the intellectual activity of the
18th century was carried on in the shadow
of the imperial institution.
• Emperor Yung-cheng (r. 1723-1735)
subsidized academies to give employment
to scholars.
• Emperor Ch’ien-lung (r. 1736-1795) [held
power for 63 years] sponsored 57 large
publications compiled by a host of
learned editors.
• In 1773, Tai Cheng was one of the leading
scholars appointed by Emperor Ch’ienlung to compile a great imperial
manuscript library called The Complete
Library of the Four Treasures (Ssu-k’u
ch’uen-shu), that is, the 4 branches of
literature --- the Classics, history,
philosophy, and belles-lettres.
• Military Deterioration
• Certain signs of decline had appeared by
1800:
• military ineffectiveness of the banner
forces,
• corruption at the top of the bureaucracy,
and
• difficulties of livelihood among a greatly
increased population.
• The White Lotus Rebellion
• Population growth
• The official population estimates record a yearby-year increase:
• In 1741 142 million
• In 1851 432 million
• In an ancient and thickly populated agricultural
state like China in the 18th-19th centuries, the
population growth eventually destroyed both the
prosperity and the peace, which had made it
possible.
• Early Western Contact
• The Rise of Great Nations
• The Portuguese adventurers
• The Jesuit Success Story
• “God, Gold, Glory” theory
• During the decline of the Ming Dynasty and
the Manchu’s conquest, some Jesuit
missionaries came to China, and they
became well versed in Chinese culture,
secured the patronage of high officials, and
even gained court positions at Peking.
• The greatest of these Jesuit pioneers, Matteo
Ricci (1552-1610) was assigned to China in
1582. Ricci was an Italian of impressive
personality, with beard and blue eyes, … They
adopted Chinese forms as far as possible –- they
dress in Confucian scholar’s gown. Instead of
preaching, they held conversations with Chinese
scholars, arousing their curiosity with
demonstrations of prisms, clocks, and
geographical knowledge.
• The Jesuits became fluent in Mandarin
and literate in Chinese Classics. This
enabled Ricci to represent Christianity
as a system of wisdom and ethics
compatible with Han Confucianism.
• Map of the world with China in the
middle –- the Middle Kingdom
• Ricci’s successors (the later Jesuits)
found that they could make themselves
most useful by applying their Western
knowledge of astronomy to the revision of
the Chinese calendar.
• In 1622, Johannes Adam Schall von Bell
(1591-1666), a German Jesuit, came to
China. He was a knowledgeable
astronomer and he secured a position in
the palace, where he celebrated mass in
1632.
• The combination of western science and
Christian moral teachings (some of which,
such as love, kindness, humanity,
benevolence, are similar to Confucianism)
attracted a number of outstanding
converts, who were capable of
collaborating in truly bicultural
endeavors.
• The most outstanding convert was Hsu
Kuang-chi (Paul, Christian name, 15621633), who became a Christian even
before he passed the highest examination
and entered the Hanlin Academy in 1604.
• With Ricci, Hsu completed the translation
of the first 6 books of Euclid’s geometry.
• In 1632, Hsu was made a Grand Secretary.
• Both Hsu and Adam Schall also helped the
Ming court obtain western military arms.
• In 1636, Adam Schall cast some 20 big
guns (canons) to fight off the Manchus.
• In short, western technology gained
acceptance more readily than western
religion.
• After the conquest of 1644, the Manchu
kept Adam Schall as chief astronomer.
• The young emperor saw him very often,
and even called him “Grandpa”, and
permitted the building of a Christian
church at Peking. During the long reign
of K’ang-hsi, the Jesuit mission at Peking
reached the height of its influence. Their
position was that of courtiers to the
emperor.
• The Jesuits were pioneers in contact
between 2 great cultures. Unfortunately,
facing 2 ways, they eventually suffered
attack on both fronts. However, the
main attack came from their European
competitors.
• The image of China conveyed through the
influential Jesuit writings from Peking
figured in the Enlightenment as an
example of an ancient society, which had a
natural morality. In the philosophical
debate over the relationship between
morality and religion, the China depicted
by the Jesuits was cited approvingly by
Voltaire especially (who gave Confucius
and Mencius their Latinized names after
reading their books).
• Furthermore, 18th century Europe enjoyed
Chinese things, not only an idealized
image of rational Confucian ethics and
benevolent despotism in government but
also a craze of Chinese things, such as the
Chinese style in architecture, porcelain,
furniture, and decoration (in addition to
tea and spice).
• At Peking, the Jesuits continued to serve
as astronomers, interpreters, painters,
architects, and engineers. But the Jesuits
were missionaries, and their effort to
apply the universal principles of
Christianity to the realities of China led
them into the path of cultural
accommodation –- in short, Sinification.
• Actually, accommodation had been the
secret of the Jesuit success in China.
• As Paul Hsu put it, Christianity “does
away with Buddhism and completes
Confucianism” (Fairbank, p. 249).
Christian faith could be added to
Confucian practice.
• The Jesuit compromise met with challenges,
especially in the ritual problems such as
ancestral worship. To some theologians, the
Chinese ancestral worship was not simple civil
rite but pagan worship, which could not be
allowed in monotheistic Christianity. So, some
theologians believed that the Jesuits’
compromise went too far, that in making
Christianity acceptable to Chinese classical
scholars, the early Jesuits had destroyed its
essential monotheistic principles of faith.
• By the 1640s, the controversy over the
rites to be permitted had been referred to
Rome by mendicant friars of the
Dominicans and Franciscan orders.
• The Rites Controversy boiled along for a
century (1640-1742), both within and
between the various Catholic orders and
missions in China and their supporters in
Europe, eventually even between the Pope
and the Ch’ing Emperor.
• The Confucian scholars’ hostility to
Christianity was based on the following
points:
• 1.
Rational skepticism about such doctrines as
original sin, the virgin birth, and the divinity of
Jesus;
• 2. A defense of Taoism, Buddhism, and the
Confucian teachings; and
• 3.
Xenophobic emotion and cultural pride; etc.
• Invasion and rebellion in 19th-century China
• Traditional China’s resistance to change
• The ruling class and its agrarian outlook and
thinking
• The inertia of government –- stability for too
long –- conservative
• Corruption
• China’s image of the west --- the barbarians
paying tribute to the Middle Kingdom
• Imbalance of trade –- the rise of the opium
trade
• God, Gold, Glory theory
• The Opium War, 1839-1842
• The Treaty of Nanking, 1842
• Difference in cultures and in legal
concepts/procedures
• The Anti-Opium movement
• Commissioner Lin Tse-hsu (1785-1850) at
Canton
• The first treaty settlement
• Treaty ports: Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo,
and Shanghai
• Western influence through the treaty ports
• The rise of rebellions
• The Taiping Kingdom
• The Nien and Muslim rebellions
• China’s response to the west
• The T’ung-chih Restoration (cf. Japanese Meiji
Restoration?)
• (Mary Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese
Conservatism [just white-washing])
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The Ch’ing Dynasty (1644-1911)
Emperors
Reign period
Shun-chih
1644-1661
K’ang-hsi
1662-1722
Yung-cheng
1723-1735
Ch’ien-lung
1736-1795
Chia-ch’ing
1796-1820
Tao-kuang
1821-1850
Hsien-feng
1851-1861
T’ung-chih
1862-1874
Kuang-hsu
1875-1908
Hsuan-t’ung
1909-1911