35 Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1912)
This empire was founded by Manchus, a group of people coming from Manchuria (and who formerly called themselves the Jurchens—see Jin Dynasty above.), to the northeast of China. For this reason, it is sometimes called the ‘Manchu Dynasty’. Europe referred to the Manchus as ‘Tartars’ for much of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which was basically a generic term for any nomadic people in the region of Siberia. Contemporary maps of Qing China distinguish between the core Han ‘China proper’ in the south and ‘Chinese Tartary’ in the north (as opposed to ‘Russian Tartary’ in Siberia and ‘Independent Tartary’ in the area of Kazakhstan, nomadic peoples not part of any big empire). More than 20 million government documents survive from the Qing, more than most Qing-contemporary European countries put together, but quite a few of these are 7-8 copies of the same thing. All of these, including the 800,000 held by Taiwan, are being digitised and should be available online by 2030 – making these exciting times for Qing Historians worldwide.
The Manchus adapted themselves quickly to the Chinese style-governance, but with important restrictions on the majority Han based on traditional Manchurian ideas. Distinction between “Manchu” and “Han” were strictly defined and ruthlessly maintained, but on the basis of cultural and social conventions, rather than ethnicity. Positions of privilege were reserved only for “Manchus” belonging to the “Eight Banners,” supposedly made up of loyal members of the original Manchu tribes that founded the Qing Dynasty. In practice, so many Han people who contributed to the founding of the dynasty were enrolled among the banners that, by the time Qing had unified all China, a large majority of the bannermen may well have been Han by ethnicity rather than Manchu already. Nevertheless, the bannermen were required to rigorously observe Manchu customs, live in separate areas of the cities where they resided, and serve as soldiers in service of the dynasty, in return for the privileges and monetary subsidies they received. This dynasty persisted into the twentieth century, where it spectacularly collapsed and the seeds of modern China were born.
The beginnings of the dynasty were actually quite dramatic: the Manchu started as a federation of Jurchen tribes in what is now known as Manchuria (or Dongbei, the Northeast in Chinese). Under leaders such as Nurhaci and Huang Taiji, they would consolidate and strengthen their position, expanding their influence into Mongolia and Korea. After the last Mongol khan submitted to the Manchus, their imperial house became kin of Genghis Khan himself by marrying Mongol princesses. Following the fall of the Ming, former imperial general Wu Sangui, who guarded the pass of the Great Wall to Manchuria would defect to them, thus opening up their way into China proper (Wu Sangui would go on to be considered a traitor of historical proportions in China, since,