Late Qing Dynasty

>female head of state for 70 years
>empire collapses

>that background dragon

not him, but i do remember reading about them having this tax on manufactured or handcrafted goods that increased the further that good travelled from its point of origin. on top of that being a huge pain in the ass for any would-be chinese manufacturer, it was also applied multiple times by corrupt/underpaid officials even though it was supposed to be a one-time thing.

manchus weren't willing to rock the boat that much. they were VERY keenly aware of their minority status and didn't want anything to upset the fragile balance that kept them in power
>The 1870-1910 period is chronically underdiscussed here on Veeky Forums.
agreed, i find it fascinating myself. even the taiping rebellion and era of popular uprisings (1850-70) is pretty underdiscussed despite taiping memes

Why were/are governments so retarded with taxation? That seems like a great way to discincentivize trade, manufacturing, and reporting your goods.

Yeah but weren't the Manchus gone by 1870? Even Puyi was mostly Han.

Well, I'll make more of the threads in the future. I am fascinated by modern Chinese history (19th-present). I'll keep the thread alive and post stuff next time I make it.

This era represents China at its weakest ever. 1910 or so probably was the worst time outside 1860, 1926, 1937, and 1960.

They lost the Mandate of Heaven desu.

You're thinking of the dog, right?

>Yeah but weren't the Manchus gone by 1870? Even Puyi was mostly Han.
Just the language. And not gone: it became a super-minority language.

Although the distinction between Manchus and Han at the time were pretty much nebulous. For example, if you a Manchu but had a Chinese name, you were Han. But if you had a Manchu name, then Manchu. But very few spoke Manchu.

Right now the classification system is still the same. Manchu = having a manchu name. What's different is this time, nobody spoke Manchu outside of phd professors in linguistics.

It was too easily exploited and defeated which lead to a republican movement desiring a stronger China. Under the Qing China was subject to a whole lot of unfair treaties and was ceding territory away to foreign powers.
The opium wars were devastating for China and severely weakened the Qing
The arrival of western powers who started taking concession in the very late 19th century
The first war with Japan which lost it Taiwan, mainland territory and its vilayet Korea.
The failed boxer rebellion

A series of failures and being subject to exploitation brought it down eventually.

>the communists, who don't believe in heaven, were chosen by the mandate of heaven
It's like poetry

The taxation system wasn't modern, but it wasn't exactly utterly useless either. The Qing Dynasty could collect vast amount of money through their land taxes, tariffs, and state monopolies.

The problem they had was with corruption/graft, extremely poor budgeting, and the lack of a national bank to lend money to the state.

Corruption is simple enough. Both the Qing court and the Qing officials were absurdly corrupt, and simply pocketed tax money for their personal use.

Poor budget allocation is exemplified by the phrase "The Beiyang fleet was sunk in the lakes of the Summer Palace". Qing China had spent enormous amounts of money to purchase modern warships from the West, then budgeted little money for training and upkeep, and what little was allocated was siphoned off via corruptions for things like this piece of shit

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Boat

The fancy new German-built warships sat in harbor until they finally sortied and were promptly thrashed by the nominally inferior Japanese fleet.

Last and perhaps most importantly was the lack of a modern banking system. The Qing economy ran off of silver, which is why the government coveted it so much and rejected foreign trade. Silver leaving the country would constrict the money supply and harm the economy. This would become problematic at first when the British started to remove silver from the economy with the Opium trade, and catastrophic later on when expenses like wars with the Western Powers and war indemnities from losing those wars started piling on.

Without it's own national bank, the Qing had to borrow money at high rates from foreign national banks, as well as raise heavy taxes to pay not only their debt but also the high interest. By the time the Qing set up their own national bank in 1895, it was too little, too late.

Thread saving bump

I'm gonna start info dumping

?!?

There's a scary dragon behind her. I bet the artist put it there since the Empress Dowager caused quite a fright.

Why did they not set up their own national bank sooner? They coulf have used opium as the currency. =^]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days'_Reform

Why did it fail, other than the fact they got coup detat'd by Empress Dowager?

And why did it take until 1898 to seriously reform the Qing? Hadn't they noticed themselves getting gangraped for 70 years already?

>The Self-Strengthening Movement (Chinese: 洋務運動/自強運動/同治維新), c. 1861 – 1895, was a period of institutional reforms initiated in China during the late Qing dynasty following a series of military defeats and concessions to foreign powers.

>To make peace with the Western powers in China, Prince Gong was made regent, Grand Councilor, and head of the newly formed Zongli Yamen (a de facto foreign affairs ministry). He would be assisted by a new generation of leaders (see below). By contrast, Empress Dowager Cixi was virulently anti-foreign, but she had to accommodate Prince Gong because he was an influential political figure in the Qing imperial court. She would, however, become the most formidable opponent of reform as her political influence increased.

>The majority of the ruling elite still subscribed to a conservative Confucian worldview, but following China's serious defeats in the First and Second Opium Wars, several officials now argued that in order to strengthen itself against the West, it was necessary to adopt Western military technology and armaments. This could be achieved by establishing shipyards and arsenals, and by hiring foreign advisers to train Chinese artisans to manufacture such wares in China. As such, the "self-strengtheners" were by and large uninterested in any social reform beyond the scope of economic and military modernization.

Ahhh so they did start reforming after getting crushed a few times. But the conservatives and rebellions stymied them.

REEEE FOREIGNERS

The idea wasn't well accepted. Qing China was extremely conservative, to the point of shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly.

"Our ancestors never needed a National Bank, why do we?"

"Our ancestors never needed a professional standing army trained to modern standards, why do we?"

You get the idea.

All it took was getting raped hard enough, but by then it was wayy too late.

Oh and Cixi is to blame for much of it. She resisted anything that could diminish her personal power, and this included offing one of the more reformist emperors so she could stay as Dowager Regent.

Alright. Thank you

Why did Meiji choose a different path than Cixi? Wouldn't he be threatened by conservative backlash like she was?

I also know that in the 1870-1920 period, 10% of Chinese were addicted to opium. That had to hurt.

Wasn't Qing already fucked in the ass when Meiji took over? They saw the writing on the wall of the rest of Asia.

Pretty much.

1868 or so. Qing were entering their reform period as well though. Just coming out of the Taiping rebellion.

Qing reforms failed though.

Meiji got rid of those 'unproggresive and backwards ideas' and lead Japanese to prefer progress with the abandoning of many values. Also the emperor was seen as a deity so people were probably pretty reluctant to overthrow them.

Hmmm and the Qing emperor wasn't?

Sidenote: Meiji Japan had two huge periods of "cultural revolution" that I consider quite important. I trigger /pol/weebs when I point it out, but in many ways the "cultural modernization" movements in China were similar to Meiji Japan's.
Meiji essentially de-sinofied Japan to an extent and weakened the old buddhist structures of society. They even developed their own state religion for emperor worshiping (shinto).

I'm not sure if Chinese monarchs were viewed as deities. Meiji may have managed his countries modernisation process much better then China, which funnily enough allowed his country to become one of China's major headaches.

Still, I find it odd since Meiji believed in the immense cultural and social connections between China and Japan. I wonder why they didn't work together more against the gwailo gaijin.

Isolation?

Meiji may have believed in a connection but maybe his government didn't (it was a constitutional monarchy after all). Japan wanted to act like a western imperialist power and China was a great opportunity, I.e The Boxer Rebellion in which Japan joined the west in subduing China and actually acted pretty brutally in reprise.

Alrighty.

Also, when did the Summer palace get burnt down?

China recently has restored it, and I'm interested in why it was destroyed. The second opium war?

>Hmmm and the Qing emperor wasn't?
Absolutely not.

Chinese imperial belief viewed the Imperial Dynasty as possessing of the Mandate of Heaven. Basically the Emperor is heaven-appointed to bring peace, prosperity, and stability within "all under heaven" (Tianxia= The Chinese Empire.)

If the Emperor fails in this, and the signs of his failure is plain for all to see (i.e. turmoil, successful foreign invasions, corruption at court, famine, poverty, and natural disasters/diseases), it is acknowledged that the dynasty has lost the Mandate of Heaven and therefore it is the moral duty of every Chinese subject to call for/fight for his ouster and bring someone who can bring back peace, order, and prosperity to the Empire.

Just like the signs of heaven's disfavor, claiming the Mandate of Heaven is also no bullshit: become the winner of a civil war.

Actually, if you look at Qing history, it was likely that the Generals were gearing up for the traditional king-of-the-hill deathmatch that determines who gets to be emperor. Except they were sidelined by youths high on nationalism, who started to revolt first.

>yfw you try to save China, but China won't let itself be saved

That guy was a badass in the Taiping Rebellion.

He essentially kept China from being completely colonized and destroyed, but he also was a mortal and made his fair share of mistakes.

I'd say that if he had better circumstances, he could have changed all of modern Chinese history for the better. But you have to work with the radicals and conservatives and europeans and japs...