Were they really that bad of a dynasty or did they just have the bad luck of being the dynasty in power during the age...

1700s Qing was literally the last golden age of China. It was the only period in Chinese history where they had good emperors in quick succession: the trifecta of Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong.

It also built the current shape of China (roughly) today.

Yes and no. While they technically could've won since the Europeans basically discouraged them from taking certain critical settlements and conducting the campaign they needed in the late stages, the Taiping state was planning on doing the Meiji thing and would've relied on European friendship to properly do that. Their state probably wouldn't have lasted long without Euro help themselves.

sweet flag tho...

They had a sweetass time in the 18th century and their shoes were fresh.

>Han official says: what if we try revolutionize X...

>Manchu emperor: lol nope, ancestor decreed no chink in power position.

*blocks your path*

>If the Taiping had won
The Taiping were a bunch of batshit heretics.
It might be funny if Hakka became the official common language though.

Qing deserved bloody murder just for forcing all men to wear that stupid queue hairstyle.

>>Manchu emperor: lol nope, ancestor decreed no chink in power position.
...no?

The Manchus weren't Mongols. Their inclusive rule pretty much differentiated them from other Foreign Chinese Dynasties and made them last longer than they ever did.

The failure of modernization was as much the Han's fault as the Manchu Court's. For every reformer, you had meme traditionalists, and then the guys who are hopped up on nationalism, and then the traditionalists who are convinced the Qing lost the Mandate and a new Dynasty ought to take its place.

>During the Ming dynasty, considerable commerce existed between China, Japan, and Western Europe.
>However, during the Qing dynasty foreign trade was prohibited completely from 1644 to 1683, and later restricted to only one port at Guangzhou; in addition, commerce could only be conducted by 13 guilds approved by the government, and competition prohibited.

>The restoration of serfdom is cited as another policy that greatly hampered the Chinese economy. After the conquest of China was completed, Manchu forces expropriated huge amounts of land, turning millions of people from tenant farmers into hereditary serfs.[8] The amount of land requisitioned amounted to nearly 16 million mou, or nearly 10,666 square kilometers, of farmland.[8]

>the Qing government frequently used literary persecution to destroy Chinese opposition to Manchu rule. Several cases of literary persecution saw hundreds of intellectuals and their families executed, often for minuscule offenses such as referring to Manchus as "barbarians" and using the Qing character in areas deemed offensive by the government.

>The Qing dynasty intervened in the economy far more than its predecessors.[9] Unlike the Ming, who had adopted laissez-faire policies, the Qing often intervened in the economy through restricting the number of merchants allowed to operate, official edicts that discouraged the cultivation of commercial crops in favor of subsistence agriculture, and a prohibition on most new mines.[10]

>The initial conquest of China by the Manchus was one of the most devastating wars ever fought in Chinese history, and the destruction set back Chinese progress decades. Whole provinces, such as Sichuan and Jiangnan, were thoroughly devastated and depopulated by the Manchu conquest, which killed an estimated 25 million people. Some scholars estimate that the Chinese economy did not the regain the level reached in the late Ming until 1750, nearly a century after the foundation of the Qing dynasty

Yeah, China for most of its history never controlled Mongolia, Manchuria or Tibet. Even Xinjiang was only controlled on and off (Han didn't, for example). Qing made most of the modern Chinese borders.

Ah fuck me. Ming, not Han.

t. Xianfeng emperor

What do Mongolia, Manchuria, Tibet, and Xinjiang contribute to modern China? It seems as though the vast majority of economic activity is happening within the borders that the Ming dynasty had. In fact without all that, China wouldn't be having to deal with butthurt Turk separatists, butthurt monk separatists, butthurt Indians on the other side of the border, and having to build roads and cities connecting to the middle of the desert. Without those deadweights dragging them down the Chinese could instead just focus on doing what they love doing most, making shitloads of money.

Okay?

I don't see why this matters.

the Taiping flag is such a meme lmfao

hahaaaa looks like a fuckin wu tang album cover

INTRODUCIN
THA GHOST
FACE
KILLAAAAAAAAAA

When the Taiping rebellion captured Nanjing they decided to make it their capital and attempted to start carrying out revolutionary forms, many of which were quickly abandoned as it turned out they were going to be much harder to carry out than initially thought. The Taiping leadership disenchanted a lot of its followers by betraying their revolution and turning out to be breathtakingly cruel (anyone who dared question their judgement or simply didn't bow deeply enough when they passed by was turned into a "celestial lamp" which means they were burned alive).

Nanjing which was supposed to be their capital ended up being their tomb. Had they continued their momentum and marched on Beijing, the seat of Qing power, then its very possibly they would have succeeded in toppling the Qing government. Though it seems unlikely that the Taiping state would have lasted that long anyway. Its important to remember that there were two other major rebellions happening in China at the same time.

...

I wonder why China never conquered Mongolia even though they expanded to non-Chinese territory like Tibet.

Qing was invaders, foreigners of China. They were backwards from the beginning and honestly just by coincidence got fucked by colonialism and the opium wars as well. They did take the wrong stance on the Western world tho, closing trade was a bad move

Soviet puppet.