Qing Dynasty Emperors

The Manchus in China

Nurhaci united the Jurchen tribes and in 1616 proclaimed the Later Jin dynasty. His son and successor, Hong Taiji, renamed his people the Manchus and in 1636 adopted the dynastic name Qing, "pure". The Qing therefore existed as a state in the north-east for eight years before it ruled China.

In 1644 the rebel leader Li Zicheng captured Beijing, and the last Ming emperor took his own life. The Ming general Wu Sangui, holding the Shanhai Pass at the eastern end of the Great Wall, joined forces with the Manchus. Together they defeated Li Zicheng, and the Qing occupied Beijing and made it their capital.

The new dynasty kept much of the Ming system of government, including the civil service examinations, and employed Chinese officials alongside Manchus. At the same time it required Han Chinese men to adopt the Manchu hairstyle, the shaved forehead and queue, as a sign of submission.

Hong Taiji died in 1643, and his five-year-old son succeeded him as the Shunzhi Emperor, the first Qing emperor to rule from Beijing. The conquest of the south took decades. The last Ming claimants were defeated by 1662, the Revolt of the Three Feudatories was put down in 1681, and in 1683, under the Kangxi Emperor, Taiwan was brought under Qing rule.

The reigns of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong, from 1661 to 1796, are known as the High Qing. The empire grew to include Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, the population rose rapidly, and the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen produced some of the finest porcelain ever made, from famille verte to famille rose and flawless monochromes. Our Qing dynasty porcelain collection includes pieces from across the period.

China was not isolated, but the Qing controlled foreign trade closely. From 1757 Western merchants were confined to Canton (Guangzhou), where they bought tea, silk and porcelain and paid largely in silver.

The Opium Wars

To reverse the flow of silver, British merchants shipped growing quantities of Indian opium into China from the late eighteenth century. The Qing had banned the drug, but the smuggling trade went on and addiction spread.

In 1839 the imperial commissioner Lin Zexu confiscated more than twenty thousand chests of opium and had it destroyed at Humen, near Canton. Britain responded with force, and the First Opium War followed.

The Qing navy was no match for British warships. The Treaty of Nanjing of 1842 ceded Hong Kong Island to Britain and opened five ports to foreign trade. A second war, from 1856 to 1860, ended with the sack of the Old Summer Palace and further concessions, including Kowloon, the right of foreign diplomats to live in Beijing and freedom for Christian missionaries to work in China. You can read more on our page about the Opium Wars.