Could China be saved with a DoD in the 1780's

With a PoD in the 1780's could Imperial China become an industrial country? If possilbe how best would this be done. Asian history is my week point looking for Ideas.
 
Maybe. A Department of Defense would have done wonders for the Qing. :D


Seriously, though, the Qing are always going to have the problem of anti-Manchu sentiment. Even if you avoid some of the bad luck (like corrupt government ministers embezzling the entire imperial treasury), 95% of all Chinese people are going to view their rulers as foreigners who discriminate against them. Maybe if the Qing could somehow be convinced to stop emphasizing the differences between Manchu and Han and support a unified Chinese identity of some kind.
 
Maybe. A Department of Defense would have done wonders for the Qing. :D


Seriously, though, the Qing are always going to have the problem of anti-Manchu sentiment. Even if you avoid some of the bad luck (like corrupt government ministers embezzling the entire imperial treasury), 95% of all Chinese people are going to view their rulers as foreigners who discriminate against them. Maybe if the Qing could somehow be convinced to stop emphasizing the differences between Manchu and Han and support a unified Chinese identity of some kind.

Well the whole anti-Manchu thing was relatively minor earlier. The real problem was the fact that China was at least a good century behind Europe in terms of technology and tactics. And the fact that the Qing government tended to be led by warhawk ministers who convinced the Emperor to declare war on the Western powers, only to be promptly defeated, didn't help matters. What China needed was a person with the personality and forcefulness of Cixi who was supportive of full modernization, in industry, the military, the government and even society. Really though I'm not sure if that's even possible or realistic.
 
Well the whole anti-Manchu thing was relatively minor earlier. The real problem was the fact that China was at least a good century behind Europe in terms of technology and tactics. And the fact that the Qing government tended to be led by warhawk ministers who convinced the Emperor to declare war on the Western powers, only to be promptly defeated, didn't help matters. What China needed was a person with the personality and forcefulness of Cixi who was supportive of full modernization, in industry, the military, the government and even society. Really though I'm not sure if that's even possible or realistic.

It's not possible due to the Manchu nobility being deeply conservative and afraid of giving power to the "Han" (and I use that term loosely) populace. As long as the Qing are in charge of China, there can be no modernization, mainly due to the fact that the Qing pretty much stated that Manchu people are better than everyone else in China.
 
With a PoD in the 1780's could Imperial China become an industrial country? If possilbe how best would this be done. Asian history is my week point looking for Ideas.

How about a different Heshen?

Qianlong´s China had the problem with corruption creeping back after the Yongzheng reforms.

Heshen took the corruption and rode with it. In 1799, he was caught with private property to the sum of 15 times the annual budget of China... after about 20 years as favourite of Qianlong.

Now imagine that instead the OTL Heshen, being, as per OTL, a Manchu, relatively lowborn and gifted favourite of Qianlong, also in ATL is honest and figures out the real structural problems of China.

There IS the precedent of Yongzheng reforms. Heshen could point to them. No one did in Qing declare Yongzheng reforms wrong, they were not going to abolish Grand Council nor honesty surcharges. Heshen could say that Yongzheng reforms went in right direction but did not go far enough. Yes, there would be opponents. But also some supporters.

Yes, China would STILL be a huge country, with mostly agrarian population, and limited ability to extract taxes to pay for honest and efficient government. And ruled by and for benefit of a small foreign minority resented by the majority. But this description is applicable to India as well.

Lord Cornwallis did, in the same 1780s, reform the administration of India. This included a large raise in the salaries of covenanted servants, cracking down on their unofficial income by trade and bribes in return, and creating more additional offices like circuit courts and police superintendents to improve revenue collection and administration.

Well, Cornwallis and English power in India were a new broom. Heshen is not so free to innovate after 140 years of Qing dynasty. But he could do something if he applied his influence.

Like the chronical problem that the official complements and wages of low level officials, clerks and runners were insufficient for the work they were required to do, so the administration had to hire large numbers of unofficial clerks and runners and reward them through various extrastatutory and therefore unauditable taxes plus bribery and extortion opportunities. So obvious move would have been abolish a large number of extra taxes by consolidating them to official and auditable taxes, and bring the clerks, runners and private secretaries of magistrates to government payroll, with adequate wages.

What if Heshen, instead of extorting, over 20 years, almost as much as the total government budget to his private coffers (and surely more again to his accomplices in return for cooperation) doubles the official budget of Qing China and provides honest local administration for it, plus improved army units with a good pay and better recruitment, training and weaponry? And Jiaqing, in 1799, approves of Heshen´s reforms and keeps him in office? If 1820s China has bigger budget and reforming army than OTL, what would it accomplish in 1839?

How did the OTL administration of a 1850s County Magistrate in China compare with the administration of a District Collector in India in the same time, in terms of manpower, functions accomplished, official remuneration, recruitment of personnel, bribery/extortion opportunities and checks against abuse of power?
 
How about a different Heshen?

Qianlong´s China had the problem with corruption creeping back after the Yongzheng reforms.

Heshen took the corruption and rode with it. In 1799, he was caught with private property to the sum of 15 times the annual budget of China... after about 20 years as favourite of Qianlong.

Now imagine that instead the OTL Heshen, being, as per OTL, a Manchu, relatively lowborn and gifted favourite of Qianlong, also in ATL is honest and figures out the real structural problems of China.

There IS the precedent of Yongzheng reforms. Heshen could point to them. No one did in Qing declare Yongzheng reforms wrong, they were not going to abolish Grand Council nor honesty surcharges. Heshen could say that Yongzheng reforms went in right direction but did not go far enough. Yes, there would be opponents. But also some supporters.

Yes, China would STILL be a huge country, with mostly agrarian population, and limited ability to extract taxes to pay for honest and efficient government. And ruled by and for benefit of a small foreign minority resented by the majority. But this description is applicable to India as well.

Lord Cornwallis did, in the same 1780s, reform the administration of India. This included a large raise in the salaries of covenanted servants, cracking down on their unofficial income by trade and bribes in return, and creating more additional offices like circuit courts and police superintendents to improve revenue collection and administration.

Well, Cornwallis and English power in India were a new broom. Heshen is not so free to innovate after 140 years of Qing dynasty. But he could do something if he applied his influence.

Like the chronical problem that the official complements and wages of low level officials, clerks and runners were insufficient for the work they were required to do, so the administration had to hire large numbers of unofficial clerks and runners and reward them through various extrastatutory and therefore unauditable taxes plus bribery and extortion opportunities. So obvious move would have been abolish a large number of extra taxes by consolidating them to official and auditable taxes, and bring the clerks, runners and private secretaries of magistrates to government payroll, with adequate wages.

What if Heshen, instead of extorting, over 20 years, almost as much as the total government budget to his private coffers (and surely more again to his accomplices in return for cooperation) doubles the official budget of Qing China and provides honest local administration for it, plus improved army units with a good pay and better recruitment, training and weaponry? And Jiaqing, in 1799, approves of Heshen´s reforms and keeps him in office? If 1820s China has bigger budget and reforming army than OTL, what would it accomplish in 1839?

How did the OTL administration of a 1850s County Magistrate in China compare with the administration of a District Collector in India in the same time, in terms of manpower, functions accomplished, official remuneration, recruitment of personnel, bribery/extortion opportunities and checks against abuse of power?

So we basically need to change Heshen from a corrupt asshole who took China's problems and made them 100 times worse to a brilliant reformer? That's going to take one hell of a PoD.
 
Or the actual Heshen is the same, but a different brilliant young Manchu catches the attention of Qianlong.

It was possible for one man of of low background to change Qing a lot. Heshen did. A different Heshen, or a different young and brilliant Manchu instead of Heshen, might have changed Qing for better.

So, was a sensible reform program possible for late Qing, if a brilliant reformer figured it out and gained support of Qianlong?
 
Replacing Hong Xiuquan aka the nutjob in charge of the Taiping Rebellion, with someone more like Liu Bang might be a good start.

Otherwise saving China is both easy and difficult: The biggest impediment wasn't foreign meddling or lack of resources, but the people in charge being unwilling to make the necessary changes to save it. Same pattern that has repeated itself in history around the world many times over and over.
 
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