Qing Survives?

Can the Qing keep their throne with a POD after the First Opium War? Or is their demise terminal?

I'll define it as retain 75% of their post-Opium War territory and maintain power on their throne. It can be an absolute monarchy like the've had, or at least an executive monarchy (a litmus test is have at least as much power as James II of England pre-overthrow). Since they don't really have a tradition of nobles gathering in a group and having power (like Parliament or the HRE Diet) then probably "absolute monarchy" and "lose the throne" are the only possible outcomes.

The problem is that the defeat against the British was pretty damn humiliating. It looks pretty darn terminal to me. Much like how the Sack of Rome in 410 was pretty insignificant materially (it wasn't their capital and the wealth looted was less than 1/30 of what they were losing to raids already) but legitimacy was lost.

It doesn't really have to end up as a Great Power to meet the challenge. For example, sucking up to the British after defeat in secret, fighting internal corruptions, making a small industrial area the size of France with textiles chemical factories or whatever, stopping the famines, and controlling internal policy while stabilizing their country fits the challenge, even though this leaves them unable to influence the world stage militarily.
 
Japan never had any parliamentary history and the Monarchy survived the end of Absolutism, I don't see why China would be different.

Disclaimer: I'm on the phone without my sources, I think the post'll be very disconnected and badly written, I'll try to review it later.

For the Qing to modernize is very difficult for a variety of reasons: weak bureaucracy (small amount of officers and rampany corruption), huge size (makes communication difficult), huge population (even a small fraction angry means a lot of people) and ethnic strife (it was pretty much an apartheid state) those problems can be remedied, but each is harder than the other.

Just to note, I think that though significant the First Opium War's atermath wasn't as catastrophic as the narrative dictates, yeah the and opium trade were terrible, but the former, as well as other unequal treaties, also happened to Japan (am I wrong) and once they a strong footing were renegotiated and eventually repelled, the latter was an issue that existed (in smaller scale) since Yongzheng's reign, so we reach the (rash) conclusion that many of the Qing issues were internal and already waiting to blow before the Westerners came.

First and foremost you must know that "modernizing" (or rather westernization) is hard, you are basically stepping on several holy cows and essentialy disrupting the socio-economic order ruling the society, the introduction of railroads and telegraphs made thousands unemployed and many of those were the original Boxers that rose up. It's also expensive, several countries went bankrupted trying to modernize, instead of relying on loans like those countries China went the same path as Japan during the New Policies during the final decade of Qing by overcoming the costs through taxation, the result was obvious: the poor received the full blunt of the payment, increasing social agitation that would overthrow the Dynasty a few years later.

As I said one of the main problems facing the Qing was the ethnic strife between Manchu elite and the Han chinese majority, this problem in fact was the straw the broke the camel's back in 1908. Not to say thay Han and Manchus were was in conflict, plenty of Han chinese worked to support the Qing court and during the late Qing we have several Han and Muslims joined the upper class, but despite all this until the bitter end the Manchus were on top. Why? You can say stuff like stubbornness, the Manchus being dicks and the sort and honestly I can't say for sure.

So what could help the Qing?

Better leadership on the throne could help, after 1800 the only Emperor to be proactive was Guangxu, but the guy thought too high for his own good. A good candidate would be Yixin (OTL Prince Gong) succeeding Daoguang in 1850, but there is a problem, would Yixin be the same forward thinking reformer as OTL if he was Emperor? Negotiations with foreigners would be awkward, so he would need proxies which leads to some trusting issues.

A victory in a war could boost popularity for the regime, in fact the drive for expansion in Japan had support from the people that wanted bayback from the heavy taxation fuelling the Meiji Restoration, having the Qing defeating France or Russia (the British are too much) even if limited could make the Qing bearable to the population and could lead to more power sharing from the Manchus without fearing overthrow.
 
Humiliating, yes, but Chinese dynasties have lost and given reparations to foreign empires (mainly steppe hordes) before and not collapsed within a century. More of a symptom than the cause?

Anyways, bigger problem was the Taiping Rebellion. Much larger death toll, decentralized power to regional warlords, worsened conditions across the board. That was the death knell, I'd say.

If the Qing navy doesn't have the factional tension and incompetence that plagued it OTL, they might not lose to the Japanese, keep Joseon Korea as a tributary, and thus preserve some semblance of dignity. They purchased modern warships, the main problem was the leadership (and the sailors too).
 
The only way was to introduce constitutional monarchy in 1898 or 1910. Qing government allowed provincial assemblies in 1910.

If Qing established a national congresses and introduced constitutional monarchy like Germany in 1910, the landed gentry might have continued to provide support for the monarch. Any revolt or mutiny would be suppressed quickly.
 
First and foremost you must know that "modernizing" (or rather westernization) is hard, you are basically stepping on several holy cows and essentialy disrupting the socio-economic order ruling the society, the introduction of railroads and telegraphs made thousands unemployed and many of those were the original Boxers that rose up. It's also expensive, several countries went bankrupted trying to modernize, instead of relying on loans like those countries China went the same path as Japan during the New Policies during the final decade of Qing by overcoming the costs through taxation, the result was obvious: the poor received the full blunt of the payment, increasing social agitation that would overthrow the Dynasty a few years later.

I didn't say the whole nation had to westernize at once. I did point out an industrial core the size of France while leaving the rest of the country more reformed but still agrarian (dealing with internal issues and corruptions but not putting everyone out of work) counted towards the idea as long as the Qing survives. An example of "one center industrialization" might be Egypt before its monarchy got overthrown, the Ottomans (not a great example since their leadership was in the gutter too), Russia from the Crimean War to the 1890s... all those places pretty much only reformed the legal system, fought corruption and the black market outside of their industrial centers. If "one center" westernization minimizes unrest, that should be done and hope as generations pass the rest of the country catches up without a push from the top. If "cold turkey" actually shortens unrest, then that should happen.

A different post in the ASB asked how Japan could gain "soft power" instead of direct military projection in the Meji Era. Someone pointed out industrial loans to Korea and... the Qing since Japan finished modernization before either. They might need to also dispatch observers to make sure the loans aren't squandered...

Point being, I'm looking for anything that works, even if it seems slow.

Humiliating, yes, but Chinese dynasties have lost and given reparations to foreign empires (mainly steppe hordes) before and not collapsed within a century.

Ok yeah, I forgot about that. I guess the Taipei rebellion needs to be nipped in the bud, but at this time China was looking outward for more threats instead of at civil unrest until the shit hit the fan, so tha might be hard.

The only way was to introduce constitutional monarchy in 1898 or 1910. Qing government allowed provincial assemblies in 1910.

If Qing established a national congresses and introduced constitutional monarchy like Germany in 1910, the landed gentry might have continued to provide support for the monarch. Any revolt or mutiny would be suppressed quickly.

We have more than a "dissatisfied nobles" problem here otherwise it would be that simple.
 

Kaze

Banned
First problem is the Qing themselves. The Qing was considered by many Chinese as usurpers.

The hatred and the corruption of the Manchu government and people entered popular culture in the creation of a new class of mythological creature - the Jiang Shi (simplified Chinese: 僵尸; traditional Chinese: 僵屍 or; pinyin: jiāngshī), which westerners often consider as “Chinese zombies” or “Chinese vampires.” The belief in the Jiang Shi was based in Taoist magicians moving bodies for proper burial, smugglers and kidnappers (of people "shanghaied" to work slave-labor or deportation for work in the west) to hide their nefarious activities, and that Jiang Shi shared many of the Manchu Mandarin’s identifying features; thus, it does not take much to say, "how best to dehumanize the Manchu then compare them to soul-sucking undead".

A daily newspaper in Chang'an (modern day Xi'an) that has been in constant publication since the Mid-Ming Dynasty (one of the world's first daily newspapers) with a readership of between 2 and 5 thousand, was shut down by the Qing government for printing anti-Qing articles (some of them penned by the scholars that took the Imperial Exams, even at the threat of being killed for doing so).

In the broadest sense, an anti-Qing activist was anyone who engaged in anti-Manchu direct action. This included people from many mainstream political movements and uprisings, such as Taiping Rebellion, the Xinhai Revolution (led by Sun Yat-Sen, the founding father of Modern Day China), the Revive China Society, the Tongmenghui, the Panthay Rebellion, White Lotus Rebellion, and others.

Then there are the Tiandihui (Tian-di association / Heaven and Earth Society) which become the origins for the "Triads", who swore to devote themselves to the mission of "fanqing fuming" (simplified Chinese: 反清复明; traditional Chinese: 反清復明; literally: "Overthrow Qing and restore Ming"). Following the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty of China in 1911, the Hongmen suddenly found themselves without purpose. They had managed to miss out on the actual uprising. From then on the Hongmen diverged into various groups. While some other groups based within China, could no longer rely on donations from sympathetic locals; being unable to resume normal civilian lives after years of hiding, they turned to illegal activities - thus giving birth to the modern Triads.

The second probelm is https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...itary-complacency.430233/page-6#post-16063630 Military.

Third problem - the Government needed reform. The exam system is faulty. It needed reform.

Some Scholars who took the Imperial Exams (before the 100-days reform) in their private diaries called the Empress Dowanger Cixi variously: a tyrant, a despot, a fox-spirit in one instance, a prostitute, the child of a prostitute, an immoral crafty woman, a sexual position often ascribed to her, and other bad insults on her character. After the "100-days reform" and the failure of "the Self-Strengthening Movement", some of them even went so far as blame the Qing government and secretly wish it to be replaced. But since these are Confucian conservatives threatened by the power of a mere woman or the the thought of a woman giving orders from behind the throne - we must reject these learned scholars as not mainstream because they only discussed it illegally and in secret.

Fourth problem - Economic.
At the time of the Taiping Rebellion, population was on the rise to an estimate 430 million people – there was not enough land to go around if population still rose. 50 to 60 % of the land was in the control of rich families who demanded almost 50% of the yield in silver for rent. Included in this was that there was droughts in Honan, flooding in the Yangtze River and other rivers, and famine in Kwangsi dwindling the number of arable land to go around – relief was piecemeal, perfunctory, and was outright being embezzled. This left many displaced peoples seeking work as porters, dock-hands, idlers, rascals, bandits, or “shanghaied” into *slavery* or deportation to work on the U.S.’s first transcontinental railroad - Hong recruited some of these displaced peoples into his army - most of them did not even care about Christianity, they just wanted the Qing gone, land to farm, and a little rice to eat. All taxes, dues, and rents had to be paid in silver taels not in kind to the central government. Due to opium and the Opium Wars the exchange rate for copper coins to silver had increased by 100%. The central government also had another illness concerning money – in order to pay the debts owed to the imperialists the Chinese government devalued the currency - the percentage of copper and silver in a coin of 1845 was at least half the percentage in a coin minted two decades prior.
Any economist would see this as a recipe for rapid inflation and economic collapse. It was just a matter of time before someone like Hong staged a rebellion - it could have been anyone, even if the Taipings were unfortunately unsuccessful - others would still try and were eventually successful at removing the Qing.

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Okay now how best to reform.

1. Constitutional monarchy.
2. The Qing Emperor needs to take a Chinese wife - preferably one from the former Ming Dynasty or a descendant of Confucius.
3. The Exam System needed to be either scrapped or reformed.
4. Military reform. The whole of the military needs reform. The Draft is the best option.
 
First problem is the Qing themselves. The Qing was considered by many Chinese as usurpers.

Say what? Post-Beijing capture, Han defectors outnumbered by 3 to 1 actual Manchu in their takeover of the Southern Ming (there were non-Manchu non Han too, but Manchu were the majority before they eight banners took on Han defectors). How can they be usurpers when most of their supporters were Han?
 

Kaze

Banned
I am talking past the Ming-Qing transition where it was whispered that they usurped the throne - even if it was not the actual history as it was. People like to invent their own history even if it is not true.
 
Say what? Post-Beijing capture, Han defectors outnumbered by 3 to 1 actual Manchu in their takeover of the Southern Ming (there were non-Manchu non Han too, but Manchu were the majority before they eight banners took on Han defectors). How can they be usurpers when most of their supporters were Han?
Those Han defectors were fighting for money and power with not much loyalty to anyone.The fought for the Manchus because they were winning.You are also forgetting that resistance in the south was extremely fierce.Even then,the leader of these traitors(Wu Sangui) planned to back-stab the Manchus as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
 
An example of "one center industrialization" might be Egypt before its monarchy got overthrown, the Ottomans (not a great example since their leadership was in the gutter too), Russia from the Crimean War to the 1890s... all those places pretty much only reformed the legal system, fought corruption and the black market outside of their industrial centers. If "one center" westernization minimizes unrest, that should be done and hope as generations pass the rest of the country catches up without a push from the top. If "cold turkey" actually shortens unrest, then that should happen.
So, OTL?
 
We have more than a "dissatisfied nobles" problem here otherwise it would be that simple.

I believe dissatisfied nobles would be annoying, but they were not the obstacles. They failed to stop Cixi's coup; they failed to suppress Taiping rebellion; they didn't do anything when revolution had started in 1911.

I think all these nobles were caring about their welfare cheques.
 
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