"The Qing may have been the world's most successful early modern dynasty." Agree or disagree?

But why did they continue to stress themselves as Manchu? They had already Sinicized long before the nineteenth century, so there was never any great need to separate themselves from the people they ruled in such a way.

Well what do you mean by "need"? The Banner system and the way it structured and defined ethnic groups gave the Manchu political, legal, economic, and social privileges over the Han. The privileged basically never want to reduce their privileges even if they aren't "needed" anymore. Actually, the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors reformed the Banner system in reaction to the Sinicization and "decadence" that had happened after the conquest. Basically, ethnic dominance was firmly embedded into the Qing state because of the way China was conquered and because of the way people work.

EDIT: The book I mentioned above is really good and goes into all this. I'm not even talking about things like "ethnic sovereignty", the Qing rhetoric of inclusion, or the way in which Manchu privileges gave them a huge stake in the continuance of the Qing dynasty.
 
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I personally would place the Robertian/Capetian Dynasty as a Whole before the Habsburg they have an Older proved/certain and an Older quasi-certain line of descent and the first proven King of the family was Odo/Eudes King of the Franks from 888 to 898.
The Capetian and their Branch ruled over a large variety of country including the Kingdom of France/Navarre/Portugal/Spain/Hungary/Naple the Duchy of Milan/Parma/Brittany/Brabant/Luxembourg etc.
The Capetian still rule over the Kingdom of Spain and the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg while the Hapsburg reign over nothing.
On the Qing Dynasty I dont know I think they are one of the most successful Chinese Dynasty and in my mind the most successful Chinese dynasty of the last millennium.
 
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I personally would place the Robertian/Capetian Dynasty as a Whole before the Habsburg they have an Older proved/certain and an Older quasi-certain and the first proven King of the family was Odo/Eudes King of the Franks from 888 to 898.
The Capetian and their Branch ruled over a large variety of country including the Kingdom of France/Navarre/Portugal/Spain/Hungary/Naple the Duchy of Milan/Parma/Brittany/Brabant/Luxembourg etc.
The Capetian still rule over the Kingdom of Spain and the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg while the Hapsburg reign over nothing.
On the Qing Dynasty I dont know I think they are one of the most successful Chinese Dynasty and in my mind the most successful Chinese dynasty of the last millennium.
The most successful Chinese Dynasty was probably the Han Dynasty--ruled around 400 years.As for the last millennium,some say the most successful dynasty of the last millennium is the current one :D,since it rebounded Chinese influence unseen since the days of the Tang Dynasty(not to mention completely native).
 
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Deleted member 97083

I think you're severely underestimating the achievement of conquering the nomadic states. They were one of the most severe problems to plague China since the Han dynasty. It's unclear as to whether a native Han dynasty could have achieved that before modern technology.
But the Romanovs also conquered nomadic states. While the Ottomans used nomadic states as a bludgeon against the Romanovs. Both of which were unique achievements at the time.
 
But the Romanovs also conquered nomadic states. While the Ottomans used nomadic states as a bludgeon against the Romanovs. Both of which were unique achievements at the time.
Note:modern technology.I think good guns is what he meant by 'modern' technology.

To be honest,even the Manchus relied quite a bit on guns to defeat other nomads and to conquer the Ming Dynasty.It's just that (to my knowledge),their reliance on guns was never as strong as the west and many army units still used melee weapons and bows even into late 19th century.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
"The Qing may have been the world's most successful EARLY MODERN dynasty."

Capetian, Han or Rurikids are not Early Modern.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_modern_period

The early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages of the post-classical era. Although the chronological limits of the period are open to debate, the timeframe spans the period after the late portion of the post-classical age (c. 1500), known as the Middle Ages, through the beginning of the Age of Revolutions (c. 1800) and is variously demarcated by historians as beginning with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, with the Renaissance period, and with the Age of Discovery (especially with the voyages of Christopher Columbus beginning in 1492, but also with Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to the East in 1498), and ending around the French Revolution in 1789.
 
That's giving the Romanovs and Tatar Yoke far too much credit, The western steppes save Crimea were pacified under Ivan the Terrible by the late 1550's.
Individual regions of the steppes had been pacified numerous times in Earths history. The Romanovs where the only ones to finish the job, and over an incredible distance too for a non nomadic civilisation.
 
But the Romanovs also conquered nomadic states. While the Ottomans used nomadic states as a bludgeon against the Romanovs. Both of which were unique achievements at the time.
The mass conquering of Nomadic states was, yes, but not using them against your enemies. That had been done all the way from the successors to Modu Chanyu, and was common policy by empires such as the byzantines and caliphate.
 
The Romanovs and Ottomans spanned three continents at their heights, and each had strong, modern armies and vibrant economies. They are on par or greater than the Qing IMHO, mostly because, except for conquering some already-tributary-states on their borders, the Qing didn't... do... anything. Or, at least, not much of anything.

That is the crucial difference- the Qing merely win China. China had ruled its neck of the woods forever. Dynasties like the Romanovs, Hohenzollerns and such are making their way in a real tough neighborhood. Its easy to see a European state rise only to be gang tackled by the neighbors. Sweden for example. They had taken the Baltic and looked to have a wonderful future until the Great Northern War and having the Danes, Poles and Russians all take them on at once. How's that going to happen to the Qing?
 
That is the crucial difference- the Qing merely win China. China had ruled its neck of the woods forever. Dynasties like the Romanovs, Hohenzollerns and such are making their way in a real tough neighborhood. Its easy to see a European state rise only to be gang tackled by the neighbors. Sweden for example. They had taken the Baltic and looked to have a wonderful future until the Great Northern War and having the Danes, Poles and Russians all take them on at once. How's that going to happen to the Qing?
I have to say that's how the Aisin Gioro kind of started in the beginning.They didn't start as the rulers of the Manchu.When they first started,they had to fight numerous Jurchen tribes,not to mention a hostile Ming and Joseon--who just whacked the Japanese thoroughly.

That said,I do concede that conquering China was an overrated achievement.By the late 16th century,Ming China was basically forced to fight with a hand behind it's back the whole time due to peasant rebellions and not having enough funds to raise effective armies as a result of corruption and selfish bureaucrats not willing to tax themselves.
 
That is the crucial difference- the Qing merely win China. China had ruled its neck of the woods forever. Dynasties like the Romanovs, Hohenzollerns and such are making their way in a real tough neighborhood. Its easy to see a European state rise only to be gang tackled by the neighbors. Sweden for example. They had taken the Baltic and looked to have a wonderful future until the Great Northern War and having the Danes, Poles and Russians all take them on at once. How's that going to happen to the Qing?

Hold it, he didn't say "dynasty that did the hardest work' but "most successful" so Qing counts
 
Hold it, he didn't say "dynasty that did the hardest work' but "most successful" so Qing counts
in that case the Oldenburgs had from the 15th century to the 19th century gone from counts of Oldenburg to have possessions from Greenland and eastward until it hit the eastern border of Alaska.
 
First off, excellent idea for a thread! More discussions like this around here are sorely needed.

Broadly speaking, I would agree with Lieberman. In hindsight we can see that the China of 1800 was in for some rough times ahead, but we have to look at what the Qing had acheived by that point.

1: With the final defeat of the Steppe Nomads in the 1750's, Qing China had defeated the most significant threat to China for previous millennia. The relatively flat and open geography of Northern China at least had always left her vulnerable to nomadic horsemen from the Steppe, in a way that forested Northern Russia never quite could be. While it should be noted that this was not an achievement unique to the Qing, and fits into a wider story of nomad subjugation in this part of Eurasia, I still think that in terms of Chinese security this achievement cannot be overrated.

2: Economically, Qing China was a powerhouse in 1800. If Kenneth Pomeranz and his supporters are to be believed, China was not only home to the world's largest economy by quite some margin, but was also home to some of the world's most productive per-capita regions. Although certain regions of Europe were more industrially innovative (You know, like Manchester. Or Birmingham. Certainly not "Europe" as a whole), for much of the 19th century China may well have been keeping pace in per capita terms with Europe. And of course in macroeconomic terms China was in better shape in many respects. China's booming exports were draining Europe of her bullion, and the British had to resort to selling illegal drugs to resolve the trade deficit.

3: Size. I mean, have you seen the size of Qing China on a map? That is one impressive Empire! And China's population probably grew swifter than the world average in the 18th century, partially thanks to the arrival of New World crops but also due to Qing agricultural policies which actively attempted to disseminate new agricultural techniques for farmers, as well as refine systems in place for the relief of famine.

I think there is a really good case to be made that Qing China was one of the most powerful nations of the Early Modern Era. I mean, they really taught the Dutch a lesson, didn't they?
 
Comments from Koyama in a paper on "state capacity" in Early Modern states might be relevant here - https://mason.gmu.edu/~mkoyama2/About_files/StateCapacitySurvey.pdf

"What about the experience of states outside of Europe? A literature inspired by Montesquieu (1748, 1989) and Wittfogel (1957) attributes the failure of economic development to occur in Asia to despotic states that taxed excessively and made property rights insecure (e.g. Jones, 1981; Rosenberg and Birdzell, 1986; Landes, 1998). The rulers of the great empires of Asia were certainly immensely powerful individuals capable of mobilizing huge resources for monumental building projects and for warfare on a tremendous scale. Indeed, the Qianlong emperor commanded an army whose nominal size exceeded a million individuals.

Nevertheless, the ability of the rulers of premodern empires to effectively ‘govern’ their territories was limited. Qing China was highly bureaucratized by premodern standards yet the size the imperial bureaucracy was tiny relative to China's population and in relation to the vast territories that were claimed by the Qing rulers. Similarly the Ottoman emperor ruled a vast realm and in principle his power was absolute. ...

Similarly, recent scholarship has established that taxes in China were low (Ma, 2011, 2012, 2013; Rosenthal and Wong, 2011; Sng, 2014; Vries, 2015; Ma and Rubin, 2016). This had positive effects as the policies of the Qing state did not impede the effectiveness of the market in goods and services (Pomeranz, 2000; Shiue and Keller, 2007; Li et al., 2013).

However, many aspects of the effectiveness of the Chinese state in the early modern period remain subject to debate. It is a matter of some contention whether or not the low taxes collected by the Chinese state reflected low fiscal capacity or a reliance on Confucian ideology. Kent Deng refers to ‘under governance’ in terms of the reigning political ideology observing that ‘[h]]eavy taxation remained politically taboo’ (Deng, 2015, p. 328). Rosenthal and Wong (2011) write that the ‘Chinese logic for successful state maintenance … emphasized light taxation and generally tried to avoid interfering with commerce’ (174). Song (2014), on the other hand, compellingly argues that the low amounts of tax revenue collected by the central government in Qing China reflect the fragile political equilibrium that the Qing rulers faced in governing such a large empire using premodern technology.

The Qing state relied on a land tax based on a fixed amount due each year based on the value of land. The collection of this tax gave a large amount of discretion to the local officials who extracted bribes or otherwise manipulated the process for their own benefit. Song (2014) develops a formal model which predicts that where the principal-agent problem facing the ruler was more severe, the weaker was the ruler's ability to tax. Consistent with this model, he presents evidence that taxes were significantly lower in areas further from the capital and that they declined significantly from the mid-eighteenth century onwards.18 Vries (2015) similarly interprets the low taxes collected by the Qing state as reflective of a low-state capacity political equilibrium. In ongoing work Ma and Rubin (2016) formalize this idea in a more general model that explains why Chinese rule choose not to invest in fiscal capacity.

There is little evidence that the average Chinese paid a price for the failure of the Qing empire to build a fiscal military state in the eighteenth century. On the contrary, the economy continued to expand during the High Qing period (1680–1794). Chinese peasants possessed secure property rights in land (Pomeranz, 2000). The importation of new world crops and the implementation of double cropping enabled agricultural production to increase inline with the population (Yang, 2014).

However, the weakness and vulnerability of the Qing state became evident in the nineteenth century as it failed to respond to aggression from Western colonial powers from the 1830s onwards, while its failure to maintain internal order resulted in the Taiping Rebellion (see Kuhn, 1980)."

So there may be a question of whether when assessing their success we actually can draw the curtain to a close at 1800, or whether the 18th is directly responsible for the 19th.

However, this is all in the context of general problems faced by absolutists in raising sufficient taxation and governing large empires. Not specifically the case that another absolutist regime could have or did do better with as large an empire and similar technological base.
 
That is the crucial difference- the Qing merely win China. China had ruled its neck of the woods forever. Dynasties like the Romanovs, Hohenzollerns and such are making their way in a real tough neighborhood. Its easy to see a European state rise only to be gang tackled by the neighbors. Sweden for example. They had taken the Baltic and looked to have a wonderful future until the Great Northern War and having the Danes, Poles and Russians all take them on at once. How's that going to happen to the Qing?
They won "China" because the modern borders that we think of as China were largely defined as "the lands ruled by the Qing (minus modern Mongolia)." Much of modern China (the Steppe, Tibet, Xinjiang) was essentially conquered by the Qing; the Ming and arguably even the Tang at their height controlled a vastly smaller territory. The Qing not only conquered China from a small base, they then went on to expand China drastically and essentially eliminate the steppe nomads as a major threat.

I'm not sure I'd call them the single most successful early modern dynasty (the Romanovs, as mentioned, also make a strong case, as do several others), but they are certainly one of the front-runners.
 
This is a really good post actually. We really need to rate posts that engage with serious academic work more highly around here.

This is just a bit of thought here, but the Europeans built up a fiscal military state mainly in order to ensure that they could make the most of their resources to hold the line against, or overcome their opponents. For Qing China whose resources were far beyond any of her neighbours, would it not be likely that the fiscal military state was never developed because there was not that need to maximise resources to attain security?
 
I think it's the same for every country.The larger the state is,the lower the administrative efficiency.Ultimately,there's only one head of state/head of government ruling over a territory.The ruler of a larger territory is bound to have their attention spread thin compared to a ruler who rules over a far smaller territory.Government policies would have to take into account greater factors in a larger state as opposed the government of a smaller one.You see this in every empire,not just the Qing Dynasty.
 
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