Yongqi survives

Yongqi was a promising heir to the throne of the Qianlong Emperor of China before his life was cut short at age 25 by tuberculosis. But what if he survived and succeeds the Qianlong Emperor (either willingly or forcibly) by 1770? Would he continue the ten great campaigns? Heshen is gone which spares China's treasury from being robbed blind. So with money on hand and a young emperor willing to experiment, could China have an industrial revolution?
 
From a cursory look at Wikipedia, Qianlong was an illustrious emperor and Yongqi seems to have had the same talents. I am sceptical about an industrial revolution, but a cultural one might happen.

Other than that, some bullets:

  • No 1795-1806 revolts due to the opium smuggling and lacking treasury
  • No 1811 addition to Great Qing Code persecuting Christians
 
Yongqi was a promising heir to the throne of the Qianlong Emperor of China before his life was cut short at age 25 by tuberculosis. But what if he survived and succeeds the Qianlong Emperor (either willingly or forcibly) by 1770? Would he continue the ten great campaigns? Heshen is gone which spares China's treasury from being robbed blind. So with money on hand and a young emperor willing to experiment, could China have an industrial revolution?

He probably does continue the campaigns, nothing like foreign conquest to cement a new king's legitimacy.

As to the second question, no. You need more than a competent ruler and a big treasury for something like that. Honestly, I'm skeptical that a united China can ever beat the west (or keep pace) into industrialism, simply because of the huge population and corresponding cheap labor costs.
 
He probably does continue the campaigns, nothing like foreign conquest to cement a new king's legitimacy.

As to the second question, no. You need more than a competent ruler and a big treasury for something like that. Honestly, I'm skeptical that a united China can ever beat the west (or keep pace) into industrialism, simply because of the huge population and corresponding cheap labor costs.
IIRC,the Qing Dynasty relies heavily on conservative landlord elites(who in turn produced the Confucian Scholar class) in order to preserve it's rule over China.I highly doubt they would suddenly welcome drastic changes.In time,the Manchurian nobles themselves were pretty much bought by their own deceptions regarding the superiority of the Middle Kingdom and multiple superstitious beliefs.You can see quite clearly as to what would happen to the emperor if he dared to act against the conservative elite by looking no closer than what happened to Guangxu.So it's pretty certain that there will be no industrialization.Also,I due to China's large population,I don't think the benefits of industrialization is that apparent yet in the later half of the 1700s.
 
Maybe industrial revolution was too broad a term. Perhaps something smaller and more gradual for later emperors to deal with.
 
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