In 1616 the Qing Taizu Nu’erhachi, founded the Later Jin Kingdom after many years of warfares. In 1636 his son king Taiji changed the reigning title to the Qing. In 1644 the Qing forces entered the great wall and exterminated the Ming Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty ruled in China for 268 years through 10 successive emperors: Shun Zhi, Kang Xi, Yong Zheng, Qian Long, Jia Qing, Dao Guang, Xian Feng , Tong Zhi , Guang Xu and Xuan Tong .
At the earlier phase of the Qing Dynasty China was socially stable and economically advanced, and was at the zenith of power and prosperity during the reigns of Emperor Kang Xi , Emperor Yong Zheng and Emperor Qian Long . Since the reigns of Emperor Jia Qing and Emperor Dao Guang, however, corruption in the government increased and social contradictions intensified, and the national power declined. Since the 1830s the Western colonialists shipped huge quantities of opium to China. In 1839 the Qing government ordered Lin Zexu to be the special imperial commissioner in charge of the opium prohibition. In order to protect its benefits out of the opium trade , The British colonialist government triggered the Opium War with China in 1840 and coerced the Qing imperial court into signing the unequal Nanjing Treaty . China began to slip into a semi-colonial society.
The ceding of territory and the indemnities resulted from the loss of the Opium War inflicted a heavy burden on the Chinese people. Finally in 1851 the Tai Ping Heavenly Kingdom rebellion broke out, dealing a heavy blow to the Qing Dynasty, but this peasant revolution was suppressed in 1864 by the Qing government with the aid of foreign aggressors.
Some high officials, including Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang , Li Hongzhang and Yisu , spurred on the Westernization Movement , while developing a new military industy . Politically it is for the purpose of suppression of the resistance of the people. But objectively it pushed forward the modernization of China. With the spread and influence of the western culture, there appeared a number of bourgeois reformists among the intelligentsia, who gradually formed the Wu Xu Reform Movement headed by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao. Empress Dowager Cixi suppressed both the Reform Movement and the anti-imperialist, patriotic Boxers Movement. In 1911, the Xin Hai Revolution under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen broke out and the Qing Dynasty was ended .
During the Qing Dynasty there appeared a large number of philosophers and scholars , represented by Huang Zongxi , Gu Yanwu , Wang Fuzhi , Wei Yuan , Gong Zizhen , Kang Youwei , Yan Fu , Tan Sitong , Liang Qichao , Zhang Binlin , Cai Yuanpei , etc., There too , appeared a number of excellent novels such as the “Strange Stories Told in a Chatting Room” , the “ Unoffcial History of Scholars” , the “Dream of the Red Mansion” , etc., a number of excellent dramas , such as the “Palace of Eternal Life” , the “Peach Blossom Fan” , etc., and a number of excellent essays , opems and paintings .
In the westernization movement appeared a lot of translated books on science and technology and quite a few modern Chinese scientists , including mathematicians Li Shanlan and Hua Hengfang , chemist Xu Tao , engineer Zhan Tianyou , etc.,
The Qing was the last feudal dynasty in China. Its prominent contributions lay in the unification of the whole country, the consolidation and strengthening of the multi-national state and the final settlement of China’s domain. Xin Hai Revolution ended the over two thousand years long feudal rule , but it did not solve the social contradiction in China fundamentally .
