Would modern China's borders be a lot smaller if there were native instead of Qing dynasty?

[raharris1973]

The Qing are given credit by many for resolving China's age problem of living next to the steppe, by incorporating regions like Manchuria, Mongolia and Xinjiang into a common empire with China.

Peter Perdue cites the Manchus steppe or at least nomadic origins as providing them with useful skills Han rulers had *not* demonstrated in either combating or co-opting Mongols and Uighurs and Tibetans.

There may be a lot to this. The Qing figured out ways to sustain power in the western territories of modern China that the Ming dynasty had not.

However, with demographic and technological and economic changes, might the end of marauding steppe peoples been inevitable anyway? After all, the steppe was not enclosed and pacified only from the eastern, Chinese side. It was also pacified from the western, Russian side.

If we endorse the Perdue theory that suggests China under Han rulers would never have acquired many of its current western territories. Perhaps the Russian Empire would have extended through the Tarim Basin, Gobi desert and Manchuria from some point in the 1700s? Or perhaps independent states would hav existed continuously to the present day for Tibetans, Uighurs, Mongols and Manchus?

If you don't endorse the Liam Neeson-esque theory of the Manchus having "very special skills" at dealing with the steppe, then perhaps any strong Han regime would have expanded to the west as much as the OTL Qing.

Your thoughts?

 

[Dominic]

Very hard to say if you want to bring it up to the modern day. During the pre-19th century period it is quite possible that it will be smaller (I am very unfamiliar with pre-Opium War China to be sure), but if a Han-ruled China has better success at modernising during the 19th century (quite possible) then it has the capacity to acquire enormous territories to the North and West. Maybe Russia will be strong enough to oppose it, maybe not, but if not then the potential for expansion is tremendous. It's worth remembering that what we call the Russian Far-East was never strongly held by the Russian Empire in absolute terms i.e. there were few population centres/local sources of strength, but were held onto due to the relative weakness of everyone else. A strong China in the late 19th/early 20th Century has more than enough potential to compete with Russia for those territories and win.

 

[Avrorrange]

I voted no.It depends on what a potential new dynasty does.Different dynasties are a different beasts altogether from another.Some dynasties like the Han and the Tang Dynasty were especially expansionist and managed to conquer large swathes of territory.Even the highly stagnant Ming dynasty was able to conquer large amount of territory in it's early days.Some, like the Song dynasty and the Jin Dynasty on the other hand struggle for the most of their existence to even survive.

It is my belief that native Han dynasties will be more reliant on firearms than the Manchu Qing dynasty and that it would not be too difficult to pacify Central Asia,Manchuria and Tibet the more advanced firearms become.

 

[raharris1973]

Okay, so the two articulated responses say China could well have expanded just as much as OTL, if not more. But there are more votes for the smaller borders position in the poll.

If you think China would be smaller without the Qing, what would you see as the likely fate of territories beyond China proper, like Tibet, xinjiang, Mongolia, Manchuria and Taiwan?

 

[Alex Zetsu]

I don't think China will have either Tibet or Manchuria without the Qing.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Who would rule Taiwan? China always got touchy over Europeans ruling it, and Japan only had a narrow window to seize Taiwan (and wouldn't be any more appreciated than Europeans). The Zheng Dynasty/Dongning/Ming remnants? At some point the mainland Chinese dynasty could easily conquer it, although would it necessarily be worth the undertaking?

I don't think China will have either Tibet or Manchuria without the Qing.

Tibet will fall once the Dzungar threat is neutralised. Tibet would be a vassal state (as it tended to be) that could be abolished relatively painlessly compared to fighting the Manchu or Mongols/Dzungars. And the age of the nomad was rapidly running out with early modern technology giving settled peoples more and more advantages over steppe nomads. Does that mean that a Han dynasty will campaign far into Manchuria? Maybe not, although Manchuria would always be good for more land and to permanently end the Manchu threat, although it's a very expensive undertaking. I wonder if a Han dynasty would attempt to do anything comparable to the Dzungar Genocide to solve the problem of the steppes? It could happen to either the Dzungars as in OTL, or maybe the Manchu.

 

[EmperorOfTheNorthSea]

I don't know, if Communism takes over in China then they're really isn't too much a reason not to be expansionist.

Though if that were the case Soviet Union would definitely take Manchuria.

 

[Alex Zetsu]

I really don't think you should assume a Han dynasty will Westernize sooo much faster than their OTL Qing counterparts. If anything, they would be even more self-confident.

 

[Avrorrange]

I really don't think you should assume a Han dynasty will Westernize sooo much faster than their OTL Qing counterparts. If anything, they would be even more self-confident.

Why would you need to 'Westernize' if you are creating creating ideas of your own and progressing?One needs to note that by the end of the Ming Dynasty,there were fairly enlightened thinkers.For example,it's already readily accepted amongst the gentry that the power of the monarch needs to be curbed and that the emperor should be reduced to the role of a figurehead.There were also notable Confucian scientists in that period,like Xu Guangqi--whose books were actually banned by the Manchus.The success of the Manchus broke all of that.If by some chance it's Zheng Chenggong who ended up establishing a new dynasty,then we are headed towards fairly interesting times.

 

[Arkenfolm]

I really don't think you should assume a Han dynasty will Westernize sooo much faster than their OTL Qing counterparts. If anything, they would be even more self-confident.

You don't need Western European (or even Eastern European) tech and economics to beat the steppe peoples. The Qing beat the Dzungars in the 18th century after all.

 

[Intransigent Southerner]

Without the Qing I think the Russians would have definitely eaten Xinjiang and northern Manchuria, and probably a lot more of Mongolia as well. The Russians fought well against the Zunghars, and against steppe nomads in general (Kazan, Crimeans).

Who would rule Taiwan? China always got touchy over Europeans ruling it

The Dutch, of course. Some Japanese businessmen tried to recruit ronin to conquer it early in the 1600s, but after Sakoku that was obviously impossible. Without the exceptional circumstances of Ming collapse, pirate-merchant groups like the Zheng family can't kick out the Dutch.

The Ming did not care about Europeans in Taiwan. They explicitly told the Dutch that as long as they left the Penghu Islands alone (since Penghu was Chinese since before the Song), they could have the whole island because it wasn't Chinese territory. Not even the Qing cared very much about whatever was going on there.

And the age of the nomad was rapidly running out with early modern technology giving settled peoples more and more advantages over steppe nomads.

What was crucial about the Qing conquest of the steppe was that they, as close geographic and cultural neighbors, understood the Mongols. It was only through this common heritage that they could obtain the horses, allies, and local knowledge needed to vassalize the Khalkas and conquer the Zunghars. The Han Chinese did not understand the enemy at all, hence why Ming officials constantly refused to allow Mongols to trade across the Great Wall (when just allowing trade would have stopped 99% of Mongol raiding).

Technology doesn't matter much. The Zunghars had lots of guns, and more importantly, nomads would simply burn the steppe and leave the Chinese army to die from attrition (the Crimeans were famous for this, and even Kangxi's armies during the 1690s campaign against Galdan would have starved if there was a delay of just a few days). Guns are unwieldy in such situations. What you needed was an organized supply line backed by an extremely efficient economy, not military technology per se. And I find it doubtful that the Han Chinese would have revitalized Northwestern China's economy to the same extent as the Manchus.

For example,it's already readily accepted amongst the gentry that the power of the monarch needs to be curbed and that the emperor should be reduced to the role of a figurehead.

First, you're exaggerating what Ming thinkers actually thought, and second, this is almost entirely because the Ming were such a shitty dynasty with unprecedented levels of institutionalized corruption that the gentry began to have doubts. Any moderately successful dynasty will need to have good rulers akin to Kangxi and Yongzheng, and their presence alone will make this sort of ideas diminish.

There were also notable Confucian scientists in that period

There was a lot of scientific development during the Qing as well. For example, there was a lot of medical research done on "heat factor" diseases (endemic tropical diseases in places like Yunnan and Guangdong) which was all new. Generally speaking there was an inward turn in Chinese science in the 18th century, but it didn't have anything directly to do with the Manchus. If anything the Jesuits are more to blame because they didn't keep in touch with the Scientific Revolution and claimed that thunder was the creation of God and stuff.

 

[Alex Zetsu]

Now, I wouldn't say the Ming was that shitty a family and corruption was exaggerated. They only had problems for 3 and a half generations in a row leading to rebels storming their own capital, but that's ignoring their long successes (when it didn't come to subduing Manchuria)

 

[XFE]

I might be wrong here, but I've read that the Ming had the mentality that the Manchus, Mongols and other major border threats were similar to natural disasters that needed to be stemmed and not conquered like the Qing’s approach. Wouldn't any Han dynasty would have to change it overcome this mentality to become as expansionist as the Qing?

 

[Intransigent Southerner]

Now, I wouldn't say the Ming was that shitty a family

They were though. With the (possible) exception of Yongle, few Ming emperors were ever genuinely good rulers. There were emperors with mental disabilities, total hedonists, people who never showed up for work, and many, many rulers who tried their best but failed in the long term (Chongzhen is the best example). The Ming rulers were exceptionally bad in comparison to the Qing, the Tang, or any of the other major Chinese dynasties. Their government system was crippled (the Hongwu emperor had the brilliant idea to permanently impair the bureaucracy by abolishing the Central Secretariat) and their diplomacy (ban on private trade overseas, their racist ignorance about what the Mongols wanted) was insanely shortsighted.

The late Ming society and economy was vigorous, but as a political entity the state was a flop.

corruption was exaggerated

The Hongwu emperor had the equally brilliant idea that every government official should be frugal and parsimonious, so he drastically reduced everybody's wages. Officials needed to be corrupt to actually have the money they wanted and needed. Hence, institutionalized corruption. The Qing (Yongzheng especially) fixed this issue until the 1770s.

ignoring their long successes

I don't see any successes in Ming history besides maintaining control of China, which, compared to the Tang or Qing, isn't very successful. Even the flourishing economy was to a big degree in spite of Ming policies (e.g. the ban on foreign trade) rather than caused by it.

Didn't the Ming have the mentality that the Manchus, Mongols etc were similar to natural disasters that needed to be stemmed and not conquered like the Qing’s approach?

Well, after Yongle's failed campaigns, the Ming government claimed that the Mongols were like "dogs and wolves" who couldn't possibly be reasoned with. Hence the Great Wall and their decades-long rejection of any and all Mongol offers of trade and peace. This attitude is not very conducive to conquest.

 

[Avrorrange]

First, you're exaggerating what Ming thinkers actually thought, and second, this is almost entirely because the Ming were such a shitty dynasty with unprecedented levels of institutionalized corruption that the gentry began to have doubts. Any moderately successful dynasty will need to have good rulers akin to Kangxi and Yongzheng, and their presence alone will make this sort of ideas diminish.


There was a lot of scientific development during the Qing as well. For example, there was a lot of medical research done on "heat factor" diseases (endemic tropical diseases in places like Yunnan and Guangdong) which was all new. Generally speaking there was an inward turn in Chinese science in the 18th century, but it didn't have anything directly to do with the Manchus. If anything the Jesuits are more to blame because they didn't keep in touch with the Scientific Revolution and claimed that thunder was the creation of God and stuff.

A good system is more important than three good rulers.Arguably,even if Kangxi gets ISOTed to someone like Guangxu,he wouldn't have been able to salvage the mess that was the Qing Dynasty by the end of the 19th century.

As for the Ming system,I agree,it was undoubtedly corrupt.Nevertheless,under a native dynasty,there's no doubt it will have better leadership to clear things--new dynasties always have a tendency to mend damage done by previous dynasties in it's initial phase.

However,having good rulers does not mean such ideas would diminish.A new native dynasty will probably have to make compromises with a lot of the native elite--like the Song Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty.Even the Ming Dynasty after the initial phase had to compromise with the gentry elite as well.The biggest difference between the Manchus and a native dynasty is that unlike the Manchus,the native dynasty don't have the bannermen to whack the gentry elite whenever they get out of hand.It is also important to note that Ming History was written by gentry who were eager to appease their new Manchu masters--as well as to diminish their own responsibility in the fall of the dynasty.A lot of the things done by Manchu rulers would be considered tyrannical or inappropriate under a native dynasty.For example,Ming emperors were generally admonished and prohibited from traveling outside of the Forbidden Palace and any attempt to build more palaces was also vetoed by officials on account of that being expensive and a burden to the people.Qing Emperors on the other hand,had resort palaces in a good number of locations throughout the empire and that Qianglong in particular traveled around the country a good number of times despite the vast expense incurred in doing so.Ming Emperors also had to use their own personal money to support state expenses whereas the Qing emperors had no need of doing that(the personal treasury of the emperor and the state treasury's segregated).

As for technological stagnation,I was under the impression that the numerous literary inquisition had a hand in that as well.

Now, I wouldn't say the Ming was that shitty a family and corruption was exaggerated. They only had problems for 3 and a half generations in a row leading to rebels storming their own capital, but that's ignoring their long successes (when it didn't come to subduing Manchuria)

I'd say that they had it coming for a long time.This was a government with chronic deficits and little income--with most of the gentry,nobles and merchants paying no taxes at all.Not withstanding that,the elite gobbled up land from small farmers,which further decreased the tax revenue of the regime.On top of that,the government had to pay massive salaries to members of the extended imperial family--who were not allowed to enter government,trade,become soldiers or craftsmen.Virtually,the imperial family became nothing more than a growing burden for the state--whose only obligation was to procreate.By the end of the Ming Dynasty,Zhu Yuanzhang had literally EIGHTY-THOUSAND descendants.

 

[Avrorrange]

They were though. With the (possible) exception of Yongle, few Ming emperors were ever genuinely good rulers. There were emperors with mental disabilities, total hedonists, people who never showed up for work, and many, many rulers who tried their best but failed in the long term (Chongzhen is the best example). The Ming rulers were exceptionally bad in comparison to the Qing, the Tang, or any of the other major Chinese dynasties. Their government system was crippled (the Hongwu emperor had the brilliant idea to permanently impair the bureaucracy by abolishing the Central Secretariat) and their diplomacy (ban on private trade overseas, their racist ignorance about what the Mongols wanted) was insanely shortsighted.

I think the 'corruption and incompetence' of Ming emperor's highly exaggerated.As I've mentioned earlier,Ming history was written by Qing scholars who had to denigrate the Ming dynasty as much as possible.Failure to do so would result in execution and familial purges due to Literary Inquisition.The truth was that after Yongle,emperors were gradually reduced to the status of figureheads by their officials--and could only do as little as approving or rejecting proposals by the Grand Secretariat.The emperor can't honestly do much if the state's under the control of the officials who had the consensus that they should marginalize the emperor as much as possible.The emperor basically had a lot of free time to do whatever they wanted like the do-nothing monarchs of modern day Britain for example.Emperor Wanli,despite being inexcusable for the mess he created during the late Ming period,was often accused of being 'tyrannical' for imposing taxes the elite and running the empire with eunuchs.Much of the 'tyranny' like getting eunuchs to run the state was an attempt to circumvent opposition by officials whenever the emperor tried to directly run the state himself.The taxes imposed were also no where as high as what the Qing imposed upon elite.

The late Ming society and economy was vigorous, but as a political entity the state was a flop.

That I agree.

The Hongwu emperor had the equally brilliant idea that every government official should be frugal and parsimonious, so he drastically reduced everybody's wages. Officials needed to be corrupt to actually have the money they wanted and needed. Hence, institutionalized corruption. The Qing (Yongzheng especially) fixed this issue until the 1770s.

Also agree.

I don't see any successes in Ming history besides maintaining control of China, which, compared to the Tang or Qing, isn't very successful. Even the flourishing economy was to a big degree in spite of Ming policies (e.g. the ban on foreign trade) rather than caused by it.

Honestly though,I was under the impression that the Qing 'golden age' had a lot to do with a lot of empty land as a result of due to the fall of Ming and the introduction of new crops like potatoes--which allowed a greater population than before.

Well, after Yongle's failed campaigns, the Ming government claimed that the Mongols were like "dogs and wolves" who couldn't possibly be reasoned with. Hence the Great Wall and their decades-long rejection of any and all Mongol offers of trade and peace. This attitude is not very conducive to conquest.

Agree with this.

 

[Obergruppenführer Smith]

One of the bigger advantages of Qing was that they were willing to use "freedom of" religion to bind the outer boundaries of the Empire. Using Tibetan Buddhism to link Tibet and Mongolia was one of the more brilliant moves that stabilized the empire.

I really don't see something like this happening with a Han Chinese dynasty. After all, Ming actively banned Goryeo cultural influence (such as in fashion) in the name of "returning to the golden age".

 

[Avrorrange]

One of the bigger advantages of Qing was that they were willing to use "freedom of" religion to bind the outer boundaries of the Empire. Using Tibetan Buddhism to link Tibet and Mongolia was one of the more brilliant moves that stabilized the empire.

I really don't see something like this happening with a Han Chinese dynasty. After all, Ming actively banned Goryeo cultural influence (such as in fashion) in the name of "returning to the golden age".

Depends on who became emperor.If someone like Zheng Chenggong became emperor(which he did have a chance IOTL of at least taking over southern China if he did not blow it big time in the 1658-1659 campaign ),I can most certainly see a more cosmopolitan China.

 

[profxyz]

I agree that a native Chinese dynasty would have had borders significantly smaller than OTL Qing, but the reason for that lies less in military capability/will and instead on the cultural barriers that would prevent native Chinese from crafting successful policies to co-opt local elites.

Iain Johnston's analysis of Ming foreign policy vis-a-vis the Mongols has demonstrated that the idea of an 'innately peaceful' Chinese disposition is somewhat misleading: like most other nations, the Ming were more aggressive when they held the upper hand against the Mongols and more peaceful when the Mongols were stronger. As such, I have little doubt that a native Chinese army with sufficient military and logistical superiority would eventually attempt to expand beyond the Great Wall (as Emperor Wu of Han did).

The problem, as always, is one of costs. Leading expeditions thousands of miles from the heartland would have been immensely draining for the court - as such, without ways of successfully co-opting local elites, eventually the costs of sustaining local rule in these far-flung areas would have outweighed any benefit, material or political, of staying. Few courts - and certainly not the factionalized and budget-conscious Chinese courts - would have long stomached repeated and costly rebellions in an irrelevant frontier.

This is where I think the cultural differences between Manchu and Han would have been important. Di Cosmo (I think) makes the argument that ever since Sima Qian, Chinese historiography had placed the Mongols as somehow 'beyond the pale' of Chinese culture, unable to respond positively to cultural or policy incentives. Such a view was echoed in the more militant of Ming officials in Iain Johnston's analysis, which essentially argued for war with the Mongols on the basis that they were inherently rapacious and greedy. Such a worldview, in my opinion, would be a major obstacle in the ability of native Chinese dynasties to successfully co-opt Mongol elites and thus bring down the costs of occupation.

The Qing policy of coopting non-Manchu elites (described in Evelyn Rawski), which included not just the forging of marital, social and religious links, but also the ideological flexibility to be all things to all people (for example, simultaneously posing as the representative of Tibetan Buddhism, Confucianism and Xinjiang Islam), would have been completely alien to the Ming and, I suspect, broader Han Chinese culture. For one, the idea of heqin (marrying princesses to foreigners) was alien not just to the Ming, but apparently also to the Song Dynasty as well.

TL;DR: even if a native Chinese empire had militarily conquered Mongolia, Xinjiang or Tibet, the cultural barriers towards successful cooptation of local elites would have been so high as to make continued occupation very costly and eventually unsustainable.

 

[Avrorrange]

SNIP

For a backwards pre-industrialized regime,it most certainly would be costly to lead military expeditions,but for a fully industrialized power with Gatling guns,modern artillery,rails and telegrams?I am looking less towards the days where the Han emperor bankrupts the empire trying to fight the Xiongnu than the Russians blitzing through Central Asia in the 19th century.From my POV,a native Chinese dynasty after Ming has far more potential in terms of dragging China into modernity than the Qing.

Rather than looking at land as the only source of expansion,there's also a chance that they would be looking forward to maritime expansion as well.