Qing Dynasty 清朝

The Qing dynasty was the last dynasty that reigned China between 1644 and 1911. The Qing belonged to a non-Chinese ethnic: the Manchu ethnic. The Manchu were descendants of the Jurchen tribes (nomadic people who lived in the steppes of northern Asia), and a ruler called Nurhachi was able to unify all the tribes under a complex military system made up of eight banners. When the Manchu rulers seized the power of China, they knew the Chinese would always consider them as foreign usurpers. However, although the Manchu never lost their own language and cultural identity, they became great promoters of the Chinese culture, specially the Kangxi emperor who edited great books about Chinese historiography, language and literature. By means of promoting the Chinese culture and language, the Qing emperors intended to dispel the negative concept of invasion that the Chinese had about the Manchu dynasty. It is a paradox that whenever Westerners think about the imperial China, all the cultural references belong to the period of the Qing dynasty, for instance, the image of a Chinese man with his ponytail plaited and the rest of the head shaved. In fact, this wasn’t a Chinese tradition but measure adopted by the Manchu to humiliate the Chinese, and anyone who dared to cut his ponytail could be punished with death since it was seen as an act of rebellion and betrayal to the Qing dynasty. In 1908 the son of the regent prince Chun , Puyi, was appointed emperor, he would be the last emperor of China. In 1911 the Xinhai Revolution started and the 12th February 1912 the emperor had to abdicate. The Republic of China was officially proclaimed and its first president was Doctor Sun Yat-sen.