The Greatest Emperor: Qin Shi Huang.

Troika said:

Not just that. The Ming bureaucracy was larger than the Qing, pound for pound. Qing saw dramatic cuts in central authority over local administrations, and the monitor branch was also much smaller. There was also no equivalent to the Ming's internal security apparatus.

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Sorry to tell you that Qing make little refrom to the Old Ming system especially in the area of taxation and economy. When Manchu come to power, they lack the administrative experience and simply want to gain effective control. They did tighten up administrative discipline but avoid major reforms especially pratices. The only significant modification is to permanent freezing of ting quota. The Qing system was only derived from Ming with little changes. Only one slight change the Qing make was dual staffing for high staffing for important positions such as ministries, provincial chief. To staffs its' civil government. The Qing relied on the civil service examination as conducted in the Ming. Most of Ming officials just became Qing officials.

This is serious accusation you made. We will see if it carries merit:

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Sorry Troika, I might use a too strong words.

This does not make sense. Keeping a strongly guarded Northern border does not lead to isolation. The Song, one of the most maritime and outward-looking of China's dynasties, had to keep a strongly guarded Northern border at all times.

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After Ming used most of their resources for the North, they didn't have funds for the sea expedition. That also mean they will have difficult time to fight the Piracy.

By what do you mean 'need'? Even Europe, very few places actually 'need' the things imported in the sense that they will die if they don't. Trade isn't about just what you need, but arbitrage, quality of living, and above all, profit.

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Europe want silk, china and many things from China. What Europe offered to China that China is interest at that time. Remember one of the reason Britain needed to sell opium to China, because China is only exporting. China do not need import much from britain. So britain came up with the Opium, because they didn't had good product to offer. The trade is profitable for Ming, so ming do have some sort of trade even in isolation.

I do not 'twist things around'. It is you who confused Japanese piracy. You mixed up the two periods of significant pirate activities. The first period was between Ming dynasty establishment and Zheng He's voyages, result of remnant anti-Mongol forces and Japanese refugees fleeing triumph of Ashikaga Shogunate. It ended with Ming's seapower expansion and improving relations with the third Ashikaga Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu with whom the Ming arranged normal trade relations, and who cut down on Japanese pirate activities. It was during this period that Ming adopted close door policy, to be opened again of course by the Emperor Yongle. The second period started more than a century later, in 1523, after the corruption event of trade commission at Ningbo caused abolishment of that comission and outlawing of Japanese trade, and subsequent piracy. This period lasted about two decades. The second one was by far the worse, which was what I referred to, since it saw the sacking of Hangzhou, amongst other important cities, and was caused by endemic corruption in Ming's trade commission.

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I knew you are talking about the later period one. The Ningbo incident caused by the Hosokawa trading party in Ningbo attaked its rival mission from the Quchi family and then proceeded to loot the city. It seized a number of ships and sail away. The ming commander sent to catch them was killed in a sea battle. This event has costed the Ming to consider the Japan as a threat to China. By the time in 1539, the tribute trade system broke down altogether. This is the beginning of major piracy when Japanese fleets sailing to china to do trade with privates. The violence grow with this kind of trades and many problems were created because of payments. This cycle of violent continued for two decades. Many people wanted the ban to be lifted, but instead the Ming dynasty felt the ban needed to be tighten. It is just you felt the privates were caused by the ban, but I would argue that the pirvacy had forced Ming to think that a ban is necessary. They might saw it as differnt perspective, that the trade had erupted more violence and pirvacy.
So whether the pirvacy caused the ban or the ban caused the pirvacy are debateable.

Debatable. The Ming initially established state arsenals to develop weapons, but a combination of corruption and bureaucratic infighting caused it to become increasingly reliant upon imports so that by the late Ming cannons were bought from Dutch and Portuguese. The Qing at tried numerous times to import manufacturing process from the West, from the Jesuits at the beginning to the Hanyang Arsenal towards the very end of the dynasty. THis is of course only on firearms. As for other technologies, it does not seem to me the Ming were any more markedly innovative than the Qing. The Ming's shipbuilding and maritime technology was largely inherited and at any rate they proceeded to merrily let it atrophy. Astronomy-wise, again it saw very little improvement from the pinnacle of Chinese astronomy, the Song Orrery Tower, and it was actually the Qing's introduction of Jesuit astronomy that once more got things improving. Borrowed, you say, but borrowing seems to me at least an awareness of superior technology, better than simple stagnation.

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The problem is Qing only seriously trying to import manufacturing process from the West in the early Kangxi period. By the time of late Qianlong, the Jesuits were expel, the Qing had fall behind every aspects of technology. One of most corrupted official in the chinese history were He shen which is well trusted by Qiang Long. That why by Jiang Qing reign, he was busy cleaning up the mess from his father and surpressing revolts and improving financial situation. The gad between Ming and the West are not as great as Qing with the West. So I would hold Qing accountable for not having much technology innovation.

MIGleader said:

I kinda got the impression he was insane...wanting to prolong life. Btw, his name is just Qin Shi. The last two parts, Huang di denote "king".

You must realise this guy killed more people than Caesar and hussein combined, in both wars and the building of the wall.

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Um, actually his name is Ying Zheng. Like a descendents of the former imperial Zhou dynasty, his last name is Ying. As for Qin Shi Huang Di, Qin is the dynasty name, shi is beginning/first, huang di is emperor. The fact that people, including western historians can't get this simple little fact right p1sses the hell out of me.

T-U-P said:

it doesn't matter what you guys think, to me, he is not the greatest emperor. the only real achievement he made is to unite china... for a very brief period of time. sure he started the great wall, but it costed both many many lives and his empire. it is one of the most important reason why Qin dynasty collapsed, too many slave labour and inhuman rules. if he was born any other time, he would not have been as well recieved. the fact that he is so popular now is because he was the first emperor to unite china, but he is in no way the only one. china was divided once again immediately after the fall of Qin and that's where the Chu and Han conflict came from.

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Greatest of all emperors is very subjective and debatable, but still, you must be kidding me.

His unification of China is a far greater achievement than those that followed him. What sets him apart is far greater than simply building a large army and rolling everyone, but the fact that he established the idea (along with the Han dynasty) of China. The work he started with finished by the Han, which is why the ethnic majority today in China call themselves "Han."

Others have built empires all over the world. Few survived through history. China stands alone. The Greeks and Romans were strong in their limited ways too. But now they are mere history. When you talk about the first emperor, he's not just some tinpot dictator that just happened to unify a country.

sumdud said:

Well, I have not learn of his mercury intake, but if he did, I hope his terror was caused by the mercury.

He could've been quite great.........

But he went around slaughtering instead...

He may have united China, but he did not have to kill civilians. He wiped the Zhou off the world!

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I'm assuming you meant Zhao...

crobato said:

Yes, standards were pretty low at that time. But QSHD must have brought cruelty to a whole new level even for the people at that time to be really pissed off at him. Ironically, the same 'loyal' generals and soldiers whose faces he iconized into the terra cotta army to bring with him to heaven, would later slaughter his family and end his wretched bloodline forever.

It is for that reason why Chinese are proud to call themselves "Han" as for the Han Dynasty, but not "Qin".

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It's merely the reflection that the Qin dynasty was so damn short. They really weren't allowed to finish their work.

Troika said:

I think this is oversimplification of Qing. First of all, the Qing were far less centralized than the Ming, with a much smaller bureaucracy, so there is a limit to its supposed control even if it really wanted to. Secondly, as first dynasty in China to deal with near-modern Europe (I remind you that it was Qing Dynasty which first signed a Western-style treaty with a Western power - Russia - in the late seventeenth century), it has displayed considerable flexibility. There is the aforesaid treaty, there is the fact that trade exists, albeit somewhat regulated (contrast this with Ming trade, which was so badly managed that it contributed to making the Japanese trade turned into piracy afflicting China for almost a century), and that it was also under Qing dynasty which saw large Chinese migration to South East Asia. Also under the auspice of Qing was the agricultural revolution seeing China's population boom to reach some four hundred millions souls by the nineteenth century. And if you look at late eighteenth early nineteenth century Chinese trade patterns with West it was tea, porcelein, silk - luxuries - and in exchange mostly cash, but also opium and some manufactured goods. None of this is characteristic of a government that somehow regulates knowledge. Rather I think it is expanding demographic pressure then that stagnated growth - at that scale much resource had to be devoted to basic survival, which also I think inflated China's estimated GDP figures then.

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Um no. The Mings were bad, the Qings were worse. We can argue all day long about the semantics of bureaucracy, but that does not change the fact that the Qings were even more bureaucratic than the Mings, just in a different form. Much as the Mings pretty much fell apart after Yong Le, the Qing was done after (I would say) Shun Zhi (and yes, I did purposefully leave out Qian Long).

Rampant corruption aside, let's look at how pathetic the Qings were. During the early Ming era, China was the most advanced in terms of fire arms in the world. Even post industrial revolution, despite the great floods, the Mings have more or less caught up with Europe in that aspect. In comes the Qings. The ethnic Hans are the ones with the superior knowledge in fire arms, so it must be banned. Hell, I'm glad that Kang Xi had a fascination in fire arms, or the Opium War would have gotten even uglier.

Following China's defeat during the Opium Wars, the Qing dynasty still refused to organize militia and local forces to counter the faster moving British (and other European) fleets. The reason for this is they were afraid such organization, which would undoubtedly carried out by ethnic Hans could be used against them. In other words, they'd rather that all of China get screwed as long as they can hold on to a bit of power, ignoring that the Europeans were more dangerous than the Chinese populace at that time.

I also don't need to mention that some ethnic Hans were kept out of key positions. Not all, just some of the military ones.

Tea trades, silk trades, all that is great, but guess what, that says nothing about limiting or not limiting knowledge. When it was clear that China was far behind Europe in the 1860's, Guang Xu tried to reform. Guess what happened? He was imprisoned for the rest of his life and his concubine jumped in a well. If you think the Qings didn't limited knowledge, you must be nuts.

And who could forget what that b1tch Ci Xi said after she took much needed navy funds:

"Whoever makes me uncomfortable during my 60th birthday, I'll make him uncomfortable for life."

KYli said:

I agreed that Qing have more land to rule, so they were less centralized but they do have more resources and people against the western.


That is just not true. You are making up of things.

The reasons behind the isolation is because China used most of the resources to keep the Mongols to the north. Secondly, China could produce and create most of it needed. So no outside contact was needed. Thirdly, Ming only began to isolate itself after Japanese priates attacks off the coast of China. Japanese pirates had been harrassing the coast of China and the Ming Dynasty decided to close the door to outside world in order to prevent japanese piracy. You are trying to twist things in the other way around. Also the Ming never truely stopped all the contact, do you know that there are trade with the Manila, Macau and the british. More important by the the very late Ming, Ming had lifted the ban on private maritime trade with the southeast Asia, even though the ban on trade with Japan remained. The isolation is not what you think, china may stop the explorers but the migration from china had never truely stop. Ming might grow more comfortable with what they had. they didn't needed to go beyond the south china sea to get what they needed. Ming had been actively trading with the Spainish and Portugese in Macau. Qing is not the first who sign treaty with the western. Ming had allowed the Portugese to stay at Macau. So please do not make things up.



Ming have much more technology acheivement than Qing ever was, Ming has play more attention to firearms. But I won't say Qing caused the chinese to fall behind the west, whether Qing do not see the use of Firearms. They pay more attention to soilders morale, disclipe and training. Which is not bad, but the firearms evolution in the west became very dramatic that weapons became more important. It is hard to say who should bear the responsibility, but Ming and Qing are the beginning of the falling behind for chinese.

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Buddy, you got the chicken and egg problem wrong. The Mings did not become weak because of Japanese pirates. It got troubles from Japanese pirates because it had become weak.

mindreader said:

Um, actually his name is Ying Zheng. Like a descendents of the former imperial Zhou dynasty, his last name is Ying. As for Qin Shi Huang Di, Qin is the dynasty name, shi is beginning/first, huang di is emperor. The fact that people, including western historians can't get this simple little fact right p1sses the hell out of me.

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If you read the first few pages of this you will see that someone has already made that statement.

mindreader said:

I'm assuming you meant Zhao...

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I beleive he meant the Zhou royal family.

Once again, just a reminder to dont doublepost. You can include multiple quotes in the same post.

FriedRiceNSpice said:

If you read the first few pages of this you will see that someone has already made that statement.



I beleive he meant the Zhou royal family.

Once again, just a reminder to dont doublepost. You can include multiple quotes in the same post.

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I'm new here and I'm still fiuring things out. Haven't found the quote button yet except the one on the bottom of each post. Will be more careful in the future.

Reading his post, where he said:

"He may have united China, but he did not have to kill civilians. He wiped the Zhou off the world!"

I find it hard to believe that he meant the royal family. The Zhou king was one that was in name only. His domain contained only Luoyang and the immediate surroundings. I would have thought that if the original poster wanted to chastisize the first emperor, he would have picked a larger population.

Besides, the Zhou was wiped out my the Qin, so was Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao and Wei. I don't see why he would have singled out the Zhou. Hence I thought he meant Zhao, the kingdom that Qin was involved in constant conflict with for some 250 years, where a helluva lot of civilians died.

But that's just part of my pointless drivel...

Its ok, welcome to the forum by the way.
Feel free to introduce yourself in the "New member's introduction thread." We'd like to know more about you! :nana: