Chinese Empire
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Chinese Empire (or Empire of China) is a term referring to the realm ruled by the
Etymology and usage
The word "China" has been used in English since the 16th century. China was previously known to Europeans as Cathay, as used in Marco Polo's book on his travels in the 13th century (during the Yuan dynasty), and it took a while for most Europeans to be convinced that Cathay referred to China or North China. The term "Chinese Empire" also first appeared in the 16th century, during the late Ming dynasty, although it only became widely used during the Qing dynasty.
Ming dynasty
As European explorers came into direct contact with the
Qing dynasty
With the transition from Ming to Qing, Europeans began to apply the name "Chinese Empire" to the Qing dynasty (1644-1912).[1] "Chinese Empire" (or "Empire of China") was commonly used during that period, most notably in the western maps and international treaties. The Tsardom of Russia began official communications with the Qing dynasty in the 1650s, and Russian documents from that period referred to Qing China as "Empire of China", "Chinese state" or the state of Bogda.[2] In the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk, the authoritative Latin text used the name "Imperii Sinici" (meaning "Chinese Empire") to refer to the Qing realm.[3] While the Qing dynasty tried to maintain the traditional tributary system of China, by the 19th century it had become part of a European-style community of sovereign states.[4] In the process, Qing dynasty's geographical boundaries were redefined by western powers and Japan through diplomacy and warfare. The Qing administration made an effort to effectively manage its borders while modernizing itself. Although it lost its tributary overlordship over its neighbors such as Korea and Vietnam, its dependencies in Inner Asia (collectively known as Chinese Tartary at that time) were internalized and integrated into China's imperial dominion as accepted by the western countries. Throughout the 19th century, western cartographers commonly included Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang (Chinese Turkestan), and Tibet, along with China proper separated by lines, as part of the "Chinese Empire" in published maps. In the last decade of the Qing dynasty, maps published in China caught up with Western cartography, and China's Inner Asian frontiers were enclosed by fixed international boundaries and not separated from China proper by special demarcations.[5]
Continuous or separate empire(s)
While the term "Chinese Empire" may be used to specifically mean the Ming or the Qing dynasties during the existence of these dynasties, it was often used in a sense to refer to a continuous empire ruled by various dynasties in Chinese history, as the traditional Chinese historiography conceives its history in terms of an unbroken sequence of dynasties (see dynastic cycle).[6] For example, when Juan González de Mendoza talked about ancient China in his work in the late 16th century, he clearly stated in three places that the first (mythical) sovereign of China, the Yellow Emperor, made the Chinese kingdom an empire; since China was already an empire during the time of the Yellow Emperor, all dynasties from then on were regarded as the continuation of the "empire".[1] And according to the newspaper New York Herald published in 1853, "during four thousand and sixty years, twenty-one dynasties have swayed the destines of the Chinese Empire, embracing, besides the present sovereign, two hundred and twenty Emperors, whose average reigns have been nearly nineteen years each".[7] On the other hand, modern scholars usually consider the imperial dynasties separate empires rather than a single continuous empire, especially since the end of Imperial China. And the English term "Emperor" generally corresponds to the Chinese term Huangdi (皇帝), usually referred to as Emperor of China. For example, the Qin dynasty, which was the first to use the title Emperor or Huangdi, has been referred to as "the first Chinese Empire" in modern sources.[8][9] On the other hand, the Qing dynasty is regarded as the last Chinese Empire.[10] The dynasties in between them are similarly regarded as empires instead of a single continuous empire, although some dynasties may be grouped together by some scholars, such as the Qin and the Han dynasty that followed, collectively called the "Qin-Han Empire" by some researchers.[11] Taken together, these two dynasties constitute the "classical" era of Chinese civilization, as did the Greeks and Romans in the West.[12]
General history
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The period of
Originally emerged as a loose collection of various Han Chinese-speaking entities during the Warring States period, the Qin's wars of unification brought most of the Huaxia realm into one single dynasty, establishing Qin as the first imperial dynasty in 221 BC, the year where the first Chinese empire was established.[15] Imperial China would continue to expand even after the collapse of the Qin dynasty, with the Han dynasty expanding to the north, south and west.[16] During the Tang dynasty four centuries later, China achieved a golden age in terms of its economic, military and political power. Tang's territory spanned Central Asia, Northeast Asia and parts of Southeast Asia, until the dynasty ended following the An Lushan rebellion in the eight century.[17][18][19][20] Imperial China marked its revival under the Mongol-based Yuan dynasty, when Inner Asian territories such as Tibet and Mongolia were incorporated. The Qing dynasty, founded three centuries after the fall of Yuan, laid ground to most of China's modern border with its re-expansion into Inner Asia.[21][22]
One year after the 1911 Revolution, the Qing monarchy was abolished following the abdication of the Xuantong Emperor (Puyi), thus putting an end to the era of Imperial China.[23] Three years later, Yuan Shikai restored imperial rule with himself as the emperor. It lasted only 83 days before his own abdication due to mounting disapproval and revolts as well as Yuan's declining health.[24][25] In July 1917, Puyi was reinstalled by Zhang Xun but the restoration was reversed in less than two weeks.[26]
See also
References
Citations
- ^ a b c "西方"中华帝国"概念的起源（1516—1688）". Retrieved June 5, 2024.
- ^ Kuzmin, Sergius L. "Dmitriev, S.V. and Kuzmin, S.L. 2012. What is China? The Middle State in historical myth and real policy, Oriens (Moscow), no 3, pp. 5-19". Archived from the original on 2022-02-12. Retrieved 2015-02-08.
- ISBN 9786263100275.
- ISBN 978-0-674-03612-3.
- ISBN 9781684171217.
- ISBN 9781107093089.
- ^ "The Chinese Empire". New York Daily Herald. United States. June 14, 1853.
- ISBN 9781429950855.
- ISBN 9783643903297.
- ISBN 9781136497322.
- ISBN 9783110731590.
- ^ Mark Edward Lewis, ed. (2010). The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han. Harvard University Press. p. 1.
- ISBN 9781643136691.
- ^ Mark Edward Lewis, ed. (2010). The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han. Harvard University Press. p. 2.
- ^ "Qin Shi Huang | Biography, Accomplishments, Family, United China, Tomb, & Facts | Britannica". 8 April 2024.
- ISBN 978-0-521-89552-1.
- ^ https://www.ushistory.org/civ/9d.asp
- .
- ^ "Northeast Asian History Network".
- ^ "Sinification of East and Southeast Asia".
- ^ "Overview and expansion of the Qing dynasty - the Qing dynasty - KS3 History - homework help for year 7, 8 and 9".
- ^ "Qing dynasty (1644–1911)".
- ^ "The abdication decree of Emperor Puyi (1912)". 4 June 2013.
- ISBN 0-521-44228-1.
- ^ Spence, Jonathan D. (1999) The Search for Modern China, p. 282.
- ^ Literary Knowledge. Henan People's Publishing House. 1984.
Sources
- Fangyin, Zhou (2023-12-31). "7 The Particularity of Ancient China as an Empire" (PDF). Bridging Two Worlds. University of California Press. pp. 155–169. ISBN 978-0-520-39099-7.
External links
