High Qing Essay

From 1662 to 1795 China experienced the “High Qing”, a period in which the country prospered greatly under the rule of significant emperors such as Kangxi and Qianlong. It is regarded as a high point of Chinese civilization due to its transition from traditional to modern China. These emperors ruled over the large empire and China felt their influence for many years to come. The Manchu people ruled the vast empire of China during the Qing Dynasty in a pragmatic approach through the unification of their people using Han ideology combined with hands on tactics in the economy and government, which became a large contributor for their prosperity in the 18th century. During the first century and a half on the throne, the Qing rulers sent soldiers

With the Court of Colonial Affairs, the Imperial Household Department and most importantly the Grand Council, the government was adjusting to its expansionist and multinational empire. These three implementations served as ways to progress the Qing Empire into modernity. The Court of Colonial Affairs, as Rowe points out, included rituals designed to integrate Inner Asian populations in areas such as Mongolia and Tibet and show that the ruling governance was essentially one of them, and not a foreign body. Along with integrating the people, it also handled private trade among different cultural frontiers to unite the people under one governing body – a role similar to one of the duties of the Imperial Household Department. While this department dealt with the service of the emperor, it also managed the lucrative silk manufactories, and had a strong interest in trade among various commodities such as copper, salt, and ginseng. Arguably the biggest advancement to come from these administrative bodies was the Grand Council, initially made as an advisory board for military affairs. However, through the reign of Kangxi and Yongzheng, the Qing paid strong attention to communications, which as Rowe points out, “determined the throne’s ability to exercise control over its vast domains”. Secret/palace memorials were established within the council to relay information to the

The first of these economic measures was the granary system– an ambitious and systematic effort to control regional and temporal price fluctuations of grain. Its purpose and goal was price stabilization within the country in buying low and selling high, thus creating a self-supporting and profitable system for the people. Rowe asserts that the granary system “worked remarkably well in the dynasty’s best days”. The empire reclaimed enormous amounts of agrarian land and increased food consumption, this granary system kept their market for grain alive. Along with the granary system, the Qing managed its money supply extremely well. It created a bimetallic monetary system in which the Qing was “creatively adjusting the relative supply of the two monetary metals in circulation (…) effectively using the market to manage the market”. The regional and local officials had a major role in the stable money supply through initiatives such as controlling cash flow within the market and altering demands for payment in the fiscal system. These offices proved to perform their task extremely well. The empire was thus economically controlled through monetary stability over time, along with a successful granary system for one of its most important