Challenges to traditional East Asian societies (1700–1868)

Qianlong — expanded the empire hugely, but late in his reign corruption (Heshen) and population pressure began weakening the state.

The belief that the emperor ruled with Heaven's approval; disasters or rebellions were read as signs that approval was being withdrawn.

A corrupt official who used his closeness to the aging Qianlong to drain the treasury and install loyal allies, weakening the Qing bureaucracy just before the crises of the 1800s.

A major internal uprising by a secret religious sect, rooted in poverty and corruption, that exposed the weakness of the regular Qing Banner army.

The regular Banner army had grown weak after decades without major war, so gentry-funded local militia had to help crush the revolt.

The Qing policy (from 1757) restricting all Western trade to the port of Canton, controlled through licensed Chinese merchant guilds called the Cohong.

A British embassy seeking equal trading rights with Qianlong's court; it failed because Britain refused to perform the tribute rituals China required.

Britain bought far more Chinese goods (tea, silk) than China bought from Britain, draining British silver; opium reversed that trade imbalance by creating Chinese demand.

The Qing commissioner who seized and destroyed British opium stocks at Canton, directly triggering the First Opium War.

First (1839–42): triggered by Lin Zexu's opium crackdown. Second (1856–60): triggered by the Arrow incident and Britain/France's demand for further trading rights.

China ceded Hong Kong Island, opened five treaty ports, paid an indemnity, and accepted fixed low tariffs.

China had no real bargaining power: they granted extraterritoriality, fixed tariffs China couldn't change, and forced open trade — humiliating the Qing state.

Qing official sent to Canton in 1839 to stop the opium trade; destroyed over 20,000 chests of British opium, triggering the First Opium War.

Ended the First Opium War: ceded Hong Kong Island to Britain, opened five treaty ports, paid an indemnity, and abolished the old Canton trade monopoly.

A right that let foreigners in China's or Japan's treaty ports be tried under their own country's laws instead of the host country's laws.

The opium trade — alongside opening more ports and allowing foreign diplomats to live in Beijing, ending the Second Opium War.

Failed civil-service exam candidate who believed he was Jesus Christ's younger brother; led the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) to build a 'Heavenly Kingdom.'

Ethnic resentment (Hakka minority), economic hardship (overpopulation, high taxes), and a weak central government exposed by the Opium Wars.

Qing forces recaptured Nanjing in 1864 after Hong Xiuquan's death; an estimated 20–30 million people died, making it one of history's deadliest conflicts.

Loyalist Qing official who built a regional army that helped crush the Taiping Rebellion, shifting real power away from Beijing toward provincial leaders.

Merchants (officially lowest class) grew wealthy from trade and lending, while samurai fell into debt and peasants suffered famine and heavy taxes — the rigid system no longer matched economic reality.

Forced Japan to sign the Convention of Kanagawa (1854), opening two ports and ending over 200 years of sakoku isolation.

'Revere the emperor, expel the barbarians' — a slogan expressing anger at the shogunate for caving to foreign treaties without consulting the emperor; fuelled the movement that toppled the shogunate.

Domains Satsuma and Choshu allied against the weakened shogunate; Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigned in 1867, and the Boshin War (1868–1869) confirmed its collapse, restoring power to Emperor Meiji.