Qing Dynasty

[TLS]

大清
Dai Qing
Qing Dynasty



National Statistics as of 1725
Population: 216 million
Languages: Manchu, Chinese
Prestige: B
Tech Level: 2

Political Organization
Official Title: Great Qing
Conventional: China
Political System: Monarchy
Capital: Beijing
Sovereign: Yongzheng

Economy:
Taxation: 54 points
Resources: Beijing, Shanghai, Canton
Ports: Canton
Tributary Income: 5 points (Tibet, Sinkiang, Mongolia, Korea, Amur Valley, Dai Nam)

Military:

Army

Fixed Positions:
-11 Fortresses (Beijing, Shanghai, Canton, Chengdu, Xi'an, Nanjing, Shenyang, Kaifeng, Luoyang, Chongqing, Hangzhou)
-100 Garrison Brigades

Bordered Yellow Banner Army
-30 Light Infantry Regiments
-12 Cavalry Regiments

Plain Yellow Banner Army
-30 Light Infantry Regiments
-12 Cavalry Regiments

Plain White Banner Army
-30 Light Infantry Regiments
-12 Cavalry Regiments

Plain Red Banner Army
-30 Light Infantry Regiments
-12 Cavalry Regiments

Bordered White Banner Army
-30 Light Infantry Regiments
-12 Cavalry Regiments

Bordered Red Banner Army
-30 Light Infantry Regiments
-12 Cavalry Regiments

Plain Blue Banner Army
-30 Light Infantry Regiments
-12 Cavalry Regiments

Bordered Blue Banner Army
-30 Light Infantry Regiments
-12 Cavalry Regiments

[Hussam B.]

In 1716, a Spanish delegation is arranged to travel to China in an attempt to increase trade between China and Manila. The assistance of the Society of Jesus is sought in this endeavor to help bridge the cultural barrier and to see if a good word can be put in for the Spanish endeavor.

[Ottoman]

Ottoman Trade Officials from Ottoman East Indies Trading Company depart Karachi in early March, their goal was to meet with Qing Officials and setup trade relations.

[TLS]

By the end of 1716, the Spanish and Ottoman delegations are able to send word back to their homelands about the success of negotiations.

For the Spanish, the accompanying Jesuits are able to cachet their connections with the Qing court into audiences with high-ranking Imperial officials. The Kangxi Emperor is fond of the Catholic Church and, some years prior, signed an edict saying that praying in the manner of Mateo Ricci is on par with Buddhism within the Empire. The previous Pontiff had angered the Kangxi Emperor with his proclamations on forbidding ancestor worship, however, and the Emperor thus tasks the Spanish with the following: if the Spanish can convince the Pope (of course, none of those involved are aware that Clement has died and been replaced with a Jesuit) to rescind his ban on Chinese practices, further trade relations could certainly be facilitated.

The Ottomans face much greater difficulty in penetrating the Qing court. They are seen as kin to the troublesome steppe barbarians, and thus it is questioned whether they perhaps have anything of value for the Middle Kingdom. However, all those who petition the Kangxi Emperor for trade rights are barbarians of one sort or another, and thus the Ottomans are allowed to purchase rights to establish a small factory in Canton, in return for the proper tribute (4 points, payable over 4 years, plus the cost to establish the trading post).

[Ottoman]

By the time word gets back circa mid 1717 to Istanbul, the Ottoman Government decides to start sending payment in 1718,along the traders from Ottoman East India Company to set up shop.( i.e build the trading post) in Canton.

[TLS]

The Rising Son: China Through 1725

The Qing Dynasty retains its place as the dominant power in Asia, if not the world, through the first quarter of the 18th century. The massive population supports a sprawling tax collection-based economy, growing ever richer from the expansion over the bureaucracy. The Qing military, with half a million men under arms, is by far and away the largest in the world, and against even the most mighty Western nation would easily overwhelm it. China, it seems, is impregnable to the outside world. The strength of China’s force of arms, however, belies a weakness within. The Qing Dynasty is resplendent and powerful, to be sure, but the dynamics between a ruling foreign elite and a subject Han majority are treacherous.

The social dynamics at the court are increasingly under strain, while the Han Chinese and Manchu rulers alike struggle to reconcile their contradictory heritage and worldviews against one another. Into this milieu the resurgent Jesuit Order moves swiftly between the commanding heights of society and its lowest dregs, reinvigorated by the Grand Master becoming Pope and blessing Mateo Ricci’s Chinese Rites. While the old pontiff had threatened to undermine the Great Commission, the new has endorsed the mix of Catholic theology with Chinese practice—especially Ancestor veneration—viewing the work as akin to that of the Church Fathers seek to bridge Hellenic-Roman culture with Christianity. The Emperor, like his father, views the Church more as a curio of the Italians and a necessary bridge to facilitate the trade with the West, but Jesuits have made more and more inroads. Though this hasn’t exactly brought about a mass conversion, though reports of sporadic baptisms are increasing, it has given the faithful Catholic powers—Portugal and Spain, especially—greater inroads to the Empire.

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