History of China from 1600 to 1987 - Page 3

A College Paper By Paul Noll

D. Taiwan Conquest

Kangxi obtained Taiwan by conquest and by force of arms negotiated a peace with Russia, which set the northeastern borders of today. Military campaigns in the northwest secured the provinces of Qinghai and Xinjiang. Kangxi utilized Jesuit missionaries in his court but prevented any mass conversions. A power struggle erupted in 1705-06. The Pope had forbidden the Catholics to obey Kangxi's orders under pain of excommunication and Kangxi expelled many Catholic missionaries, Franciscan, Dominicans and Jesuits who would give allegiance to the Catholic Pope. This mutual hardline destroyed the power base of the missions and effectively prevented the spread of Western teaching and science. If either side had been more flexible, the new knowledge might have made significant change in Chinese attitudes about thought and nature.

Kangxi continued to ignore proper taxation and died in 1722 without naming an heir from among his thirteen sons. Yongzheng succeeded him primarily because the rest had left the palace at the time of death and his good friend commanded the Beijing palace guards. He speedily dispatched the rest of his brothers except the thirteenth son who he promoted. Yongzheng took over power (1723-45) at the age of 45 with a sense of mission. He spent most of his time in tax reform.

Yongzheng's fourth son Qianlong reigned the longest of any Emperor in Chinese history (1736-1799). China's population hovered at 65-80 million in 1390, rose to 300 million by 1790. During his reign, a picture emerged of rapidly expanding population across the country. While the population tripled, the acreage of arable land only doubled. Thus, the size of individual holdings shrank. Family holdings in the 1700s averaged 2.5 acres with holdings more than 20 acres becoming rare and with a quarter or more of the rural households become landless. China remained a nation of small landholders engaged in highly labor-intensive agriculture without the aid of significant technological innovations.

Massive ecological changes occurred with the introduction of new crops from the western world. Sweet potatoes, maize, Irish potatoes and peanuts had been introduced and helped to increase the caloric intake of China's rural workers. China's male life expectancy hovered at 32 in 1792. Qianlong's final conquest and integration of Xinjiang gave him the most important achievement. In 1760 a disastrous war in Burma and in 1788 an equally disastrous war in Vietnam occurred.