Chengde Mountain Resort
The Mountain Resort in Chengde or Ligong, is a large complex of imperial palaces and gardens situated in the city of Chengde in Hebei, China. Because of its vast and rich collection of Chinese landscapes and architecture, the Mountain Resort in many ways is a culmination of all the variety of gardens, pagodas and palaces from various regions of China, it is one of China's four famous gardens, World Heritage Site, national relic protection unit and Class 5A Tourist Attractions in China. Built between 1703 and 1792 during the Qing dynasty, the Mountain Resort took 89 years to complete, it covers a total area of 5.6 square kilometres half of Chengde's urban area. It is a vast complex of administrative and ceremonial buildings. Temples of various architectural styles and imperial gardens blend harmoniously into a landscape of lakes and forests; the Kangxi and Jiaqing emperors spent several months a year here to escape the summer heat in the capital city of Beijing and the palace zone in the southern part of the resort was therefore designed to resemble the Forbidden City in Beijing.
It consists of two parts: a court in front, where the emperor received high officials, nobles of various minority nationalities, foreign envoys. The Jiaqing and Xianfeng emperors both died while staying at Chengde in 1861 respectively. Chengde Mountain Resort is located in the transition zone from warm temperate zone to cold temperate zone, it has semi - semi - arid continental monsoon climate. It has a large difference in temperature between night. In winter, it has little snow, it has much thundershowers in summer there is no hot period. Chengde Mountain Resort is suitable for traveling best from April to October; the Mountain Resort is most famous for the 72 scenic spots which were named by the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors. Many of the scenic spots around the resort's lake area were copied from famous landscaped gardens in southern China. For instance, the main building on the Green Lotus Island, "Tower of Mist and Rain," is modeled upon a tower in Nanhu Lake at Jiaxing in Zhejiang Province; the resort's plain area possesses characteristics of the scenery of the Mongolian grasslands.
Forested mountains and valleys are dotted with various buildings. This includes a 70 metres tall stone Chinese pagoda, one of the tallest in China, built in 1751 during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor; the pagoda is shaped with an octagonal base, while the pagoda's nine stories are decorated with colorful glazed tiles and the steeple is crowned with a gilded round spire. In December 1994 the Mountain Resort was listed by UNESCO on its list of World Heritage Sites; the 2018 Women's Bandy World Championship was held at a frozen ice at the lake in the complex. Wenjin Chamber Putuo Zongcheng Temple Puning Temple Hevia, James Louis. "World Heritage, National Culture, the Restoration of Chengde." Positions: east Asia cultures critique 9, no. 1: 219-43. In 1998 Foreign Languages Press published "Imperial Resort at Chengde" to guide English language visitors
Nastaʿlīq
Nastaʿlīq is one of the main calligraphic hands used in writing the Persian alphabet, traditionally the predominant style in Persian calligraphy. It was developed in Iran in the 15th centuries, it is sometimes used to write Arabic-language text, but its use has always been more popular in the Persian and Urdu sphere of influence. Nastaʿlīq remains widely used in Iran and Afghanistan and other countries for written poetry and as a form of art. A less elaborate version of Nastaʿlīq serves as the preferred style for writing in Kashmiri and Urdu, it is used alongside Naskh for Pashto. In Persian it is used for poetry only. Nastaʿlīq was used for writing Ottoman Turkish, where it was known as tâlik. Nastaʿlīq is the core script of the post-Sassanid Persian writing tradition, is important in the areas under its cultural influence; the languages of Iran, Afghanistan and the Turkic Uyghur language of the Chinese province of Xinjiang, rely on Nastaʿlīq. Under the name taʿliq, it was beloved by Ottoman calligraphers who developed the Diwani and Ruqah styles from it.
Nastaʿlīq is amongst the most fluid calligraphy styles for the Arabic script. It has short verticals with no serifs, long horizontal strokes, it is written using a piece of trimmed reed with a tip of 5–10 mm, called qalam, carbon ink, named “siyahi”. The nib of a qalam can be split in the middle to facilitate ink absorption. Two important forms of Nastaʿlīq panels are Siyah mashq. A Chalipa panel consists of four diagonal hemistiches of poetry signifying a moral, ethical or poetic concept. Siyah Mashq panels, communicate via composition and form, rather than content. In Siyah Mashq, repeating a few letters or words inks the whole panel; the content is thus of less significance and not accessible. After the Islamic conquest of Persia, the Iranian Persian people adopted the Perso-Arabic script, the art of Persian calligraphy flourished in Iran as territories of the former Persian empire. Mir Ali Tabrizi developed Nastaʿlīq by combining two existing scripts of Nasḫ and Taʿlīq. Hence, it was called Nasḫ-Taʿlīq.
Another theory holds that the name Nastaʿlīq means "that which abrogated Taʿlīq". Nastaʿlīq thrived, many prominent calligraphers contributed to its splendor and beauty, it is believed. The current practice of Nastaʿlīq is, however based on Mirza Reza Kalhor's technique. Kalhor modified and adapted Nastaʿlīq to be used with printing machines, which in turn helped wide dissemination of his transcripts, he devised methods for teaching Nastaʿlīq and specified clear proportional rules for it, which many could follow. The Mughal Empire used Persian as the court language during their rule over South Asia. During this time, Nastaʿlīq came into widespread use in South Asia; the influence continues to this day. In Pakistan everything in Urdu is written in the script, constituting the greatest part of Nastaʿlīq usage in the world; the situation of Nastaʿlīq in Bangladesh used to be the same as in Pakistan until 1971, when Urdu ceased to remain an official language. Today, only a few people use this form of writing in Bangladesh.
Nastaʿlīq is a descendant of Taʿlīq. Shekasteh Nastaʿlīq style is a development of Nastaʿlīq. Mir Ali Tabrizi Mir Emad Mirza Buzurg-i-Nuri Mishkín-Qalam Mirza Mohammad Reza KalhorAnd others, including Mirza Jafar Tabrizi, Abdul Rashid Deilami, Sultan Ali Mashadi, Mir Ali Heravi, Emad Ul-Kottab, Mirza Gholam Reza Esfehani, Emadol Kotab, Yaghoot Mostasami, Darvish Abdol Majid Taleghani, and among contemporary artists: Hassan Mirkhani, Hossein Mirkhani, Keikhosro Khoroush, Abbas Akhavein and Qolam-Hossein Amirkhani, Ali Akbar Kaveh, Kaboli. Islamic calligraphy was used to adorn Islamic religious texts the Qur'an, as pictorial ornaments were prohibited in sacred publications and spaces of Islam. Therefore, a sense of sacredness was always implicit in calligraphy. A Nastaʿlīq disciple was supposed to qualify himself spiritually for being a calligrapher, besides learning how to prepare qalam, paper and, more master Nastaʿlīq. For instance see Adab al-Mashq, a manual of penmanship attributed to Mir Emad.
Nastaʿlīq Typography first started with attempts to develop a metallic type for the script, but all such efforts failed. Fort William College developed a Nastaʿlīq Type, not close enough to Nastaʿlīq and hence was never used other than by the college library to publish its own books; the State of Hyderabad Dakan attempted to develop a Nastaʿlīq Typewriter but this attempt failed miserably and the file was closed with the phrase “Preparation of Nastaʿlīq on commercial basis is impossible”. In order to develop such a metal type, thousands of pieces would be required. Modern Nastaʿlīq typography began with the invention of Noori Nastaleeq, first created as a digital font in 1981 through the collaboration of Mirza Ahmad Jamil TI and Monotype Imaging (formerly Monotype Corp & Monot
Dungan Revolt (1862–77)
The Dungan Revolt or Tongzhi Hui Revolt or Hui Minorities War was a ethnic and religious war fought in 19th-century western China during the reign of the Tongzhi Emperor of the Qing dynasty. The term sometimes includes the Panthay Revolt in Yunnan. However, this article relates to the uprising by members of the Muslim Hui and other Muslim ethnic groups in China's Shaanxi and Ningxia provinces, as well as in Xinjiang, between 1862 and 1877; the conflict led to a recorded 20.77 million population reduction in Shaanxi and Gansu occurred due to migration and war related death. A further 74.5% population reduction occurred in Gansu, 44.7% in Shaanxi. In Shaanxi, 83.7% of the total loss occurred in the period of war as a consequence of mass migration and war-related death. Many civilian deaths were caused by famine due to war conditions; the uprising occurred on the western bank of the Yellow River in Shaanxi and Ningxia, but excluded Xinjiang Province. A chaotic affair, it involved diverse warring bands and military leaders with no common cause or a single specific goal.
A common misconception is that the revolt was directed against the Qing dynasty, but no evidence shows that the rebels intended to attack the capital, Beijing, or to overthrow the entire Qing government, but to exact revenge on their personal enemies for injustices. When the revolt failed, mass emigration of the Dungan people from Ili to Imperial Russia ensued.re In this article "Dungan people" refers to Hui people, who are a predominantly Muslim ethnic group in China. They are sometimes called "Chinese Muslims" and should not to be confused with the "Turkestanis" or "Turkic" people mentioned, who are Uyghurs, Kyrgyzes and Uzbeks amongst others; the ethnic group now known as Uyghur people was not known by that name before the 20th century. The Uzbeks of Yaqub Beg were called "Andijanis" or "Kokandis", while the Uyghurs in the Tarim Basin were known as "Turki". Uyghur immigrants from the Tarim Basin to Ili were called "Taranchi"; the modern name "Uyghur" was assigned to this ethnic group by the Soviet Union in 1921 at a conference in Tashkent, with the name "Uyghur" taken from the old Uyghur Khaganate.
As a result, sources from the period of the Dungan revolt make no mentions of Uyghurs. Although "Hui" was the Chinese name for Muslim people of Han ethnic background, Europeans referred to them as "Dungan" or "Tungan" during the Dungan revolt; the Dungan Revolt by the Hui occurred because of racial antagonism and class warfare, not purely religious strife as is sometimes mistakenly assumed. When the Qing dynasty invaded the Ming dynasty in 1644, Muslim Ming loyalists in Gansu led by Muslim leaders Milayin and Ding Guodong led a revolt in 1646 against the Qing during the Milayin rebellion in order to drive the Qing out and restore the Ming Prince of Yanchang Zhu Shichuan to the throne as the emperor; the Muslim Ming loyalists were supported by his son Prince Turumtay. The Muslim Ming loyalists were joined by Han Chinese in the revolt. After fierce fighting, negotiations, a peace agreement was agreed on in 1649, Milayan and Ding nominally pledged alleigance to the Qing and were given ranks as members of the Qing military.
When other Ming loyalists in southern China made a resurgence and the Qing were forced to withdraw their forces from Gansu to fight them and Ding once again took up arms and rebelled against the Qing. The Muslim Ming loyalists were crushed by the Qing with 100,000 of them, including Milayin, Ding Guodong, Turumtay killed in battle; the Confucian Hui Muslim scholar Ma Zhu served with the southern Ming loyalists against the Qing. During the Qianlong era, scholar Wei Shu commented on Jiang Tong's essay Xironglun, stating that if the Muslims did not migrate, they would end up like the Five Hu, who overthrew the Western Jin and caused an ethnic, rather than religious, conflict to break out between the Five Hu and the Han Chinese. During the Qianlong Emperor's reign, there were clashes between the Qing authorities and the Jahriyya Sufi sect, but not with the majority non-Sufi Sunnis or the Khafiyya Sufis. Chinese Muslims had traveled to West Asia for many years prior to the Hui Minorities' War. In the 18th century several prominent Muslim clerics from Gansu studied in Mecca and Yemen under Naqshbandi Sufi teachers.
Two different forms of Sufism were brought back to northwest China by two charismatic Hui sheikhs: Khufiyya, associated with Ma Laichi, the more radical Jahriyya, founded by Ma Mingxin. These coexisted with the more traditional, non-Sufi Sunni practices, centered around local mosques and known as gedimu; the Khufiyya school and non-Sufi gedimu tradition—both tolerated by Qing authorities—were referred to as "Old Teaching", while Jahriyya, viewed by authorities as suspect, became known as the "New Teaching". Disagreements between adherents of Khufiyya and Jahriya, as well as perceived mismanagement and the anti-Sufi attitudes of Qing officials, resulted in uprisings by Hui and Salar followers of the New Teaching in 1781 and 1783, but these were promptly suppressed. Hostilities between different groups of Sufis contributed to the violent atmosphere before the Dungan revolt between 1862 and 1877. In the Jahriyya revolt sectarian violence between two suborders of the Naqshbandi Sufis, the Jahriyya Sufi Muslims and their rivals, the Khafiyya Sufi Muslims, led to a Jahriyya Sufi Musli
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan was the founder and first Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death. He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes of Northeast Asia. After founding the Empire and being proclaimed "Genghis Khan", he launched the Mongol invasions that conquered most of Eurasia. Campaigns initiated in his lifetime include those against the Qara Khitai and Khwarazmian, Western Xia and Jin dynasties; these campaigns were accompanied by large-scale massacres of the civilian populations – in the Khwarazmian and Western Xia controlled lands. By the end of his life, the Mongol Empire occupied a substantial portion of Central China. Before Genghis Khan died, his grandsons split his empire into khanates. Genghis Khan died in 1227 after defeating the Western Xia. By his request, his body was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Mongolia, his descendants extended the Mongol Empire across most of Eurasia by conquering or creating vassal states in all of modern-day China, the Caucasus, Central Asia, substantial portions of Eastern Europe and Southwest Asia.
Many of these invasions repeated the earlier large-scale slaughters of local populations. As a result, Genghis Khan and his empire have a fearsome reputation in local histories. Beyond his military accomplishments, Genghis Khan advanced the Mongol Empire in other ways, he decreed the adoption of the Uyghur script as the Mongol Empire's writing system. He practiced meritocracy and encouraged religious tolerance in the Mongol Empire, unified the nomadic tribes of Northeast Asia. Present-day Mongolians regard him as the founding father of Mongolia. Genghis Khan was known for the brutality of his campaigns, is considered by many to have been a genocidal ruler. However, he is credited with bringing the Silk Road under one cohesive political environment; this brought easy communication and trade between Northeast Asia, Muslim Southwest Asia, Christian Europe, expanding the cultural horizons of all three areas. Genghis Khan was related on his father's side to Khabul Khan and Hotula Khan, who had headed the Khamag Mongol confederation and were descendants of Bodonchar Munkhag.
When the Jurchen Jin dynasty switched support from the Mongols to the Tatars in 1161, they destroyed Khabul Khan. Genghis Khan's father, Yesügei, emerged as the head of the ruling Mongol clan; this position was contested by the rival Tayichi'ud clan. When the Tatars grew too powerful after 1161, the Jin switched their support from the Tatars to the Keraites. Little is known about Genghis Khan's early life, due to the lack of contemporary written records; the few sources that give insight into this period contradict. Genghis Khan's birth name, Temüjin, was derived from the Mongol word temür meaning "of iron", while jin denotes agency. Temüjin thus means "blacksmith". Genghis Khan was born in 1162 in Delüün Boldog, near the mountain Burkhan Khaldun and the rivers Onon and Kherlen in modern-day northern Mongolia, close to the current capital Ulaanbaatar; the Secret History of the Mongols reports that Temüjin was born grasping a blood clot in his fist, a traditional sign that he was destined to become a great leader.
He was the second son of his father Yesügei, a Kiyad chief prominent in the Khamag Mongol confederation and an ally of Toghrul of the Keraite tribe. Temüjin was the first son of his mother Hoelun. According to the Secret History, Temüjin was named after the Tatar chief Temüjin-üge whom his father had just captured. Yesukhei's clan was Borjigin, Hoelun was from the Olkhunut sub-lineage of the Khongirad tribe. Like other tribes, they were nomads. Temüjin's noble background made it easier for him to solicit help from and consolidate the other Mongol tribes. Temüjin had three brothers Hasar and Temüge, one sister Temülen, two half-brothers Begter and Belgutei. Like many of the nomads of Mongolia, Temüjin's early life was difficult, his father arranged a marriage for him and delivered him at age nine to the family of his future wife Börte of the tribe Khongirad. Temüjin was to live there serving the head of the household Dai Setsen until the marriageable age of 12. While heading home, his father ran into the neighboring Tatars, who had long been Mongol enemies, they offered him food that poisoned him.
Upon learning this, Temüjin returned home to claim his father's position as chief. But the tribe abandoned the family, leaving it without protection. For the next several years, the family lived in poverty, surviving on wild fruits, ox carcasses and other small game killed by Temüjin and his brothers. Temujin's older half-brother Begter began to exercise power as the eldest male in the family and would have the right to claim Hoelun as wife. Temujin's resentment erupted during one hunting excursion when Temüjin and his brother Khasar killed Begter. In a raid around 1177, Temujin was captured by his father's former allies, the Tayichi'ud, enslaved with a cangue. With the help of a sympathetic guard, he escaped from the ger at night by hiding in a river crevice; the escape earned Temüjin a reputation. Soon, Jelme and Bo'orchu joined forces with him, they and the guard's son Chilaun became generals of Genghis Khan. At this time, none of the tribal confederations of Mongolia were united politically, an
Xinjiang
Xinjiang the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is a provincial-level autonomous region of China in the northwest of the country. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and the eighth largest country subdivision in the world, spanning over 1.6 million km2. Xinjiang contains the disputed territory of Aksai Chin, administered by China and claimed by India. Xinjiang borders the countries of Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and India; the rugged Karakoram and Tian Shan mountain ranges occupy much of Xinjiang's borders, as well as its western and southern regions. Xinjiang borders Tibet Autonomous Region and the provinces of Gansu and Qinghai; the most well-known route of the historical Silk Road ran through the territory from the east to its northwestern border. In recent decades, abundant oil and mineral reserves have been found in Xinjiang, it is China's largest natural gas-producing region, it is home to a number of ethnic groups, including the Uyghur, Kazakhs, Hui, Kyrgyz and Russians.
More than a dozen autonomous prefectures and counties for minorities are in Xinjiang. Older English-language reference works refer to the area as Chinese Turkestan. Xinjiang is divided into the Dzungarian Basin in the north and the Tarim Basin in the south by a mountain range. Only about 9.7% of Xinjiang's land area is fit for human habitation. With a documented history of at least 2,500 years, a succession of people and empires have vied for control over all or parts of this territory; the territory came under the rule of the Qing dynasty in the 18th century, replaced by the Republic of China government. Since 1949, it has been part of the People's Republic of China following the Chinese Civil War. In 1954, Xinjiang Bingtuan was set up to strengthen the border defense against the Soviet Union, promote the local economy. In 1955, Xinjiang was turned into an autonomous region from a province. In the last decades, the East Turkistan independent movement, separatist conflict and the influence of radical Islam have both resulted in unrest in the region, with occasional terrorist attacks and clashes between separatist and government forces.
The general region of Xinjiang has been known by many different names in earlier times, in indigenous languages as well as other languages. These names include Altishahr, the historical Uyghur name, as well as Khotan, Chinese Tartary, High Tartary, East Chagatay, Kashgaria, Little Bokhara, and, in Chinese, "Western Regions". In Chinese, under the Han dynasty, Xinjiang was known as Xiyu, meaning "Western Regions". Between the 2nd century BCE and 2nd century CE the Han Empire established the Protectorate of the Western Regions or Xiyu Protectorate in an effort to secure the profitable routes of the Silk Road; the Western Regions during the Tang era were known as Qixi. Qi refers to the Gobi Desert; the Tang Empire had established the Protectorate General to Pacify the West or Anxi Protectorate in 640 to control the region. During the Qing dynasty, the northern part of Xinjiang, Dzungaria was known as Zhunbu and the southern Tarim Basin was known as Huijiang before both regions were merged and became the region of "Xiyu Xinjiang" simplified as "Xinjiang".
The current Chinese name "Xinjiang", which means "New Frontier" or "New Borderland", was given during the Qing dynasty. According to Chinese statesman Zuo Zongtang's report to the Emperor of Qing, Xinjiang means an "old land newly returned", or the new old land.. The term was given to other areas conquered by Chinese empires, for instance, present-day Jinchuan County was known as "Jinchuan Xinjiang'". In the same manner, present-day Xinjiang was known as Gansu Xinjiang; the name "East Turkestan" is used in the diaspora communities today, refers to the independent republic of East Turkestan. The name was created by Russian sinologist Hyacinth to replace the term "Chinese Turkestan" in 1829. "East Turkestan" was used traditionally to only refer to the Tarim Basin in the south, the modern Xinjiang area and Dzungaria being excluded. In 1955, Xinjiang province was renamed Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; the name, proposed was "Xinjiang Autonomous Region". Saifuddin Azizi, the first chairman of Xinjiang, registered his strong objections to the proposed name with Mao Zedong, arguing that "autonomy is not given to mountains and rivers.
It is given to particular nationalities." As a result, the administrative region would be named "Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region". Xinjiang consists of two main geographically and ethnically distinct regions with different historical names, Dzungaria north of the Tianshan Mountains and the Tarim Basin south of the Tianshan Mountains, before Qing China unified them into one politic
Abel Pavet de Courteille
Abel Jean Baptiste Michel Pavet de Courteille was a 19th-century French orientalist, specialized in the study of Turkish languages. Through his mother, Sophie Silvestre, he was Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy's grandson, he taught Turkish at the Collège de France, as extraordinary professor in 1854 and as holder of an ordinary chair in 1861. In 1873, he succeeded Emmanuel de Rougé at belles-lettres, he was a member of the Société asiatique. He led Turcology to the study of Central Asian languages and was the author of a dictionary of Eastern Turkish and of several editions and translations of texts, he is buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery. Dictionnaire turk-oriental, destiné principalement à faciliter la lecture des ouvrages de Babur, d'Aboul-Gâzi et de Ali-Shir Nava'i, Imprimerie impériale, 1870. État présent de l'Ottoman Empire: statistique, administration, armée, communautés non musulmanes, etc. D'après le Salnâmèh pour l'année 1293 de l'Hégire et les documents officiels les plus récents, Paris, J. Dumaine, 1876.
Conseils de Nabi Efendi à son fils Aboul Khair, published in Turkish with French translation and notes, Imprimerie impériale, 1857. Histoire de la campagne de Mohacz, by Kemal Pacha Zadeh, published for the first time with the French translation and notes, Imprimerie impériale, 1859. Mémoires de Baber, founder of the Mongol dynasty in Hindustan, translated from the Chagatai text, Maisonneuve, 1871. Miraj Nameh, published after the Uyghur manuscript and annotated, Paris, E. Leroux, 1882. Tezkereh-i-Evliâ. Le Mémorial des Saints, translated from the Uighur manuscript of the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, 1889-90. Al-Masudi. Les Prairies d'or, Arabic text and French translation, Imprimerie impériale, 1861-77. Dictionnaire turk-oriental de Pavet de Courteille
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty the Great Qing, was the last imperial dynasty of China. It was established in 1636, ruled China proper from 1644 to 1912, it was succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted for three centuries and formed the territorial base for modern China, it was the fifth largest empire in world history. The dynasty was founded by the Manchu Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria. In the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci a Ming Jianzhou Guard vassal, began organizing "Banners", military-social units that included Manchu and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Manchu clans into a unified entity. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of the Liaodong Peninsula and declared a new dynasty, the Qing. In an unrelated development, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing, in 1644. Rather than serve them, Ming general Wu Sangui made an alliance with the Manchus and opened the Shanhai Pass to the Banner Armies led by the regent Prince Dorgon.
He seized the capital. Resistance from the Southern Ming and the Revolt of the Three Feudatories led by Wu Sangui delayed the Qing conquest of China proper by nearly four decades; the conquest was only completed in 1683 under the Kangxi Emperor reign. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Inner Asia; the early Qing rulers maintained their Manchu customs, while their title was Emperor, they used "Bogd khaan" when dealing with the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of bureaucratic government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus, they adapted the ideals of the tributary system in dealing with neighboring territories. During the Qianlong Emperor reign the dynasty reached its apogee, but began its initial decline in prosperity and imperial control; the population rose to some 400 millions, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate guaranteeing eventual fiscal crisis.
Corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, ruling elites failed to change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium Wars, European powers imposed "unequal treaties", free trade, extraterritoriality and treaty ports under foreign control; the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of these disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order and the Qing rulers; the initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea and the possession of Taiwan. New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days' Reform of 1898 was turned back in a coup by the conservative Empress Dowager Cixi; when the Scramble for Concessions by foreign powers triggered the violently anti-foreign "Boxers", the foreign powers invaded China, Cixi declared war on them, leading to defeat and the flight of the Imperial Court to Xi'an.
After agreeing to sign the Boxer Protocol, the government initiated unprecedented fiscal and administrative reforms, including elections, a new legal code, abolition of the examination system. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with constitutional monarchists such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao to transform the Qing Empire into a modern nation. After the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike by obstructing social reform; the Wuchang Uprising on 11 October 1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution. General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on 12 February 1912. Nurhaci declared himself the "Bright Khan" of the Later Jin state in honor both of the 12th–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan, his son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636. There are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng; the name may have been selected in reaction to the name of the Ming dynasty, which consists of the Chinese characters for "sun" and "moon", both associated with the fire element of the Chinese zodiacal system.
The character Qīng is associated with the water element. This association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water; the water imagery of the new name may have had Buddhist overtones of perspicacity and enlightenment and connections with the Bodhisattva Manjusri. The Manchu name daicing, which sounds like a phonetic rendering of Dà Qīng or Dai Ching, may in fact have been derived from a Mongolian word "ᠳᠠᠢᠢᠴᠢᠨ, дайчин" that means "warrior". Daicing gurun may therefore have meant "warrior state", a pun, only intelligible to Manchu and Mongol people. In the part of the dynasty, however the Manchus themselves had forgotten this possible meaning. After conquering "China proper", the Manchus identified their state as "China", referred to it as Dulimbai Gurun in Manchu; the emperors equated the lands of the Qing state as "China" in both the Chinese and Manchu languages, defining China as a multi-ethnic state, rejecting the idea that "China" only meant Han areas. The Qing emperors proclaimed that bo
