The Qing Dynasty Period

The Qing Dynasty Period, 1644 to 1912, was China's last imperial dynasty, established by the Manchu conquest of Ming China and eventually ruling the largest territorial extent in Chinese history, including Xinjiang, Tibet, Mongolia and Taiwan. Early Qing emperors, notably Kangxi and Qianlong, presided over a long era of prosperity and territorial consolidation, but the nineteenth century brought a sharp reversal: military defeat in the Opium Wars, the devastating Taiping Rebellion, and a series of unequal treaties that ceded territory and sovereignty to foreign powers. Reform efforts came too late to save the dynasty, which fell in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, ending more than two thousand years of Chinese imperial rule and giving way to the Republic of China.