Manchu Power and Conflicts in the Qing Dynasty

China’s Qing Dynasty lasted from 1644 until 1912. Under this dynasty, the Manchu people from Manchuria ruled over the majority Han Chinese and other ethnic groups. Like the Mongols some 400 years earlier, the Manchu were ethnically and culturally distinct from the people they ruled. However, they were less tolerant than the Mongol leaders, and they resolved to make their culture dominant in China.

Like the Mongols, the Qing put their own people in the top positions of government. Also like the Mongols, the Qing maintained continuity with some traditional Chinese practices. For example, they maintained the Chinese civil service exams and bureaucracy. They recruited Han Chinese to work under or alongside Manchus. In time, some—but not all—Chinese came to accept the Qing Dynasty as legitimate rulers of China.

Conflicts with the Han The Han ethnicity in China experienced Qing intolerance most severely. Although non-official Han civilians were allowed to wear Hanfu, or traditional Han clothing, all men were required to wear their hair in queues, the braided pigtail style of the Manchu. This policy was a test of loyalty for the Manchu, but it was also a humiliating reminder of the way Qing authority challenged traditional Confucian values. A man who refused to wear his hair in a queue could be executed.

The Qing used Han Chinese defectors to carry out massacres against Han who refused to assimilate to Qing practices. These defectors played a massive role in the Qing conquest of China. Han Chinese General Li Chengdong, for example, orchestrated three separate massacres in the city of Jaiding within one month. By the end of those four weeks, there was hardly a person left alive in the city. Later, Han Chinese defector Liu Liangzuo massacred the entire population of Jiangyin, killing between 74,000 and 100,000 people.