Qing Empire

The Qing was China’s last dynasty, established by the Manchus, a people from beyond the Great Wall who seized Beijing in 1644 and ruled until 1912. At its 18th-century peak under the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors it was a vast, prosperous, multi-ethnic empire stretching into Central Asia. The 19th century brought ruin: defeat in the Opium Wars, the catastrophic Taiping Rebellion, and humiliating concessions to foreign powers. Reform came too slowly. The 1911 Xinhai Revolution swept the throne aside, and the six-year-old Puyi abdicated in February 1912, ending two millennia of imperial rule.