Qing dynasty
▶ Explore on the mapThe Qing dynasty ruled China from 1644 to 1912 and was the last imperial house, expanding the empire to its greatest territorial extent. The Manchus crossed the pass in 1644 after the Ming fell to Li Zicheng's rebels, and with the help of Chinese generals they completed the conquest of the south over two decades. They kept their identity through the queue order, the banner system and prohibitions on intermarriage, while employing Chinese scholars in the civil service, whose examinations continued unchanged. The Kangxi emperor, who reigned sixty-one years, suppressed revolts, expelled the Russians from the Amur by treaty in 1689, and ordered the great encyclopaedias. His grandson Qianlong campaigned in Central Asia and Tibet, adding Xinjiang to the map, and under them the population doubled to some three hundred million. European trade was restricted to Canton through the Cohong merchants, and the refusal to treat on equal terms led to the opium wars and the loss of Hong Kong. The Taiping rebellion of 1850 to 1864 killed twenty million people, and reform attempts in 1898 were crushed. After the army mutinies of 1911 the young emperor abdicated in February 1912, ending two thousand years of imperial rule in China.