China marches west : the Qing conquest of Central Eurasia
Title:
China marches west : the Qing conquest of Central Eurasia
Author:
Perdue, Peter C., 1949- author
ISBN:
9780674016842
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
xx, 725 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), color maps ; 25 cm.
Contents:
The formation of the central Eurasian states -- Environments, state building, and national identity -- The Ming, Muscovy, and Siberia, 1400-1600 -- Central Eurasian interactions and the rise of the Manchus, 1600-1670 -- Contending for power -- Manchus, Mongols, and Russians in conflict, 1670-1690 -- Eating snow : the end of Galdan, 1690-1697 -- Imperial overreach and Zunghar survival, 1700-1731 -- The final blows, 1734-1771 -- The economic basis of empire -- Cannons and camelback : ecological structures and economic conjunctures -- Land settlement and military colonies -- Harvests and relief -- Currency and commerce -- Fixing frontiers -- Moving through the land -- Marking time : writing imperial history -- Legacies and implications -- Writing the national history of conquest -- State building in Europe and Asia -- Frontier expansion in the rise and fall of the Qing -- Rulers and reigns -- The Yongzheng emperor reels from the news of the disaster, 1731 -- Haggling at the border -- Gansu harvests and yields -- Climate and harvests in the Northwest.
Abstract:
"In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Qing empire of China expanded to unprecedented size. With a series of ambitious military campaigns into the heart of Central Eurasia, astute diplomacy, and economic investment, the Manchu rulers of the Qing defeated their major rivals, the Zunghar Mongols, and brought all of modern Xinjiang and Mongolia under their control, while gaining dominant influence in Tibet. The Chinas we know today is a product of these vast frontier conquests." "Peter Perdue chronicles for the first time in English this little-known story of the Qing conquest, discussing the military strategies, diplomatic maneuvers, logistical preparations, and ideological proclamations of all the contending parties. Han Chinese, Manchus, Mongols, Uighurs, Russians, and Tibetans all played their part in this early version of the Central Asian Great Game. Perdue explains why the Qing, unlike all previous Chinese dynasties, were able to achieve enduring domination in the region, and examines how the Qing rulers ensured that their control would last. They did not shrink from forcible repression, but they also aimed to win over subject populations by peaceful means. They invested heavily in economic and administrative development, promoted peasant migration and merchant trade networks, and conducted ceremonies adapted to the distinct peoples they rules. Their cultural vision stressed the valuable role of the frontier regions in the all-powerful imperial state. They rewrote the history of the conquest to make the victories look like inevitable results of Heavenly grace."--BOOK JACKET.
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