The Qing Dynasty occupies an important part of China's history, not only as the last feudal dynasty in Chinese history, but also as the most humiliated dynasty in Chinese history, and it existed from 1636 to 1912. Because the Qing Dynasty was invaded by the great powers for a long time, coupled with the corruption and incompetence of the Qing government, many people believe that the Qing Dynasty is very weak and incompetent, so why can such an incompetent dynasty still leave about 10 million square kilometers of territory? There are actually three reasons for this.
In fact, in the early period of the Qing Dynasty, the development is still very good, from the establishment of Nurhaci after the Jin to Puyi, the Qing Dynasty experienced a total of 12 monarchs, in 1644 Wu Sangui surrendered to the Qing, in 1659, the Qing Army pacified the Southern Ming, Daxi and other places, and then pacified the San Francisco, completed the great unification, which is also a brilliant stroke in the history of the Qing Dynasty. Subsequently, after the reign of the three emperors of Kangxi, Qianlong, and Yongzheng, the Qing Dynasty even reached its peak, and there was the famous "Kangqian Prosperous Era" in history.
At its peak, the Qing Dynasty stretched from Siberia and mobei in the north, reaching the Pacific Ocean in the east, reaching the Nansha Islands in the south, and Reaching Lake Balkhash in the west, which was a very large range. It should be known that when the Qing Dynasty was at its best, the land area reached 13.16 million square kilometers, which was very large, enough to reflect the strength of the early Qing Dynasty, and in the later period, the Qing Dynasty was threatened by the imperialist powers and signed a series of treaties that humiliated the country, especially the indemnity cut off the land, which isolated a large amount of territory of the Qing Dynasty and paid it to others. In the later period, there were only nearly 10 million square kilometers of territory left, so why was the Qing Dynasty able to have so much territory?
First of all, we all know that the Qing Dynasty as a whole is growing by nomadic people, before this, many monarchs did not understand that in addition to the places in Guannei, there is such a large grassland, and they lost the desire to explore, even if they know that these places exist, they are too lazy to continue to explore, the vast grassland is endless, except for grass, there is nothing, what benefits can be achieved? But in the Qing Dynasty, things changed.
Secondly, in addition, the Qing Dynasty also included the large fat meat of the Western Regions, so the territory of the Qing Dynasty expanded a lot. Then the Qing Dynasty was a relatively special dynasty, including the governance of different ethnic groups, there was a set of strict policies and measures, the Qing Dynasty's measures against Mongolia were also very good, and the measures of "Enwei and Shi" were taken to effectively control the large part of Mongolia. I have to say that the rulers at that time were still very clever, but unfortunately, later, satisfied with their own development, unwilling to open the door to see the changes outside, especially in the late Qing Dynasty, the conservative faction dominated by Empress Dowager Cixi blindly immersed in their own world and could not extricate themselves, did not go out to explore, and squandered the existing materials, and finally could only cocoon themselves and kill themselves. Coupled with Tsarist Russia's desperate desire for territory, the Qing Dynasty was deprived of a lot of territory at the last minute.
In general, the Qing Dynasty still made a lot of contributions in terms of territory, which cannot be denied.