From 3 million square kilometers of land in the Ming Dynasty to 14.53 million, why did the Qing Dynasty continue to expand?
In this article, I will talk to you about this topic.
It should be said that not only did the Qing Empire want to expand, if conditions permit, successive dynasties have the ambition to expand their territory, but they are usually forced to be constrained by the constraints of actual conditions and cannot be realized. In this way, it is not so much that the Qing Empire wants to expand its territory, but rather that the actual environment at that time gave it enough opportunities and conditions to expand its territory.
As we all know, the origin of Chinese civilization is bounded by the Great Wall, which can be divided into two major blocks, one is the nomadic civilization north of the Great Wall, mainly nomadic people, and the places where they live mainly include the south of the desert, the north of the desert and the west of the desert.
Among them, the southern desert is mainly the current Inner Mongolia region, the northern desert is now Outer Mongolia and the Baikal region of Siberia; the western desert is mainly the Xinjiang region.
As for the other civilization, that is, the agricultural civilization south of the Great Wall, mainly based on the Han ming people who are engaged in land cultivation, this place is usually what we call the Central Plains Dynasty in the history books.
For a long time, the nomadic peoples north of the Great Wall and the farming peoples south of the Great Wall did not have much intersection, and it was not until the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period that the two sides began to have more frequent confrontations.
Later, with the advent of the Iron Age, the Central Plains Dynasty south of the Great Wall completed its great unification under the leadership of Qin Shi Huang; similarly, the nomadic peoples north of the Great Wall also completed the great unification under the leadership of the Xiongnu leader Mao Dun. Then, the two sides began to clash on a large scale.
In general, before the Northern Song Dynasty, because the development of productive forces was still relatively limited, the overall economic strength of the nomads was far weaker than that of the Central Plains Dynasty, so although the nomads often made the Central Plains Dynasty bitter by virtue of the mobility of the cavalry, they were still far inferior to the Central Plains Dynasty in terms of overall strength.
In this context, although they often posed a threat to the Central Plains Dynasty, they lacked the strength to occupy the Central Plains Dynasty.
At the same time, although the economic strength of the Central Plains Dynasty was stronger than that of the nomads, because the level of development of the productive forces of the whole society was still relatively limited, the territorial scope that its military strength could directly radiate was also limited, and under normal circumstances, it could only block the nomadic peoples north of the Great Wall; furthermore, it was to include the southern desert area as the territory under its direct control.
Even the Tang Dynasty, the most economically and militarily powerful of the Central Plains Dynasty, could only temporarily expand its sphere of influence to the northern and western moxi regions when the nomadic people were divided, but it was still very difficult to directly and effectively rule these two places.
During the period of five generations and ten countries, with the development of productive forces, the three northeastern provinces were finally developed in the true sense.
As we all know, although the three northeastern provinces are north of the Great Wall, this area is an agricultural area, and its black soil is very fertile, with many precipitation and rivers. Therefore, this place was reclaimed by the nomads, on the one hand, the economic strength of the nomads was greatly improved; on the other hand, the nomads accumulated experience in ruling the agricultural civilization.
At the same time, the northeast region is also rich in iron ore, which can create a variety of weapons and equipment, which also allows the nomadic cavalry to get a qualitative leap.
In this context, the nomadic peoples, whether militarily or economically, could finally compete with the Central Plains Dynasty. It is precisely because of this that during the Two Song Dynasties, the Central Plains Dynasty faced the nomadic peoples (
Liao, Jin
) hit, more and more powerless.
Later, with the development of the productive forces, in the last years of the Southern Song Dynasty, with the further development of the productive forces, the economic and military strength of the nomadic peoples north of the Great Wall finally surpassed the Central Plains Dynasty south of the Great Wall, so the Central Plains Dynasty was finally destroyed for the first time by the northern nomads; at the same time, the first unified regime established by the nomads also appeared.
Later, with the large-scale application of firearms, the nomadic cavalry finally became no longer indestructible; at the same time, with the development of productive forces, Jiangnan was also reclaimed on a large scale, which led to an unprecedented increase in the economic strength of the farming peoples, so that the farming peoples could finally compete with the nomadic peoples again. Moreover, for the first time, they also realized the unification of the whole country from the south to the north.
However, in the context of that time, there were still many limitations in the development of firearms, and there was not much gap in the economic strength of the north and south, so although the Central Plains Dynasty could drive the nomadic peoples out of the north of the Great Wall, it was unable to control the area north of the Great Wall, even the northeast, and they could only take advantage of the split of the northern nomads to temporarily control it.
In this context, the nomadic peoples north of the Great Wall and the farming peoples south of the Great Wall are equivalent to temporarily returning to a state of equal strength, which is why the territory of the Ming Dynasty was only 3 million square kilometers. However, because the northern nomads were often divided at that time, on the whole, they seemed to be weaker than the Ming Dynasty.
However, by the time of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the northern nomads also began to use firearms, and coupled with their cavalry superiority, they became superior to the Central Plains Dynasty in terms of military strength alone. In this context, the northeast and the southern part of the desert took the lead in achieving unification, then the northern part of the desert was conquered, the western part of the desert was forced to submit, and finally completed the unification of the Manchu Qing north of the Great Wall, and then turned back to attack the Central Plains Dynasty south of the Great Wall, and the Central Plains Dynasty was naturally powerless to resist.
In this context, the Qing Dynasty not only unified the moxi, monan, mobei and northeast regions north of the Great Wall, but also occupied all the areas south of the Great Wall, and its territory naturally expanded to 14.53 million square kilometers. In this sense, the Qing Dynasty was able to expand such a vast territory mainly because of the development of productive forces, which made the military and economic strength of the time unprecedentedly improved, and it was able to directly control such a vast territory.