In 1644, after Li Zicheng had just entered the Beijing Division, Wu Sangui, who was guarding Shanhaiguan, surrendered to the Qing army in one fell in love because Chen Yuanyuan was captured by a horizontal knife, and his surrender enabled the Qing army to smoothly enter the customs and enter the Beijing division. From 1644 to 1662, the Qing Dynasty eliminated the remnants of the Southern Ming Court through the Southern Expedition to the North, and finally unified the Central Plains.
In the qing dynasty, when the Central Plains was initially established, eighteen provinces were established on the basis of the ming dynasty's two capitals and thirteen administrative divisions. At this time, the qing dynasty had jurisdiction over only a few million square kilometers more than the Ming Dynasty, and by 1760, that is, during the reign of Qianlong, the territory of the Qing Dynasty reached its peak, with a land area of up to 13 million square kilometers.
From the records in the article "Examination of the Territorial Area of China's Dynasties", it can be seen that the land area of the Qing Dynasty in the Qianlong period, from the Mongolian Tangnu Wulianghai region and Siberia in the north, reached the South China Sea in the south, and the South China Sea zhudao at that time, such as "Qianli Shitang, Wanli Changsha, Zengmu Dark Sand", were included; here in the southwest region, including the Dawang region in Tibet, the Nankan area in Yunnan, and the Jiangxinpo region, it was under the jurisdiction of the Qing Dynasty; in the west, it reached the Onion Ridge and Lake Balkhash region; and the northeast extended to the Waixing'an Ridge , can be described as a large area, the peak of the moment.
Why did the area under the jurisdiction of the Qing Dynasty suddenly show a blowout situation during the Qianlong period? It all had to do with the conquest of the Dzungar Khanate.
Shortly after Kangxi came to power, he faced several more difficult problems, one was how to recover the treasure island under the jurisdiction of the Zheng Chenggong family, one was the abolition of the San Fan issue, and the other was the rise of the Dzungar Khanate.
The predecessor of Dzungar dates back to the Mongol Wala during the Ming Dynasty, and after the demise of the Wala, it was divided into several tribes, one of which was called the Weyrat Tribe, and under the leadership of the leader Kaldan, the Dzungar Khanate was established in 1678, and since then one of the most powerful opponents of the Qing Dynasty has emerged.
After the establishment of the Dzungar Khanate, it was conquered everywhere. In 1678, Kaldan sent an army to southern Xinjiang to occupy the Yarkand Khanate in one fell swoop; next, he went all the way to the east, forcing the Khalkha Khanate to avoid their front and ask the Qing Dynasty for submission. After defeating the Yarkand Khanate and the Khalkha Khanate successively, Kaldan also led an army to occupy part of the territory of the Kazakh Khanate, and even the newly emerging Tsarist Russia had to retreat, and its strength reached its peak, its territory was connected to the upper reaches of the Irtysh, Ob and Yenisei Rivers in the north, the Ali region of Tibet in the south, the Lake Balkhash in the west, and the Sayan Ridge and the Sejang River Valley in mongolia in the east, reaching 7 million square kilometers of jurisdiction in the heyday. It became the most powerful khanate in Central Asia at that time.
The powerful Dzungar Khanate, naturally disobeyed the Qing Dynasty, they took the initiative to provoke a war with the Qing Dynasty, from the Kangxi period onwards, the Qing Dynasty repeatedly used troops against the Dzungar Khanate, although it defeated Kaldan, but the Dzungar Khanate was not completely destroyed, his nephew Cefa Alabutan continued to make waves, until qianlong twenty-five years in 1760, the Qing Dynasty completely destroyed the Dzungar Khanate, and occupied most of their territory, which also made the Qing Dynasty's land area jump to a staggering 13 million square kilometers.