Territory of the Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last feudal dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing Dynasty was vast, after the unification of the Central Plains in 1761, the Ming Dynasty two capitals and thirteen provinces were divided into eighteen provinces, in 1820 the land reached its peak, the land area was 13.16 million square kilometers, in the northeast, Outer Mongolia, Xinjiang set up five general jurisdictions, set up a minister stationed in Tibet, Xining Minister of Affairs and other control of the vast Tibetan area, in the Yunnan-Guizhou region implemented the toast system, and completed the land reform during the Yongzheng period.
Strength is important, but so is jurisprudence
To say that the Qing Dynasty laid the map of China's territory is actually to say that the Qing Dynasty laid a legal foundation for China's current territory, and where can China's territory be expanded? Wherever the expansion goes, China can naturally liberate Tibet and Xinjiang, but it cannot liberate Korea and Vietnam, what is the repossession of its homeland, what is the war of aggression, all of which involve the issue of China's legal territory.
Jurisprudence and strength are always two aspects of the territorial question, one is indispensable, only jurisprudence and no strength, only strength and no reason, in the modern international community can not merge a piece of land into the territory of a country.
Territory of the Ming Dynasty
Why was the Qing Dynasty's territory that finally and truly unified modern China for a long time?
Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Tibet, etc., were not effectively ruled by China for a long time before the Qing Dynasty. Although Xinjiang is the homeland of the Han and Tang Dynasties, it has been independent for a thousand years after the Tang Dynasty, and although the Nuer Gandu Division was established in the early Ming Dynasty of Heilongjiang, it actually existed for a short time and its control power was also very limited.
Why did the Han Dynasty always have to be trapped in the Han Dynasty? The Han Dynasty, because of its limitations, its disdain, and impossible, without such technology, without such a technology of administrative rule, such an integration, the Han Dynasty, due to its rich geographical conditions, became an agricultural society early, and obtained a large amount of wealth, enough to nourish the wealth of all people in this system, but at the same time, due to the inevitable needs of its agricultural society, the formation of settled, Confucian, not everyone is martial, eager for stability and other characteristics, and the military ability of the nomadic people in the frontier areas has formed a gap, And the frontier areas due to geographical conditions, can not get the necessity of life through their own production, can only be through their own armed forces to rob the frontier, in order to obtain the wealth of the rich areas, which is also the initial form of role of the frontier and the Central Plains, and then improved to form a form of trade instead of force to obtain wealth, but because the production of the frontier in this system is still very weak, in the trade is also inferior, at the same time the utility is not the highest, the internal motivation to unify the whole has not disappeared, so integration is necessary, The Han people never understood the logic of nomadic rule, nor did they exclude the frontier minorities without Sinicization, and could not effectively rule these areas for a long time, so this integration was handed over to the border minorities.
The Sinicization of ethnic minorities was the integration of the Han Dynasty and the frontiers. In the initial regime established by the minority nationalities, although it was also able to occupy the Central Plains, it was either completely Sinicized and separated from the frontier, thus losing the basis for ruling over the minority areas, or refusing Sinicization and hoping to rule the Central Plains with the logic of frontier rule, these attempts failed, until the Liao developed a dualistic political system, with han people ruling the Han people and ethnic minorities ruling the minority nationalities. The Qing Dynasty inherited the political wisdom of the Liao, and developed into a pluralistic system here, the Ruler of the Qing Dynasty did not fully Sinicize, he knew how to rule the military nobles of the frontier, but also knew how to rule the hinterland of the Central Plains, with the wealth of the Central Plains to meet the needs of the frontier nobles, at the same time, the military forces of the frontier ruled the Central Plains, and at the same time managed the military nobles of Mongolia with the religion of Tibet, so that they formed a whole and balanced each other.
The inheritance and integration of the identity of the Han Dynasty by the Qing Dynasty
The Emperor of the Qing Dynasty is different from any other emperor in China, he has a pluralistic identity, not only the emperor of the Central Plains, but also the king of the military nobility, but also the spiritual leader of the religion, with this pluralistic identity can be able to the whole of China, and the inner genes of the Great Qing come from Manchuria, which is influenced by the frontier and the Central Plains at the same time, and obtained two different genes, two different ruling capabilities, which made the development of the entire feudal dynasty the peak.
China is naturally unified
Ancient China was naturally a whole, but this whole was a gradual integration of interactions, it was a variety of ways as a whole, and it did not have to be in the same country as a whole, but this system often always moved in the direction of unification as a country in order to maximize utility, and it also had to appear as a unified China to stop its integration and maximize its utility.
Those who are heavy on Xinjiang, so those who protect Mongolia, those who protect Mongolia, so the Weijing Division, cannot be missing in this complete whole, and Xinjiang, as the entire hinterland of the Central Plains, the strategic buffer of the richest places of the entire system, is indispensable for ensuring its security for the stability of the Central Plains.