country_of_citizenship mujangga
Mujangga ( Manchu : ; Chinese :  ; pinyin : Mùzhng '  ; 1782 -- 1856 ) was a Manchu statesman of the late ___MASK72___ . He belonged to the Bordered Blue Banner in the Eight Banners . He was awarded the highest degree in the imperial examination in 1805 and quickly rose in the ranks of the Qing government . He became a member of the Grand Council in 1828 and gradually grew to exercise a decisive influence on the Daoguang Emperor ' s policies . Following the demise of Cao Zhenyong , Mujangga became the chief Grand Councillor in 1837 . As tensions in Sino - ___MASK25___ relations rose in 1839 , he became one of the chief advocates of a conciliatory policy towards the ___MASK25___ and following the outbreak of the First Opium War he moved to dismiss Lin Zexu from his position as imperial commissioner in September 1840 . Mujangga ' s conciliatory policies created tensions with the allegedly more xenophobic heir apparent , and following his accession to the throne as the Xianfeng Emperor , Mujangga was dismissed from all his positions in 1851 . The First Opium War (  , 1839  42 ), also known as the Opium War and the Anglo - Chinese War , was fought between the ___MASK79___ and the Qing dynasty over their conflicting viewpoints on diplomatic relations , trade , and the administration of justice for foreign nationals in ___MASK9___ . The Jurchen , also known by many variant names , were a Tungusic people who inhabited the region of Manchuria until around 1630 , at which point they were reformed and combined with their neighbors as the Manchus . The Jurchen established the ___MASK26___ , whose empire conquered the Northern Song in 1127 , gaining control of most of North ___MASK9___ . Jin control over ___MASK9___ lasted until their 1234 conquest by the Mongols . The Manchus would later conquer the Ming and establish the Qing Dynasty , which ruled ___MASK9___ until their overthrow in 1911 . The ___MASK94___ was an imperial dynasty of ___MASK9___ preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period . It is generally regarded as a high point in Chinese civilization , and a golden age of cosmopolitan culture . Its territory , acquired through the military campaigns of its early rulers , rivaled that of the Han dynasty , and the Tang capital at Chang ' an ( present - day Xi ' an ) was the most populous city in the world . The Qianlong Emperor ( 25 September 1711  7 February 1799 ) was the sixth emperor of the Manchu - led ___MASK72___ , and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over ___MASK9___ proper . Born Aisin Gioro Hongli , the fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor , he reigned officially from 11 October 1735 to 8 February 1796 . On 8 February , he abdicated in favour of his son , the Jiaqing Emperor  a filial act in order not to reign longer than his grandfather , the illustrious Kangxi Emperor . Despite his retirement , however , he retained ultimate power as the Emperor Emeritus ( or Retired Emperor ) until his death in 1799 ; he thus was the longest - reigning " de facto " ruler in the history of ___MASK9___ , and dying at the age of 87 , the longest - living . As a capable and cultured ruler inheriting a thriving empire , during his long reign the Qing Empire reached its most splendid and prosperous era , boasting a large population and economy , with various military campaigns expand its territory to the largest extent . In his late years , eclipsed in effectiveness of his rule , with rampant corruption and wastefulness in his court , and a stagnant civil society , the empire was in gradual decline . Jonathan Dermot Spence ( born 11 August 1936 ) is a ___MASK25___ - American historian and public intellectual specialising in Chinese history . He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 1993 to 2008 . His most widely read book is " The Search for Modern ___MASK9___ ", a survey of the last several hundred years of Chinese history based on his popular course at Yale . A prolific author , reviewer , and essayist , he has published more than a dozen books on ___MASK9___ . He retired from Yale in 2008 . The Ten Great Campaigns were a series of military campaigns launched by the Qing Empire of ___MASK9___ in the mid  late 18th century during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor ( r . 1735  96 ). They included three to enlarge the area of Qing control in Central Asia : two against the Dzungars ( 1755  57 ) and the pacification of Xinjiang ( 1758  59 ). The other seven campaigns were more in the nature of police actions on frontiers already established : two wars to suppress Jinchuan rebels in Sichuan , another to suppress rebels in Taiwan ( 1787  88 ), and four expeditions abroad against the Burmese ( 1765  69 ), the Vietnamese ( 1788  89 ), and the Gurkhas in Nepal on the border between Tibet and India ( 1790  92 ), with the last counting as two . The Daoguang Emperor ( Manchu : , " Doro Eldengge Hwangdi " ; 16 September 1782  25 February 1850 ) was the eighth emperor of the Manchu - led ___MASK72___ and the sixth Qing emperor to rule over ___MASK9___ , from 1820 to 1850 . His reign was marked by " external disaster and internal rebellion ," that is , by the First Opium War , and the beginning of the Taiping Rebellion which nearly brought down the dynasty . The historian Jonathan Spence characterizes the Daoguang Emperor as a " well meaning but ineffective man ," who promoted officials who " presented a purist view even if they had nothing to say about the domestic and foreign problems surrounding the dynasty ." Lin Zexu ( 30 August 1785  22 November 1850 ), courtesy name Yuanfu , was a Chinese scholar - official of the ___MASK72___ best known for his role in the First Opium War of 1839  42 . He was from Fuzhou , Fujian Province . Lin ' s forceful opposition to the opium trade was a primary catalyst for the First Opium War . He is praised for his constant position on the " moral high ground " in his fight , but he is also blamed for a rigid approach which failed to account for the domestic and international complexities of the problem . The Daoguang Emperor endorsed the hardline policies advocated by Lin , but then blamed Lin for the resulting disastrous war . The ___MASK32___ was the second imperial dynasty of ___MASK9___ ( 206 BC  220 AD ), preceded by the Qin dynasty ( 221  206 BC ) and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms period ( 220  280 AD ). Spanning over four centuries , the Han period is considered a golden age in Chinese history . To this day , ___MASK9___ ' s majority ethnic group refers to itself as the " Han people " and the Chinese script is referred to as " Han characters ". It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang , known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han , and briefly interrupted by the Xin dynasty ( 9  23 AD ) of the former regent Wang Mang . This interregnum separates the ___MASK32___ into two periods : the Western Han or Former Han ( 206 BC  9 AD ) and the Eastern Han or Later Han ( 25  220 AD ). Scholar - officials , also known as Scholar - gentlemen , Scholar - bureaucrats or Scholar - gentry were civil servants appointed by the emperor of ___MASK9___ to perform day - to - day governance from the Han dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912 , ___MASK9___ ' s last imperial dynasty . After the Sui dynasty these officials mostly came from the scholar - gentry (  " shnshì ") who had earned academic degrees ( such as " xiucai ", " juren ", or " jinshi ") by passing the imperial examinations . The scholar - officials were schooled in calligraphy and Confucian texts . They dominated the government and local life of ___MASK9___ until the middle of the 20th century . Historian Charles Moore concludes that : A courtesy name (" zi "), also known as a style name , is a name bestowed upon one at adulthood in addition to one ' s given name . This practice is a tradition in East Asian cultures , including ___MASK9___ , Japan , Korea , and Vietnam . The Taiping Rebellion or Taiping Civil War ( simplified Chinese :  ; traditional Chinese :  ; pinyin : " Taìpíng Tanguó Yùndòng ", literally " ___MASK71___ Movement ") was a massive rebellion or civil war in ___MASK9___ that lasted from 1850 to 1864 fought between the established Manchu - led Qing dynasty and the millenarian movement of the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace . The Taiping Rebellion began in the southern province of Guangxi when local officials launched a campaign of persecution against a millenarian sect known as the God Worshipping Society led by Hong Xiuquan , who believed himself to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ . The war was mostly fought in the provinces of Jiangsu , Zhejiang , Anhui , Jiangxi , and Hubei , but over 14 years of war , the Taiping Army had marched through every regularized province of ___MASK9___ proper except Gansu . The war was the largest in ___MASK9___ since the Qing conquest in 1644 , and ranks as one of the bloodiest wars in human history , the bloodiest civil war , and the largest conflict of the nineteenth century with estimates of war dead ranging from 20 to 70 million , to as much as 100 million , as well as millions more displaced . Hong Taiji ( 28November 159221 September1643 ), sometimes written as Huang Taiji and also referred to as Abahai in Western literature , was an Emperor of the ___MASK72___ . He was responsible for consolidating the empire that his father Nurhaci had founded and laid the groundwork for the conquest of the ___MASK77___ , although he died before this was accomplished . He was also responsible for changing the name of his people from Jurchen to Manchu in 1635 , as well as that of the dynasty from Later Jin to Qing in 1636 . The ___MASK72___ lasted until 1912 . ___MASK9___ , officially the People ' s Republic of ___MASK9___ ( PRC ), is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia . With a population of over 1 . 381 billion , it is the world ' s most populous country . The state is governed by the Communist Party of ___MASK9___ , and its capital is Beijing . It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces , five autonomous regions , four direct - controlled municipalities ( Beijing , Tianjin , Shanghai , and Chongqing ), and two mostly self - governing special administrative regions ( Hong Kong and Macau ), and claims sovereignty over Taiwan . The country ' s major urban areas include Shanghai , Guangzhou , Beijing , Chongqing , Shenzhen , Tianjin and Hong Kong . ___MASK9___ is a great power and a major regional power within Asia , and has been characterized as a potential superpower . Cao Zhenyong ( 1755  1835 ) was a Chinese statesman of the ___MASK72___ . He served in a leading position in the Grand Council under the Daoguang Emperor . He is widely believed to be responsible for the formalized style of government , which was promoted under the Daoguang Emperor ' s reign and contributed to the emperor ' s failure to reform the increasingly corrupt administration of the Qing Empire . The Chinese imperial examinations were a civil service examination system in Imperial ___MASK9___ to select candidates for the state bureaucracy . Although there were imperial exams as early as the Han dynasty , the system became widely utilized as the major path to office only in the mid - Tang dynasty , and remained so until its abolition in 1905 . Since the exams were based on knowledge of the classics and literary style , not technical expertise , successful candidates were generalists who shared a common language and culture , one shared even by those who failed . This common culture helped to unify the empire and the ideal of achievement by merit gave legitimacy to imperial rule , while leaving clear problems resulting from a systemic lack of technical and practical expertise . The Xianfeng Emperor ( 17 July 183122 August 1861 ), personal name I - ju ( or Yizhu ), was the ninth Emperor of the Manchu - led ___MASK72___ , and the seventh Qing emperor to rule over ___MASK9___ , from 1850 to 1861 . The Green Standard Army ( Manchu : " niowanggiyan turun i kwaran ") was the name of a category of military units under the control of ___MASK72___ ___MASK9___ . It was made up mostly of ethnic Han soldiers and operated concurrently with the Manchu - Mongol - Han Eight Banner armies . In areas with a high concentration of Hui people , Muslims served as soldiers in the Green Standard Army . After the Qing consolidated control over ___MASK9___ , the Green Standard Army was primarily used as a police force . The Eight Banners ( in Manchu : " jakn gsa ") were administrative / military divisions under the ___MASK72___ into which all Manchu households were placed . In war , the Eight Banners functioned as armies , but the banner system was also the basic organizational framework of all of Manchu society . Created in the early 17th century by Nurhaci , the banner armies played an instrumental role in his unification of the fragmented Jurchen people ( who would later be renamed the " Manchus " under Nurhaci ' s son Hong Taiji ) and in the ___MASK72___ ' s conquest of the ___MASK77___ . As Mongol and Han forces were incorporated into the growing Qing military establishment , the Mongol Eight Banners and Han Eight Banners were created alongside the original Manchu banners . The banner armies were considered the elite forces of the Qing military , while the remainder of imperial troops were incorporated into the vast Green Standard Army . Membership in the banners became hereditary , and bannermen were granted land and income . After the defeat of the ___MASK77___ , Qing emperors continued to rely on the Eight Banners in their subsequent military campaigns . After the Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor , the quality of banner troops gradually decreased , and by the 19th century the task of defending the empire had largely fallen upon regional armies such as the Xiang Army . Over time , the Eight Banners became synonymous with Manchu identity even as their military strength vanished . The ___MASK77___ was the ruling dynasty of ___MASK9___  then known as the  for 276 years ( 1368  1644 ) following the collapse of the Mongol - led Yuan dynasty . The Ming , described by some as " one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history ," was the last imperial dynasty in ___MASK9___ ruled by ethnic Han Chinese . Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng ( who established the Shun dynasty , soon replaced by the Manchu - led Qing dynasty ), regimes loyal to the Ming throne  collectively called the Southern Ming  survived until 1683 . A civil servant or public servant is a person in the public sector employed for a government department or agency . The extent of civil servants of a state as part of the " civil service " varies from country to country . In the ___MASK79___ , for instance , only Crown ( national government ) employees are referred to as civil servants whereas county or city employees are not . The Xiang Army was a standing army organized by Zeng Guofan from existing regional and village militia forces tuanlian to contain the Taiping rebellion in Qing ___MASK9___ ( 1850 to 1864 ). The name is taken from the Hunan region where the Army was raised . The Army was financed through local nobles and gentry , as opposed to the centralized Manchu - led Qing dynasty . Although it was raised specifically to address problems in Hunan , the Army formed the core of the new Qing military establishment , and as such , forever weakened the Manchu influence within the military . This devolution of centralized command is commonly pointed to as a major reason for the eventual downfall of the Qing and the emergence of regional warlordism in ___MASK9___ during the first half of the twentieth century . The ___MASK72___ , officially the Great Qing , also called the Qing Empire or the Manchu dynasty , was the last imperial dynasty of ___MASK9___ , ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief , abortive restoration in 1917 . It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of ___MASK9___ . The Qing multi - cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the territorial base for the modern Chinese state . Fuzhou , formerly romanized as Foochow , is the capital and one of the largest cities in Fujian province , ___MASK9___ . Along with the many counties of Ningde , those of Fuzhou are considered to constitute the Mindong ( lit . Eastern Fujian ) linguistic and cultural area .