IS CHINA ALSO A SUCCESSOR

OF THE MANCHU QING DYNASTY?

From the 17th century, the Jurchens began to gain strength. The violence was limited to the Northeast Asia region. However, once generations of nomads become strong, their ultimate goal will be to conquer China. If not, they want to attack China and plunder it to get rich. The Jurchens sat silently for 500 years after Genghis Khan. It was their vassal during the Yuan Dynasty. Now it's the turn of the guests. They also have ancient strong traditions. The Jurchens held the Bohai Dynasty of the 8th century and the Jin dynasty of the 12th century.

At that time, Ming was in turmoil. However, a small number of guests could be dealt with. At least the Jurchens don't have many horses. The horse is the most crucial weapon of the nomads. Only Mongols have horses. They could conquer China only by becoming an ally of the Mongols. However, no government or group would represent all the Mongols, and they were divided into dozens if not hundreds and their main task were to fight each other.

Nurkhachi, who united the Jurchens, first looked for a way to attract all the Mongols to him. He liked to compare his people with others, such as the Mongols. Nurhachi once said to the Mongols: “Koreans and Chinese have different languages, but their clothes and way of life are the same. In the same way, the Jurchen and Mongolian peoples have different languages, but our clothes and living conditions are the same.”[1] The Jurchens were vassals of the Ming Dynasty and used Chinese characters. Nurhaci announced that he would convert to Tibetan Buddhism, the official religion of the Mongols, and adopt the Uighur script used by the Mongols. After him, his son Hong Taiji took advantage of the internal strife of the Mongols and began to conclude alliances with them with his tribes. The last Mongol khan Ligden, clashed with Hong Taiji, and after his death, his son brought him the jade seal of Kublai, so Hong Taiji declared himself Khan of Mongolia. In 1636 he became an ally rather than conquer Inner Mongolia. Hong Taiji died shortly before the conquest of Beijing and the founding of the Qing Dynasty, but the first emperor of this new dynasty was his son by a Mongol wife. The nomadic nobility has a very ancient custom of exchanging princesses for allies. When Genghis Khan was mighty, the number of princesses who came to him as gifts reached 500. Establishing family ties in this way symbolizes mutual trust between states. Moreover, a woman has a unique role in a nomadic family, so the daughter-in-law strongly influences government policy. There are many such examples.

Hong Taiji attached great importance to kinship with the Mongols. The Aisingoro tribe in Manchuria often exchanges brides with the Borjigin tribe in Mongolia. Hong Taiji Abahai increased his power and gave the Mongol who married a Manchu woman the title of Efu. However, when all of China was conquered, a law was passed forbidding Mongols and Manchus from marrying Chinese women and having intimate relationships.

Researchers explain in different ways where the unknown name Manchu suddenly came from. The name is said to have been taken from the Manju tribe. It is said to be symbolized by the name of the Bodhisattva Manjusri. Doubtful. Why did this Sanskrit name become "Manju"? Why did the Jurchen aristocrats not name his tribe "Aishigoro" after his country? There is also an explanation that the two words "Mongol" and "Jurchen" were shortened and merged into "monju". The Manchu name dancing, which sounds like a phonetic rendering of Dà Qīng or Dai Ching, may, have been derived from a Mongolian word, daiching," which means "warrior". Daicing gurun may therefore have meant "warrior state,” a pun that was intelligible only to Manchu and Mongol peoples.[2]

The Manchus occupied Beijing in 1644, and by 1683 they had conquered all of China. During the time of Nurhaci, they completely separated from the Ming dynasty and called themselves Later Jin. Between 1644 and 1683, the Manchu Qing and South China were separate states, just as when the Mongols destroyed the Song state, the Southern Song state continued to exist for 40 years. When China was conquered, the Manchu-Mongolian forces were not at war, so it cannot be said that the Manchus occupied the 49 provinces of Inner Mongolia. The Mongols and Manchus were allies. Hong Taiji declared himself heir to the Yuan Dynasty because he married Kublai's princesses and aristocrats. Hong Taiji declared me the heir of the Yuan Dynasty because he married princesses and aristocrats from Khubilai. There have been many cases in history when the son-in-law of the royal family ruled by name, especially among nomads. The son-in-law's name is "Gur." Many gurs were born khans. It is known that Khuchlug, who headed the Western Liao, called himself Gur Khan. Timurlang was a gurkhan. Tsar Godunov of Russia liked to be proud of his Tatar. The first Qing emperor was a Manchurian-Mongolian hybrid. Since Hong Taiji is related to Khubilai by “blood,” he is also a kind of gur-khan!

But Hong Taiji could imagine from the history of the Yuan dynasty that even if the Manchus obeyed all the Chinese, one day they would be exiled Chinese. He knows very well that there is no eternal power. According to the edict of Hong Taiji, the founder of the Manchurian Empire, issued in 1636, "If the Da Qing dynasty dies, you (the Mongols) will continue to exist according to their previous laws."[3] If we speak in modern language, it means that Mongols are connected with the Manchurian Empire through the Qing Union and will be part of it until the empire exists.

When the Qing Dynasty was founded, it considered itself the successor to Kublai Yuan Dynasty. In 1757, after the defeat of Dzungaria, China, Mongolia, Tuva, East Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Korea, Vietnam, and Burma became vassals of Manchu Chin. In 1683, the Manjurs conquered all of China. Thanks to the Chinese-style government system, the development and expansion of trade, the economy stabilized, and the population grew. By 1800, the total area of the Manchu-Qing dynasty was 13 million square meters. kilometers. (the size of modern China is 9.2 million square kilometers), and its population reached 300 million, one-third of the world's population then.[4] In this situation, the Manchu authorities understood that if they openly insulted the Chinese people, denied their history, and ignored their national culture and traditions, they, like Yuan, would have a short life.

On the one hand, they granted the Mongols and Manchus more rights than other peoples, established special inviolability in their lands, provided exceptional care to their nobles, and almost did not participate in their internal affairs. It was established that only representatives of these two nations would occupy seats in the supreme power of the state. However, this has not yet been announced publicly, and it has been done discreetly through a special state apparatus. The Manchus did not want to extradite the Chinese or other nationalities' representatives. In this, they differ from the yuan. The imperial palace of the closed city was not allowed into the palace, except for the Mongols and Manchus, but this was not advertised as an announcement on the door. The Chinese can travel to Mongolia and Manchuria for trade, but this requires a special permit. If a trader violates these rules, he will be expelled and punished, and visas will not be issued.

Although the Manchus were at the top of the state, the Chinese generally tolerated the "savages" because the traditional Chinese state machine worked the way it did. Customs, traditions, symbols, and religion remained the same. However, when the time came, and the crisis came, the Taiping rebellion made it clear that they were ready to say: “The Emperor is not ours. They are foreign invaders."

Under the Treaty of Aigun in 1858, the lands around the Amur and Ussur rivers, the original lands of the Manchus, joined the Russians. It became known as Outer Manchuria and is now called the Amur Region in Russia. This is a reserved land that the Manchus would take back if the Qing dynasty ever fell. Therefore, there was a law forbidding the Chinese to approach them. Outer Mongolia was also a protected area with such laws. At this point, weakened by the Manchu Qing, the only way to keep the remaining territory from foreign invasion was to settle the almost deserted land. Therefore, he abandoned his rule that the Chinese should not go to Manchuria and covered his eyes with his hands. Landless peasants from Shanxi, Hebei, and Shandong poured into this promised land like a flood. There was almost no agriculture in Manchuria, but the noble feudal lords, who owned most of the land, began to lease land to poor Chinese farmers. Manchuria was filled with Chinese for several years. Thus, by the middle of the 19th century, 80 percent of the population had become Han.[5] This is why the Chinese assimilated the Manchus.

The First and Second Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion, the eight allies occupying Beijing showed that the medieval Manchu-Mongolian warriors were much worse. The Chinese are much better. The erroneousness of the policy of the ruling Manchu ethnos is proved. The Chinese generally understood that the time had come to destroy the barbarians. The Qing Dynasty began to decline. Taking advantage of the Taiping uprising, the Russians captured the basins of the Amar and Ussur rivers. The French used the Second Opium War to separate Vietnam from China in 1885 entirely. The following year, Qing vassal Burma was captured by the British. In 1895, the Japanese conquered Korea, a longtime vassal of China, and annexed the island of Taiwan. But why do the Chinese, after the Xinghai revolutions, claim that Mongolia, Tibet, and the Uighurs were inherited from the Qing dynasty but did not claim that Vietnam, Burma, Korea, and Outer Manchuria were dependent on the Manchu Qing dynasty?

In 1907, Sun Yat-sen published his manifesto two years after creating a revolutionary organization called the Tongmenhui, or United Union. The Declaration was based on just three principles:

• Nationalism (overthrew the Qing Dynasty).
• People's government (establishment of the      republic).
• Improving people's lives (equal land rights).

Explaining the principle of nationalism, he said: “We do not hate the Manchus. Only the Chinese despise the Manchus, who enslave and insult us.", “Earlier, the Manchus were a harsh province that migrated to the northeast. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Manchus took advantage of the Chinese civil war and occupied Beijing. They killed millions of civilians and children against the resistance of the Chinese, who refused to be enslaved by foreigners. It was the puree after the murder. The Manchus imposed their customs on the Chinese."[6] 

The creation of a republic and land reform were secondary ideas, but the popular opinion that the Chinese state was for the Chinese attracted the masses more. Sun Yat-sen said, “Two hundred and sixty years have passed since the Manchus invaded China. Any Chinese, even a small child, will immediately recognize the Manchu. This is the essence of our nationalism. This is a big mistake. The main goal of our revolution is to prevent the Manchus from ruling us by destroying our traditional state. We must overthrow them and establish our nation-state."[7]

At that time, the loudest and most powerful slogans of the revolution that attracted the people's attention were "Let's leave the Manchus" and "Restore the Middle Dynasty." There was also a secret group called "Guanfuhui" under the leadership of Tongmenghui, which had even more ferocious slogans. The Xinhai Revolution was a unified purpose "to destroy[8] the dynasty Daiching gurun and restore the nation, and dynasty of the Han Zhongguo."

The Chinese did not want to inherit the Qing dynasty but wanted to end Manchu oppression, overthrow their government, expel them, and establish a true Han nation-state. As soon as the Manchu state was established, it was announced that it was the successor to the Yuan dynasty. The Chinese republics that emerged after the Xinghai Revolution proclaimed themselves the successors of the Ming Dynasty.

The main motive of the Xinghai Revolution was the fight against the Manchus. Discrimination against the Manchus after the revolution became so widespread throughout China that many Manchus began hiding their ethnicity, adopting Chinese names, cutting ties with other Manchus, and living a sheltered lifestyle. In particular, the Taiping Rebellion and the Boxer Rebellion were acts of violence directed directly against the Manchu people.

After the founding of the Republic of China, massacres in cities such as Canton, Xi'an, Nanjing, and Hangzhou claimed the lives of many Manchus, and because of this, the use of Chinese surnames by concealing their surnames increased.

After the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1934, Manchuria came under Japan's control and political support. However, the fourth attempt to revive the Jurchen nation (Bohai, Jin dynasty, Manchu Qing dynasty, and Manchukuo) failed when the Soviet army entered Manchuria in 1945. Until 1952, when the Chinese government officially declared the Manchus a national minority, the Manchus were discriminated against. At the same time, their numbers are said to have halved. In 1952, the Chinese Communist government began registering the Manchus, and in 1953 they numbered 2.5 million. The sharp increase in Manchus from 4,299,159 to 9,821,180 (from 4 to 10 million) between 1982 and 1990 appears to be due to the concealment of this departure and support for minorities.[9] Since the 1980s, the Chinese have become very interested in Manchu culture. There are 11 autonomous regions in the provinces of Hebei, Jilin, and Liaoning in northeast China.

No formula for the historical continuity of any country. But there are many historical examples. Ancient Rome is a prime example of this. Byzantium, the Franks of Charlemagne, the heirs of the Roman Empire. But the Germanic tribes, who at that time were the enemies of Rome, called themselves the Holy Roman Empire! Are the Turks who captured Constantinople also the heirs of Ancient Rome? The Russians who separated from Byzantium were also successors and called themselves the "Third Rome"! The Germans call their king Kaiser, and the Russians call their king Tsar - well, this is"translation" is the name of the Roman Caesar.

Any peoples that were conquered, vassals, or dependent on these "successors" at certain periods of history were divided by constant uprisings against the occupiers. Neither the occupiers nor the occupied parties, after their division, claimed inheritance or inheritance rights and did not complain that together they were "one family.”

However, since the Chinese became a republic, they have been in the same conditions as above, stating that "Mongolia, Tibet and East Turkestan formed an integral part of China, forming a single nation in the same family with the Han nationality people. But what are we supposed to think about today's independent countries that adopted the concept of the Middle Kingdom during the Qing Dynasty, used Chinese characters, used the same traditional system of government, paid attention to Confucianism? In the 19th century, the Vietnamese called themselves the Middle Country (Trung Quốc), and the surrounding backward people were barbarians. Even Japan once called itself an average country.[10]

The Chinese-centric ideology is far from Eurocentric, and they have instilled this ideology in their citizens as a more compelling belief. The nomadic Khitans and Jurchens conquered northern China (the Chinese gave them the names Liao, and Jin Dynasty?). Although the population indeed became a minority, the Chinese considered them to be their dynasties. Although the Mongols and Manchus occupied all of China and were a minority of the population, they were another successor and another dynasty of the Middle Kingdom, which is a strange expression of Sinocentrism. The nomadic dynasties that ruled China were very different from traditional Chinese civilizations such as the Tang, Song, and Ming and from the later Republic of China and today's communist China regarding organization, structure, composition, and social and cultural ideals. and national politics. It is not difficult to distinguish it. To think that “the Middle Empire is the main power in the world, and all the surrounding ones are its satellites” is the same as when the Germans, Turks, and Russians declared themselves the successors of the Roman Empire. It cannot become the essence of international law and, in particular, cannot be the basis of a legal act.[11]

[1] Perdu, Peter., China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005), p. 127.

[2] Elliott, Mark C. (2000). "The Limits of Tartary: Manchuria in Imperial and National Geographies"(PDF). Journal of Asian Studies. 59 (3): p. 102.

[3] Kuzmin S.L. Theocratic statehood and the Buddhist church in Mongolia at the beginning of the twentieth century, (Moscow; KMK Scientific Publishing Association, 2016). pp -23.

[4] Trifonov, Evgeny The Secret History of the Soviets and the Mongols ( Nepko Publishing House , 2020), p. 426.

[5] Trifonov, Evgeny The Secret History of the Soviets and the Mongols (Nepko Publishing House 2020) p-428

[6] Sidikhmenov, M.Ya.  Manchurian rulers of China China (Publishing house Nauka, M., 1985) pp-283-284 [Sidikhmenov. M.Ya. Manchu government in China ]

[7] Sun Yat Sen's Folk Principles - Sun Ming Chu Yi (Soul Care Publishing, 2011)

[8] Penzev, K. Land of Genghis Khan (Moscow. Algorithm of the 2007 edition) p-186 [Penzev K. Land of Genghis Khan (Moscow. Algorithm of the edition of 2007)] p-186.

[9] Rhoads, Edward J. M. (2000) Manchus and Han: Ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early Republican China, 1861-1928. The University of Washington Press.

[10] Dmitriev, S., Kuzmin, S. Yuan, Qing, and China become states without historical continuity (Studio Historica. Tomus XLIII-XLIV)

[11] Dmitriev, S., Kuzmin, S. Yuan, Qing and China become states without historical continuity (Studio Historica. Tomus XLIII-XLIV)