CGS SS 201 Study Guide - Final Guide: Traditional Chinese Characters, Industrial Revolution, Volt-Ampere
27 Feb 2020
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Document Summary
China had stood as a preeminent and prosperous nation for several centuries, but with the coming of the 19th century it experienced a sharp decline in overall wealth, power and prestige. Dynasty"s are usually brought about by force, and to have a viable dynasty, you need a strong bureaucracy, with fairly educated bunch in charge, and a strong military froce. And if this works well, you maintain strong, good public order. But most importantly, you need a contented peasantry to survive as a dynasty because the peasants were the largest group to keep them happy. For a dynasty to fall: gov"t ineptitude/incompetence, wide scale corruption, and also unhappy peasants- what happened was that they would try to expand too much, via taxing the peasants. And this would make them angry to the point where they would rebel, and finally, natural disasters. For the qing, demographics, were the major cause for their decline.
