Was Imperial China doomed to defeat against the Western Powers in the 1800's?

[IrishBlood]

The title says it all. Did China ever have a chance of reforming its military in time to prevent the series of humiliating defeats they suffered against at the hands of the British, French, Russians, Japanese, etc?

This isn't an alternate history thread in the sense that, I am not asking 'what if they magically became as good as the western powers?', rather I would like to know if they had any chance of reforming in time in to compete with their rivals and retain their Asian super power status before Japan ruled the waves?

What could China have done? Would it have been possible to make alliances with minor European powers like the Netherlands and Denmark (as Siam did) to help them reform their military and bureaucracy along industrialized Western lines, as opposed to allying with a major power like France or the UK (which would have given them too much influence over China, as was the case with many other nations).

Did China have the educational and manufacturing capacity to modernize like Japan did?

Was China's internal political structure too divided and factionalized to ever be reorganized into an effective centralized state?

I think it's a question(s) that deserve a discussion, as the world could have developed radically differently if China managed to go the route of Japan and successfully industrialize before being taking advantage of. I dare say China would be a far more potent superpower today than they are already shaping up to be!

[Caligula's_Horse]

They certainly could have, if they were more inclined to accept foreign influence (especially the military and industrial aspects of it; the rest is overrated) and less so to walling themselves off from the world.
Its not even that much of a stretch, considering that even without reforming, they could take on invading European powers on land through sheer numbers and the enemy having a hard time reinforcing (defending the coast was another matter though; enemy can resupply a lot more easily and naval cannons are no joke). There's a reason China was only ever forced into trade concessions and giving up the odd port; a European power trying to push in-land would have been beaten back, and they knew it.

Come to think of it, most of what they were missing was in the naval sphere, which is harder and slower to reform (all the problems of re-training and re-organizing, including the inevitable conservative backlash, on top of setting up the infrastructure for modern cannons and shipyards). That having been said, they had a centralized state (unlike say India when the British got there), a ton of natural resources, and were fairly wealthy compared to smaller powers which did successfully westernize like Japan. A talented ruler or two whose position was secure enough he didn't have to spend all his time putting out fires, plus the decision to actually get it done on time could have probably shown real results after a few years.

Some shrewder geopolitical maneuvering could have probably also helped. Ally some of them (some trade deals ought to do it, under more favorable conditions than were eventually extorted from them at gunpoint) and playing them off against their rivals, as opposed to telling the lot of them to piss off.
Problem is, the Chinese didn't realize just how inferior their navy had gotten until it came time to learn the hard way, at which point the precedent for forcing concessions out of them as opposed to trying to work out something more mutually beneficial had already been established. A bit less hubris and a decent intelligence report finding its way to the right desk could have easily changed the course of history in that regard.

[Condottiere 40K]

Probably not, since they'd have to tap the nationalistic vein, so the Manchus would find themselves between the devil and the deep blue sea.

[O'Hea]

So, say we take the Opium War (1840) as a starting point. At this time, there were two major problems facing the Qing:
1) The banner armies had atrophied as an institution, and local officials depended on unreliable local militias.
2) At high levels, the Qing devoted no national resources to combating the British and left local officials to fend for themselves.

Firstly, the problems with the army. From the campaigns of Qianlong onwards (so, after the conquest of Xinjiang) the banner armies increasingly became neglected, underpaid, and poorly-managed. There was no technological gap in terms of artillery or small arms between the Qing and British troops, but the Qing were more likely to have old, poorly-maintained weapons because supplying them was such a low priority. They also had constant discipline problems so their overall fighting capability was poor. And since the banners had become mostly useless and just lingered in their garrison towns, provincial or local officials relied on militias to do most policing, defense and anti-piracy. These troops were not meant to be war fighters and it showed during the Opium War, when the militias often abandoned their positions with little or no fighting. And because of the divided command, the British never had to face a large force of troops from multiple nearby regions- the war was not so much "Britain versus China" as "Britain versus the municipality of Guangzhou, then Xiamen, then Zhenhai, etc." The British forces could pick their battles because the worst they ever had to face was the urban garrison of whatever town they intended to occupy.

Secondly, the leadership failure at the top. Basically, the Qing didn't take British threats seriously and did not predict a significant response. This was why they did not send any troops, supplies, or funds to the coast at the outbreak of hostilities. Officials in Guangzhou built coastal fortifications on their own initiative, and some officials elsewhere did while others did not. So even after occupying Guangzhou, the British were able to simply load back onto their ships, sail up the coast uncontested, and occupy forts and towns elsewhere with minimal resistance. Where Chinese troops were in place, they fought poorly and not for very long (the one exception seems to be in Taiwan, where Chinese naval forces beat the British repeatedly in small engagements). If Chinese forces had pooled together, they would have been able to crush the 2,000-man British force with sheer numbers, but they never even attempted it.

So the good news for Qing is that neither of these were tremendous socioeconomic problems, the kind that take generations to fix. They were all institutional problems that could hypothetically be fixed in short order. They didn't pay or arm their soldiers well, they didn't maintain oversight of their officers, they did not provide locals with sufficient garrisons and they did not insist on quality in the militias either. They seriously misread Britain's intentions and their response to invasion was a disastrous under-reaction. The core of the problem was that, after their final push into the Northwest, the Qing stopped looking at the army as a defense against other states and started seeing them as just a tool for squashing bandits and rebels. They had failed to imagine foreign armies landing in eastern China to occupy forts and cities and extract political concessions from the empire, and that's why they had no plan, no regional forces available for a quick response, no guidance for local officials on how to conduct defense and no channels for different localities to cooperate with each other. It's also why, even though they'd known their army had been deteriorating for decades, they did not make a priority of reforming it. These things are all hypothetically fixable, if there's a political will to get it done.

[Mangalore]

I have a bit bleaker judgement on how fixable institutional problems are. It did take China another century, several destructive wars to replace the system. To what extent then Mao's reforms were an ideological bloodbath or necessary to reform the system I'm not sure, it however had several disasters attached to it.

In theory however I don't think the Chinese really needed to copy anything, their problem really was that their imperial system had turned inward and was occupied with court politics and corruption and incapable to plan and enforce a coherent policy for anything. That's why they couldn't comprehend an outside threat as something imaginable, could not direct defense efforts and reform society. There probably were smart people abound but the system ensured it was in shambles.

[dogukan]

Since we are at it, what was the average size of the Chinese armies from 14th century civil wars to 19th century?

And how exactly were their militaries organized?
I am a little confused.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

In the 1800's? Certainly they could not compete for the majority of the 1800's.
The problem was not just military it was also institutional and bureaucratic. Though the organization of the Qing Dynasty was essentially an upgraded form of the Ming institutions and bureaucracy but giving more power to Manchurians, increasing the status of important Mongolian families and occupying far more autocratic control in the person of the Emperor. For example the Qing Emperor controlled certain revenues personally.

But the thing that we must realize is that by the time of the Qing Dynasty China was already in control of a massive empire which at times was colonial in nature. After the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (1735-1799) China had waged its final wars of conquest so called the Ten Great Campaigns as well as numerous other campaigns to suppress revolts of all kinds which ended up costing the state extremely high amounts of money which means that replacing that money in the future for the purpose of building a new army would be damn near impossible.

But the point is that these campaigns demonstrated Qing military dominance even if they had some setbacks in Burma and Vietnam. The Qing generals and bureaucrats would have been very confident in their ability to wage war. After all their entire military was built around the concept of waging war within the confines of the Himalayas mountains, the Pamir and Tienshan mountains, the mountains and jungles in the south and the steppe/taiga of the Transbaikal and Manchuria. So the arrival of the Europeans as an imminent threat was never thought of and a singular case of someone who could beat the Chinese on an even footing, scratch that the British in the Opium War were outnumbered but it would be to develop a new army to face one threat which was mostly unknown to the Chinese. Maybe the Qing should have seen it coming during the Napoleonic Wars when the British tried to blow up Nagasaki, or when the British tried to seize Macao or when the Russians raided Sakhalin and Hokkaido.
The Qianlong Emperor's grandson the Daoguang Emperor not only had to face revolts in the areas conquered by his grandfather but he also faced threats from the Sikhs and the British during the Opium War.

All of that said the Qing did indeed have a chance to modernize their armies but not during the era of flintlock muskets. The Chinese would not only have to mass produce the matchlock musket but would also have to drill their troops in their use which would have gone counter productive to their campaigns on the steppe where horse archery and swivel guns mounted on camels played the key role. According to primary sources the Qing were unimpressed with the matchlocks, in fact many other non-European states were as well for the reason that the flintlocks provided a comparatively low rate of fire and very poor accuracy than what they were used to and that was simply why a combination of matchlock muskets and archery were preferred. In fact it was claimed that the army of Zhao Hui (one of Qianlong's generals in Xinjiang) could loosen their arrows so quickly, accurately and at such impressive distances that emissaries from similar steppe states (in this case Kokand) were in shock.

Now during the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) the Chinese were willing to invest in modern European weaponry but the operation of which were completely at the mercy of the Europeans. The Chinese had to buy these weapons along with the ammunition and have foreign advisors teach them how to use it and drill the troops.
Though because of the high standing of the Qing Banner Armies and their Manchurian and Mongolian horse archers in particular many commanders and nobility resisted the idea of the superiority of modern weaponry, after all their methods served them well in the past. During the Second Opium War (1857-1860) the Emperor sent one of his favoured commanders/nobles Sengge Rinchen who fought the Taiping and tribal rebels in the north using traditional cavalry and light artillery tactics and was relatively successful. He also had some success at the start of the 2nd Opium War but ended up being defeated by the French and British mass fire as you would expect for cavalry to be against modern rifles.

Due to the failing bureaucracy and government acquiring money for industrialization projects and recruiting a new army was relatively difficult and costly. It wasn't really until the 1880's that the Qing actively tried to reform their military but by then the Qing Dynasty was really struggling. Governors and generals stealing funds and cutting corners also really hurt the creation of a modern Qing Army. Their naval project was really set back when the French defeated the Fujian Fleet in 1884/85. The Beiyang Army was really progress made after the setback with France but also suffered from painfully little amounts of industry, lack of railroads not owned by foreign powers, corruption on almost every administrative and military level, poor decision making on behalf of the government and relatively disloyal generals and soldiers. The Beiyang Army and Fleet were supposed to be these huge success stories but they failed to stop the Japanese in 1894/95, were more successful in stopping the Boxer rebels in 1900 and then ended up more or less overthrowing every government since the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and taking over China through Yuan Shikai's painfully short rule. So in short the Chinese modernized when they were able and probably could not have sooner but even their modern army was ultimately a failure.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

@ OP, I really don't have any faith in modern China as a superpower. Since it isn't really relevent to the thread I won't go into any more but if you want to know my thoughts I will post them here if you ask.

Since we are at it, what was the average size of the Chinese armies from 14th century civil wars to 19th century?

And how exactly were their militaries organized?
I am a little confused.

Allow me to quote myself:

As far as the Ming dynasty goes I could see the Chinese fielding an army of 200,000. For example during the invasion of Yuan held Yunnan province the Ming allegedly sent 300,000 troops. During the invasion of Manchuria the Ming reinforced their local garrisons by 50,000 men and deployed 150,000 troops for the invasion. In 1388 Lan Yu was sent to invade Mongolia and he brought 150,000 men. The same thing occurred during the civil war between the Yongle Emperor and his nephew the Jianwen Emperor where Yongle fielded over 130,000 troops and in 1400 the Jianwen loyalist general Li Jinglong apparently managed to mobilize 600,000. I tried to find how many troops Xu Da took with him into Mongolia in 1372 and I could only find one source saying 400,000 and another one saying "a quarter of a million", aside from that apparently Xu Da had a private army of "half a million" at the time of his death in 1385. At least this is according to Ming sources and I'm not sure these numbers add to fighting men, some of them could be camp workers for all I know.

Unfortunately when it comes to the Yuan and Ming dynasties I can't seem to find very many sources (in English at least). If I happen to find more than one chances are they are mostly the same. I suppose I could try to find some. I have yet to find any book that goes into the Red Turban Revolt with much detail. As far as battles are concerned the thing is that the revolts were so wide spread and had so many various groups and leaders that deconstructing what happened in each area would have be a challenge (basically there was not just one Red Turban group, it was on a regional basis so different leaders).
The leaders of the Red Turbans filled the power vacuum that the Mongols left behind along and south of the Yangtze and made their own warlord states and in many cases were killed and replaced by a subordinate. By about 1358 the Red Turbans were more or less gone and former Red Turbans like Chen Youliang established a state called Great Han in the west Yangtze centered around Jiangzhou, Zhu Yuanzhang also a Red Turban made a state called Wu in the centre around Nanjing and in the east Yangtze Zhang Shicheng made a state called Great Zhou around Suzhou.
Of course there were many other warlords below the Yangtze in various provinces and in areas like Tibet and Yunnan there were Mongol warlords which pledged allegiance to the Yuan dynasty (such as Bolud Temur).

So aside from these other minor warlords the main three along the Yangtze were just going back and forth in a sort of long attrition war from 1358 until 1363 (being along the Yangtze river fleets played a major role in all operations, even sieges). Chen Youliang was also extending his power into Sichuan and Shaanxi while he fought the Ming/Wu in the east, however in 1359 Chen Youliang killed his lord Xu Shouhui and overthrew the Tianmen state establishing the Great Han. Ming Yuzhen who led Xu Shouhui's forces in Shaanxi, Yunnan and Sichuan rebelled and declared his own state there called the Xia. Zhu Yuanzhang meanwhile was fighting the Ming/Wu both against Chen Youliang to his west and Zhang Shicheng to his east. The Yuan dynasty was also experiencing problems as certain Mongol generals had challenged the dynasty therefore the Yuan could not intervene in the south (such as Bolod in Shanxi). In 1360 Chen Youliang tried to invade Ming/Wu and was defeated at Lung-wan (Wade Giles Romanization) and retreated. The major battle occurred in 1363 when Chen Youliang returned and with his massive ships sailed into Lake Poyang and besieged Nanchang, the city held out and eventually the Ming/Wu defeated and killed Youliang in a counter attack.

From then on the Ming/Wu went on the offensive and defeated the Chen's Great Han state in 1365 then defeated Zhang Shicheng's Great Zhou by 1367, both campaigns involved long sieges, notably the siege of Suzhou which caused the collapse of the Great Zhou and the death of Zhang Shicheng. After securing the Yangtze Zhu Yuanzhang sent armies southwards and a massive army to conquer the Yuan capital Dadu (or Beiping as Zhu Yuanzhang named it) in 1368 thus starting the Ming Dynasty and becoming Emperor Hongwu. Immediately after that the Ming armies went west to conquer Shanxi, Shaanxi and Gansu while the armies in the south went on to pacify the provinces below the Yangtze and invade Sichuan and Yunnan. For instance the Ming invaded Sichuan and fought a battle at Ch'u-t'ang Gorge (Wade Giles again) in 1371 in which general Liao Yung Chung defeated a Shu defensive position in a combined land and naval operation.
Around the same time Xu Da was sent to invade Mongolia proper although Mongolia could not be garrisoned or annexed by the Ming. In the early 1380's Hongwu sent campaigns to conquer Yunnan and fight the pro-Yuan warlords led by Basalawarmi and to pacify the independent minded tribes in the area. Other than that Hongwu spent the rest of his reign until his death in 1398 trying to consolidate his rule over China and sending armies on counter insurgency campaigns against Mongol and Jurchen rebels and raiders along the northern frontiers and rebellious tribes along the south.

Shout out to O'Hea's post. I didn't read it before I posted here but now that I did I know that it is gold for this thread. I think it addresses all the questions.

[O'Hea]

I have a bit bleaker judgement on how fixable institutional problems are. It did take China another century, several destructive wars to replace the system. To what extent then Mao's reforms were an ideological bloodbath or necessary to reform the system I'm not sure, it however had several disasters attached to it.

In theory however I don't think the Chinese really needed to copy anything, their problem really was that their imperial system had turned inward and was occupied with court politics and corruption and incapable to plan and enforce a coherent policy for anything. That's why they couldn't comprehend an outside threat as something imaginable, could not direct defense efforts and reform society. There probably were smart people abound but the system ensured it was in shambles.

In the 1800's? Certainly they could not compete for the majority of the 1800's.
The problem was not just military it was also institutional and bureaucratic. Though the organization of the Qing Dynasty was essentially an upgraded form of the Ming institutions and bureaucracy but giving more power to Manchurians, increasing the status of important Mongolian families and occupying far more autocratic control in the person of the Emperor. For example the Qing Emperor controlled certain revenues personally.

But the thing that we must realize is that by the time of the Qing Dynasty China was already in control of a massive empire which at times was colonial in nature. After the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (1735-1799) China had waged its final wars of conquest so called the Ten Great Campaigns as well as numerous other campaigns to suppress revolts of all kinds which ended up costing the state extremely high amounts of money which means that replacing that money in the future for the purpose of building a new army would be damn near impossible.

I do agree that there were deep problems with the Qing that made effective reform much less likely, so I guess I should say that under some hypothetical other regime China could have performed much better in the 19th century. A large part of the military decline was the Manchu's steppe romanticism. They gutted the Ming military that, being focused on border defense, was built on infantry, artillery and the use of fortifications, in favor of a cavalry army that they could use to conquer other steppe peoples. After the Qing conquest, Chinese armies ceased to be any good at infantry action in order to become good cavalrymen, and after the final pacification of Xinjiang they became a garrison army and ceased to be much good at anything. The expense of their wars of expansion was also a major factor in their failure to support development afterwards. Under a Han regime, I don't think any of these events are likely- not the decline of the infantryman, not the crippling expense of expansion in the west and later rebellions there, and not the complacency from closing the last 'active' frontier.

In terms of military technology, modernizing up to 1800 standards would have been an easy process because there hadn't been any dramatic technological change since the flintlock, but progress after 1800 was rapid and the gap only got harder and harder to close. This is why it's such a problem that Qing didn't realize it was vulnerable until 1840, when the gap had already started expanding (first steamer ships, then rifled muskets, and finally bolt-action rifles and machine guns in the late century). Maybe if they had gotten their nose bloodied in the 1810's like the Japanese did, they would have had time to react before they found themselves in deepening crisis. And, like Nobunaga said, every time the Qing made some progress towards modernization those new troops or ships were quickly decimated by superior Western or Japanese forces, or worn down in the Taiping and Boxer rebellions (conflicts too large for the small number of modernized forces to play a decisive role in).

I think, at the most basic level, Qing's failure comes down to the intangibles, the basic failure of a state to use its resources well. At the highest levels, they could barely manage their budget and had no strategic vision. Their policy was entirely reactive, and always too little, too late. On the ground, it seems soldiers simply weren't willing to die for the Qing. Chinese troops would put up a stubborn defense against Japan in the 20th century but in the 19th they would let foreign armies stroll into their cities with almost no resistance. Rebels routinely proved to be more persistent and effective fighters than regime forces. These are all marks of a state with critically low legitimacy. Compare this to the Japanese case, where I think the Meiji Restoration and the unified, legitimate regime that came out of it were the key factor in Japan outperforming China. They were able to reform society much more deeply than the Qing in much less time with no political crises.

So, bringing this all back around, I don't think a Chinese dynastic state is inherently any less capable of modernization and reform than a Japanese dynastic state is, it was the particular strategic failures of the Qing and their lack of popular support that kept them from doing any better and ended in their collapse. So I do believe that a Han state (whether it was a restored Ming or some other indigenous regime) would have performed better on both counts. It still would have struggled because of corruption (a perennial problem for China) and its sheer size and decentralization, but they could have averted the long chain of crises that brought down the Qing.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I more or less agree that a native Han regime would have most likely upgraded to the use of the flintlock musket if they realized how to use it and how best to employ it as well as with certain methods of organization. If they could figure out a way to use the flintlock in order to maximize rate of fire and decimate undisciplined Mongol cavalry it could have caught on. But then the a Han regime would most likely not have secured Tibet, held onto Manchuria easily or conquered Xinjiang and Mongolia. Not only because of the inadequate methods of warfare for the terrain and distances involved but because of Han culture and society. The Manchurians were able to beat the Mongols at their own game, militarily I mean. The Qing Emperors were also willing to incorporate prominent Mongol families into their banner system and make allies with them which included marriage alliances. The important Mongol families and tribes were then more likely to accept their rule which is something that the Han Chinese struggled to achieve with the exception of Sinophile Mongolians who were happy to adopt a somewhat Chinese lifestyle. But the Ming Emperors and nobility were fairly closed off to the idea of marriage alliances with barbarians. These areas of Xinjiang and Mongolia, possibly Manchuria, would have likely ended up being overrun by Russia at some point in the late 1800's as we know that Russia pursued these interests until the abrupt defeat by the Japanese put an end to their empire in the Far East.

Yes I do agree that the Qing Dynasty had a very reactionary policy reforms, especially in the later part of their rule. Initially most of their policy was reactionary anyway but it sought to fix certain problems from the Ming and also policies to try and keep China firmly in their hands. But by the 19th century it was basically minor reforms from what was initially a massive proposal that everyone was against but were forced to accept and then half measures being taken so that even if it was a success it would yield minor results. A smaller Han regime that was much more homogeneous culturally might have had more success. But what the Qing had to contend with was a campaign on every extremity of their empire, constant revolts from ethnic Han Chinese, tribal minorities in the south, religious uprisings of almost every kind, huge amounts of ethnic tension between the majority and a minority or a minority against another minority. There was no Qing Emperor who did not face a revolt of some kind.
If I may be so vain so as to quote myself

I really wasn't kidding when I said that practically every Qing Emperor had to face a Han revolt (with the exceptions of Nurhaci and Hong Taiji who had extremely few Han subjects when compared to nomads).
Under Shunzi Emperor (and mostly his regent Dorgon) he faced revolts while in the process of conquering China. The Kangxi Emperor faced the Revolt of the Three Feudatories among other minor events.
Yongzheng you got me there, his 13 years as Emperor were really minor when it came to Han upheavel (guy was more busy with Mongols).

But let's look at Qianlong Emperor (reigned 1735-1799); of the many wars he fought most of them were actually trying to pacify rebellious subjects, a few were multiple revolts by the Han.

(numbered campaigns are the so called Ten Great campaigns)
Miao Rebellion 1735-1736 (ethnic tribal revolt)
1 First Jinchuan Campaign 1747-1749 (ethnic tribal revolt)
Lhasa revolt 1750
2 First Zungar campaign 1755
3 Second Zungar campaign 1757-1758
4 First East Turkestan Muslim revolt 1758-1759
5 invasion of Burma 1765-1769
6 Second Jinchuan campaign 1771-1776 (ethnic tribal revolt)
First Revolt of the Eight Trigrams 1774 (Han revolt)
Salar Muslim revolt 1781
Gansu Muslim revolt 1784
Second revolt of the Eight Trigrams 1786 (Han revolt)
7 Pacification of Taiwan 1786-1788 (Han revolt)
8 invasion of Vietnam 1788-1789
9 First Nepal campaign 1788-1791
10 Second Nepal campaign 1792-1793
White Lotus revolt 1794-1804 (Han revolt)
Miao rebellion of Hunan and Yunnan 1795-1806 (ethnic tribal revolt)

As you can see that was a wopping four revolts of the Han in one reign. Alongside ethnic tensions with the peoples of the south west and the Muslims in the north west. Many of these were for ethnic tensions with the exception of the Lhasa revolt in 1750, that may be seen as an anti-foreigner campaign but was more about tariffs and taxation.

There was also Qianlong's son Jiajing Emperor who had to clean up the mess there at the end. Daoguang Emperor faced many issues with the conquered territory in Xinjiang part of which included a proxy war then an invasion by the Khanate of Kokand.

I was hesitant to mention Japan but felt that a mention of Meiji era Japan was inevitable. Indeed the Japanese succeeded in almost every way when it came to modernization where the Chinese utterly failed. However the Japanese went all the way and didn't take too many half measures. As Japan was extremely culturally homogeneous they did not have to fear a Muslim revolt in some back water province or some angry Miao tribesmen or a disgruntled Manichean/Buddhist cult leader claiming to be the Messiah because there were no tiny minorities that could manifest their anger at the state in this way. Also since the Qing Dynasty in a lot of ways had the Manchurians trying to monopolize power they believed that they could not modernize all the way. That is to say they could not disturb society by modernizing the culture itself for fear of stirring more resentment or similar almost factional ethnic politics and rebellions. The major difference was that Japan modernized the administration almost entirely to the extent that it clearly surpassed Chinese administration. But to that end the Emperor of Japan was not really a dynastic monarch (arguably Japan had little to no actual dynastic politics in that way), he was the one and true ruler of the now emerging Japanese nation. However the Emperor of Japan was basically a tool of the state, almost a puppet of the administration and the bureaucracy, particularly military bureaucrats as time went on, one could say. This was a trend that happened simultaneously in Europe as well.

Unlike China which operated around a concept of cyclical dynasties where one family tried to rule as autocrats and more and more had to push against the tide in order to stay in power and have their absolute authority heeded by the state itself, by their military enforcers, by society even and also several ethnic groups of various religions and cultures. Acquiring taxation and willing soldiers for the modernization of an army requires that all of those other things are in line with the autocrat or administrative power.

[IrishBlood]

I am enjoying this, good input from everyone, REP FOR ALL!

By all means Oda, i'd be happy to hear your views on why China wouldn't have become a Superpower even if they had (how ever miraculously) modernized. I know perfectly well that China is not a superpower today and likely has far to many issues and limitations that will prevent them from ever being one any time soon, but I find it hard to believe that their already considerable might would not have been increased had China modernized earlier, resisted European exploitation and prevented Japan from ravaging half the country (that's a lot of what ifs I know)

Back onto the main topic of the thread, do you think a victory over the British in the first Opium wars would have even made a difference and to that end, was a victory even possible?
As O'Hea pointed out, despite the technological differences, the Chinese should have won if only through sheer numbers. Had the Emperor or his underlings been better organized then reinforcements could have poured into the region at a rate that 2000 British troops couldn't possibly have hoped to cope with.

But again, would a victory have made a long term difference? If the Chinese, already atrophied militarily by their arrogance and hubris, had won then surely that would have justified their rejection of western influence and tactics and thus give them even less incentive to change. I also doubt that the UK would allow such a defeat to go unpunished so a second Opium war would likely have been fought anyway if only to punish the Chinese for winning the first one. By that stage we are back to the same position again with the Chinese military failing to reform and then being crushed by modern artillery and disciplined infantry equipped with superior rifles.

[Roma_Victrix]

There are some fantastic posts in this thread.

I will mention one thing that hasn't been explicitly brought up yet, and that's the "high-level equilibrium trap" theory made by the historian Mark Elvin. He hypothesized that supply and demand, being so comfortably stable, and combined with labor being so cheap and inexhaustible meant that heavy investment of capital in new methods of production to enhance efficiency wouldn't have yielded a very profitable return. There was basically not much of an economic incentive for the Chinese to kickstart their own Industrial Revolution, despite being on a rather equal footing with Europe until at least the end of the 17th century in terms of innovation, technology, and economic development.

Although the Chinese were able to employ things like paddle-wheeled ships against the British during the First Opium War (which caught the British by surprise, since they didn't realize the Chinese possessed this type of nautical technology), that didn't do much to mitigate the fact that their gunpowder artillery was completely outclassed by British naval guns and field artillery. The logistical capabilities of the British navy also guaranteed that in the short term the Qing court wasn't going to be able to fight back very effectively, at least not until they made a temporary peace and focused on modernizing their forces on the European model of the time.

[O'Hea]

I'm a big believer in the High-Level Equilibrium Trap myself. Labor was so cheap in the productive parts of China that it made no economic sense to drill coal in Shanxi and cart it 1000km to the workshops in Jiangnan when you could just add more manpower (the same general rule held in Japan, India, etc). Europe had an incentive to develop and implement capital-intensive ways of manufacturing things because they just could not compete on labor.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

No opinion on that High-Level Equilibrium Trap, other than if it works there is no need to change the system. Overhauls carried out by the administration would have been costly.

The paddle ships were impressive but I think they would have been entirely better in a riverine fleet as they were in previous centuries... actually were they used as a coastal ship in this war?
But the British sent a super weapon of their own which was the steam ship Nemesis. A weapon so secret that according to the Royal Navy it didn't exist, the stuff in the Opium War was only a test run.

As for Chinese numerical superiority the Chinese caved only after losing Guangdong and Shanghai. They could have kept fighting forever realistically since that was hardly a lot of territory. But when armies are being torn apart, fleets destroyed like nothing and there being no real solution at the time you might as well make a peace agreement. Really it was just costly to keep fighting and more costly to mobilize all of your provincial troops and provide logistics for all of them. Also the Sikhs took the opportunity to invade China in the west at this time, possibly goaded on by the British.

[Roma_Victrix]

No opinion on that trap but the British sent a super weapon of their own which the steam ship Nemesis. A weapon so secret that according to the Royal Navy it didn't exist, the stuff in the Opium War was only a test run.

Ah yes, the "devil ship" of Admiral Sir William Hutcheon Hall...you almost make it sound like some sort of comic book villain thing here. She was an iron warship of the paddle frigate class, with a 120-horsepower steam engine propelling her, and protected with watertight bulkheads.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bremer

I mean Rear Admiral James Bremer pretty much destroyed the Qing fleet in the south there. The Nemesis was no doubt an interesting and useful addition to his fleet. In hindsight seeing as everyone started building ironclads and steamships or were already in the process of doing so in this time I will say that it was extremely useful even if just a prototype of sorts.
"Devil Ship" indeed, to the Chinese this might as well have been Galactus Destroyer of Worlds.

[Condottiere 40K]

Outside of industrialization and mass production, though inherently linked to it, the Chinese would have to exploit their transport networks in order to bring significant force and the logistics to supply them, to bear.

Especially their railroads.

[AnArmyofAnts]

I can go on a little about the time.

In 1860 China was ntohing like it used to be. It was twisting in pain. Tax income that was taken for granted was set aside, and the emperors coffin was almost empty. For centuries the Empire wallowed in confidence, but at around this point in history the rulers were looking for advice, in a desperate bid they hired Robert Hart, who was a 28 year old Brit to organize a customs system. After all if it could become efective enough it would give the state large sums. While mapping and planning lighthouses along the coast he was given a mission to establish a postal system, before the turn of the century there were thousands of post offices all over place. Sadly, a wide variety of dangerous ideas spread like wild fire among the population. When the first railroads and telephones were installed the emperor's palace reacted in unrest, prince, Gong admittedly said the old times were over. At the same time he had difficulties in trying to understand that China needed railroads at all. A good reason for that was that the raildroads would have to be build over millions of graves. Worst case scenario the trains would disrupt their forefathers spirits. In process of industrialization a new dynamic appeared. China gradually began to get two new classes, a modern citizenry and a industrial proletariat. The new citizenry were eager to learn from other countries. They saw how Britain and France could do whatever they wanted to Japan (a nation they called 'a tribe of dwarf like pirates'), until the Japanese sent their young to study at their lands and that they now steamboats and cannons of their own. China saw this and thought it was the right thing to do. And it proved to be because soon after they Japanese invaded Korea which was a Chinese vassal, China drafted a fleet double the size of the Japanese fleet. The battle at the Yalu river ended in a humiliatin defeat, Robert Hart denoted it as tragicomic. That China had suffered blows from Britain and other westerners was a case of it's own. But the Japanese were at the time Asians from some blown away islands far off at sea.

The Chinese constant defeats were accelerated by the increasing corruption. Officers and soldier were hardly paid, and greedy generals made habit out of putting large sums into their pockets. Personal gain became more important than the defence of the nation. It was a pattern that happened repeatedly through the next ten or so years. For so long the Chinese thought the emperor to be undefeatable. But after that point in time they percieved the end of the Qing dynasty. Intellectuals began to look after new political ideas.

[Abdülmecid I]

They certainly could have, if they were more inclined to accept foreign influence (especially the military and industrial aspects of it; the rest is overrated) and less so to walling themselves off from the world.

Oh, they were willing to reform, especially after their humiliating military defeats inflicted upon them by the Europeans and the Japanese, but the problem is that radical structural reforming is not dependent on the willingness of the political leadership, even if that is an absolute monarchy. On the contrary, despite the political leaders being historically the most passionate advocates of modernization, since they were in the best position to estimate and appreciate its benefits (e.g. increase of foreign influence and short-term, although they always hoped for long-term, internal stability), they are still incapable of achieving anything, if the society is not ready for it. Many prematurely enthusiastic about Europe's advancement Ottoman sultans lost their head, due to their eagerness to reform their state. Reforming is impossible, if that is not in accordance with the interests of the economic, bureaucratic, religious and military elite, from the Sheikhs ul-Islam and the Janissaries to the Japanese Samurais and the Chinese Mandarins. China simply lacked both a strong merchant upper class and more importantly, in contrast to Japan, the means to create it as fast as possible, because of the reasons already mentioned, such as the vast size of the empire compared to its wealth, the lack of homogeneity, the backwardness of several of its provinces and that:

I will mention one thing that hasn't been explicitly brought up yet, and that's the "high-level equilibrium trap" theory made by the historian Mark Elvin. He hypothesized that supply and demand, being so comfortably stable, and combined with labor being so cheap and inexhaustible meant that heavy investment of capital in new methods of production to enhance efficiency wouldn't have yielded a very profitable return. There was basically not much of an economic incentive for the Chinese to kickstart their own Industrial Revolution, despite being on a rather equal footing with Europe until at least the end of the 17th century in terms of innovation, technology, and economic development.

Excellent point, that is one of the most important factors that doomed the ancient empires, whose economy was based on slavery, to stagnation and eventual collapse. Additionally, as it has been said, China lacked a large amount of wealth, respective to her huge size of territory and population. The discovery, looting and long-term exploitation of the Americas led to an unprecedented concentration of capital, which greatly facilitated the improvement of infrastructure, multiplied the demand of goods and was finally reinvested. Of course, that also caused inflation, but that phenomenon had a global effect, further reducing, for instance, the financial power of the Ottoman Empire and creating the first signs of widespread corruption, as a result of wages not matching with actual prices. By the way, although China was more isolated than the Ottomans from Europe, so she was definitely influenced less than them by the negative consequences of inflation, I wouldn't be surprised if that also didn't play an important role in diminishing her wealth, further undermining her chances to effectively modernize, military, socially and financially.

[Roma_Victrix]

Excellent point, that is one of the most important factors that doomed the ancient empires, whose economy was based on slavery, to stagnation and eventual collapse. Additionally, as it has been said, China lacked a large amount of wealth, respective to her huge size of territory and population. The discovery, looting and long-term exploitation of the Americas led to an unprecedented concentration of capital, which greatly facilitated the improvement of infrastructure, multiplied the demand of goods and was finally reinvested. Of course, that also caused inflation, but that phenomenon had a global effect, further reducing, for instance, the financial power of the Ottoman Empire and creating the first signs of widespread corruption, as a result of wages not matching with actual prices. By the way, although China was more isolated than the Ottomans from Europe, so she was definitely influenced less than them by the negative consequences of inflation, I wouldn't be surprised if that also didn't play an important role in diminishing her wealth, further undermining her chances to effectively modernize, military, socially and financially.

Funny that you mention it, but the Spanish Empire was a large yet nearly unnoticed (if not unintentioned) player in the downfall of China's Ming Dynasty in 1644. The Ottoman Empire declined over a very long period of time, but they didn't experience a dramatic collapse like the Ming Empire in the mid 17th century. The last Ming emperor hung himself well before the Manchu invaders made it to Beijing and established the Qing Dynasty, seeing how native Han Chinese rebels had already taken the capital and stormed much of the countryside. Their discontent was fueled by the outrageous demands of taxation, falling prices of foodstuffs they could sell at market, and hyperinflation of the major forms of currency brought about by the sudden witholding of silver by the Spanish Crown. The Chinese had moved largely from a paper banknote currency to one based on silver, thanks to the flood of imported silver mined from the Spanish American colonies at the end of the 16th century and early 17th century.

I actually made a thread about this topic here in the VV forum not long ago: Did Philip IV of Spain cause the downfall of the Ming Dynasty of China?