--- title: China: the Qing and the Opium Wars — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «China: the Qing and the Opium Wars», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: The last imperial dynasty, the Qing, ruled from 1644 to 1912. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / China: the Qing and the Opium Wars # China: the Qing and the Opium Wars Lesson 57 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 22 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/0/) — The last imperial dynasty, the Qing, ruled from 1644 to 1912. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/1/) — Mei says the Qing were Chinese like all the others; the teacher says «foreign rulers». - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/2/) — The wise answer: the Manchus from the northeast founded it and kept their own customs, but they ruled through Chinese institutions and the empire became one of China's greatest. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/3/) — Its emperors Kangxi and Qianlong ruled about sixty years each, and in 1793 Qianlong told a British envoy that China already had «all things». - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/4/) — Then Britain kept selling opium, a harmful drug, into China; when China destroyed the opium in 1839, Britain went to war, won and took Hong Kong. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/5/) — Imagine a shop that sells something harmful, and when the town throws it away, the shop's friends arrive with cannons and make the town pay. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/7/) — Even in Britain at the time, many people, like the young William Gladstone, called the war shameful. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/8/) — The century was also full of change: a huge civil war, a powerful empress dowager, a lost war with Japan, the Boxer uprising, and finally a two-year-old boy, Puyi, who became the last emperor and ended his life working in a botanical garden. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/9/) — The Qing dynasty, 1644–1912, was founded by the Manchus from the northeast; it ruled through Chinese institutions, kept Manchu customs and made men wear the queue, a shaved forehead with a long braid. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/10/) — The Kangxi Emperor ruled 61 years, 1661–1722, the longest reign in Chinese history; his grandson Qianlong ruled about 60 years, 1735–1796. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/11/) — Louis XIV of France ruled even longer, 72 years. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/12/) — In 1793 Lord Macartney came from Britain asking for more trade and an embassy in Beijing; the Qianlong Emperor answered that China possessed «all things» and had no need of British goods. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/13/) — Historians add that the Qing court was in fact curious about Western things but refused Britain's terms. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/14/) — In 1839 Commissioner Lin Zexu had more than a thousand tonnes of British opium destroyed; Britain went to war, the First Opium War of 1839–1842, and won. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/15/) — The Treaty of Nanjing of 1842 forced China to open five ports to foreign trade and to give Hong Kong Island to Britain; many British people at the time opposed the war. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/17/) — The Taiping Rebellion, 1850–1864, was led by Hong Xiuquan, who believed he was the younger brother of Jesus; it was one of the deadliest wars in history, and tens of millions died, mostly from famine and disease. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/18/) — Britain took Hong Kong Island in 1842 and Kowloon in 1860 and rented the New Territories in 1898 for 99 years; Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 under «one country, two systems», which promised it its own laws and way of life. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/19/) — Empress Dowager Cixi was the most powerful person at the Qing court from 1861 to 1908; navy money was used to rebuild the Summer Palace, where a stone «marble boat» pavilion stands, but how much this weakened the navy is debated. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/20/) — In the war of 1894–1895 Japan, which had modernised fast, defeated Qing China and took Taiwan. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/21/) — The Boxers, named after the martial arts they practised, attacked foreigners and Chinese Christians in 1899–1901; some believed their rituals made them bulletproof, and in 1900 the armies of eight foreign countries took Beijing. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/22/) — Puyi became emperor in 1908 aged two and gave up the throne in 1912; later Japan made him ruler of Manchukuo, a state in the northeast that Japan really controlled, and after prison he worked at Beijing's botanical garden. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/23/) — The 1987 film The Last Emperor tells his life. - ← previous: [China: the Ming and Zheng He's voyages](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/) - next →: [China: 1911, 1949 and Mao](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)