A MAJOR POLITICAL CATACLYSM Split the 250-year
period comprising the late Ming and the early
to middle Qing dynasties, from about 1550 to
1800. In 1644 the Ming regime in Beijing, long
in a decline marked by inattentive emperors,
powerful eunuchs, and vicious factional struggles
among bureaucrats, fell first to forces led by a rebel
Ming general and soon after to the ethnically dis-
tinct regime of the Manchus. The Manchus
(descendants of the Jurchen rulers of the North
Chinese Jin dynasty of the Song era) consolidated
their rule in the face of a refugee Southern Ming
regime and substantial continuing resistance and
rebellions based in southern China that lasted
in various forms until 1681. Some of that con-
solidation took the form of bloody campaigns
against Ming loyalist cities such as Nanjing and
nearby Yangzhou, in which tens of thousands
of soldiers and civilians were slaughtered, cul-
minating in the death of the last Ming pretender
to the throne in Yunnan, in the far-off south-
west, in 1662.

This dramatic era of resistance, suppres-
sion, and continued resentment against the Manchus
by their Chinese subjects has colored our under-
standing of the mid-seventeenth-century Ming/Qing
transition as an epochal moment of rupture. In
addition, the style of Qing culture, with its empha-
sis on central control, orthodoxy, and system in
both the political and the artistic arenas, was notably
different from the fragmentation, individual-
ism, and experimental flavor of the late Ming. If
we take long-term economic and social trends
as our primary basis for organization, however,
there were important linkages across this era. It
was, first and foremost, a period of great prosperity
and population growth, during which China again
became a major world economic and political
power. Even with the interruptions caused by
increased death rates during the decades of the
Manchu conquest, China experienced a steady
population growth to around 300 million by
the late eighteenth century Trade and commerce
flourished, with the emergence of interregional
market centers and new urban and regional cen-
ters of prosperity Southern Anhui Province and
the city of Yangzhou, both in southeastern China,
are notable examples where important activity
in illustrated book publishing, painting, calli-
graphy, domestic architecture, and garden
construction accompanied local concentrations
of wealth.

Growth of a Prosperous Age ( FIG. 9-2 ), an
overview of Suzhou painted by the Qing court
artist Xu Yang in 1759, incorporates many promi-
nent features of late Ming and early Qing art. The
bird's-eye viewpoint and panoramic sweep of the
handscroll more than forty feet long are remi-
niscent of the Spring Festival on the River scroll
from the Song era (see FIG. 7-3 above), which itself
was copied with updated architectural details
several times during the Qing. Both works empha-
size busy urban prosperity, with views of streets,
shops, boat traffic, and the local populace. Such

-317-