The 1911 Chinese Revolution Essay Research Paper — страница 2

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decade of the nineteenth centenary. The Boxers were furthermore against the Empress, believing that the Qing had lost the mandate of heaven. Famine struck, droughts prevented the planting of crops, and to top it all, the yellow river flooded, causing the destruction of 1, 500 villages and 2, 500 square miles of countryside. These disasters lead to unhappiness of the people. In order to keep them from turning on the government, the Empress Dowager Cixi, encouraged the peasants to rebel against the foreigners. Some of these angry people joined the Boxers, and others rebelled alone, but they had the Empress behind them, giving them encouragement, and making them feel ready to take on the demons from the West. The Chinese 1911 revolution certainly did not just happen over night, many

dynamic reasons contributed towards the transformation of China s empire. The whole Chinese system was based on virtue, obedience and respect for others. The goal was harmony, however, this was certainly not the case in the years leading up to the 1911 revolution. The monarchs of China were weak, the bureaucracy was fraudulent and foreign powers began to demand that China was opened up to trade. The British wanted to sell Opium to the Chinese in return for trade goods, this led to the Opium wars, one in 1840 and on in 1856. China lost both wars. This shortly led to chaos in China, leading to the Daibing rebellion against the Emperor and to the self-strengthening movement. The reform was the last attempt to deal with China s weakness. It aimed to modernise China, in order to help

her resist foreign invasion. Despite these reforms, many people believed they were only window dressing not really bringing enough change, and thought that the only way to reform China was through a revolution.