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| b. Other Emerging States |
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| In addition to the great empires that were based on centralized administration and gunpowder weaponry, other types of states developed. These ranged from empires that continued more traditional approaches of ruling to new centralized national monarchies with potential for significant expansive power. All were departures from the standard postclassical systems. | 1 |
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| 1644–1722 |
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| QING DYNASTY IN CHINA. Manchus in areas northeast of China established an effective state, in the later years of the Ming dynasty, which combined nomadic war skills with Chinese administrative ideas. In 1644, the Manchus took control of Beijing and established the Qing dynasty, which ruled China until 1911. During the first century of Qing rule, when it gained control of Tibet, Xinjiang, and Outer Mongolia, the Chinese Empire became larger than it had ever been except in the greatest days of the T'ang dynasty. The Qing maintained the examination system and the structure of the scholar-gentry bureaucracy. The Manchu military was well organized but was not primarily a gunpowder-based force. However, the Qing use of artillery in crushing a major Mongol force led by Galdan in 1696 marked the end of serious nomadic military threats on the inner Asian frontiers. Similarly, the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) (See 1689) between Russia and China essentially divided central Asia, reflecting the end of independent nomad power as a force in world history. The reign of KANGXI (1661–1722) (See 1661–1722) marked the high point of Qing power. | 2 |
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| 1543–1853 |
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| JAPANESE CENTRALIZED STATE. Japan emerged from an era of political turmoil with the careers of three prominent military leaders who defeated local military nobles and reestablished strong central control. Firearms, introduced into Japan in 1542 or 1543, played an important role in the unification process through the power that they gave to these three commanders. Nobunaga (1534–82), the first, gained control of central Honshu Island, and his successor, TOYOTOMI HIDEYOSHI (1537–98), destroyed the power of the last resisting local lords and tried to establish a mainland empire by invading Korea in 1592 and 1597. Although these efforts failed, Japanese unification was continued following Hideyoshi's death when a former vassal, TOKUGAWA IEYASU (1542–1616), defeated rival commanders in 1600. He established the TOKUGAWA SHOGUNATE (See 1600–1867), which initiated a period of almost two and a half centuries of internal stability. Important keys to this era of peace were a policy of relatively rigid isolation (enforceable because of Japan's island location, strict limitations on foreign religions, and the maintenance of the old Samurai warrior-gentleman domination, which involved the imposition of strict controls on guns and a return to more traditional weaponry. The coming of the American ships commanded by Matthew Perry in 1853 brought a formal end to this long era. | 3 |
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