Word: manchus
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Most of the converts were Hakkas, members of an outsider ethnic group to which Hung himself belonged. Social scientists might call them havenots; Toynbee would call them an internal proletariat. What with famine poverty, and the corruption of the Manchus, the Hakkas were ripe for revolt...
Buffer State. Over the centuries, the mountain-locked nation of Tibet has often been overrun by invaders-Mongols, Manchus and Gurkhas, but most often Chinese. Whenever China was strong, it would send a garrison to occupy Lhasa. Whenever China was weak Tibetans would drive the garrison out. In 1904, uneasy about Russian encroachments in central Asia, the British launched an expedition from India and captured Lhasa with little difficulty. To keep each other at arm's length, Britain and Czarist Russia agreed to make a buffer state of Tibet and signed the Convention of 1907 recognizing China...
...Emperor Hsuan-te's Dragon Soup Bowl, craftsmen ground rubies to powder to achieve richness of color; court ladies dipped their fingers into exquisite candy dishes for the cardamoms and nutmegs that served as breath sweeteners. Jade was in such demand that by the time of the Manchus there were thousands of workmen carving and polishing objects, many so precious that they were used only for display...
...when China was still the great country of the open door, Leighton Stuart had long personified the U.S. tradition of humanitarian service in China. From boyhood as a missionary's son under the Manchus down to wartime imprisonment by the Japanese, he had shared the tumultuous experiences of the nation's modern awakening. As founder and president of Peking's Yenching University, the greatest of China's Christian colleges, he had won the affection and trust of a generation of rising Chinese leaders...
Getting In. China's Manchu dynasty began to fear the influence of the foreigners on the shaky empire. Citing the importation of opium as their reason, the Manchus began obstructing trade. Tough Merchant Jardine persuaded Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston to send in the British navy. The Manchus fought back, and the result was the 1839 Opium War, which the British won. They made a treaty by which five Chinese ports (Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai) were thrown open to world trade...