certainly not inexpensive, as they took place along the Russian frontier and entailed expenditure on the transport of reinforcements and supplies; the wars against Turkestan and Tibet were carried on with relatively small forces.  This expenditure should not have been beyond the resources of an ordered budget.  Interestingly enough, the period between 1640 and 1840 belongs to those periods for which almost no significant work in the field of internal social and economic developments has been made; Western scholars have been too much interested in the impact of Western economy and culture or in the military events.  Chinese scholars thus far have shown a prejudice against the Manchu dynasty and were mainly interested in the study of anti-Manchu movements and the downfall of the dynasty.  On the other hand, the documentary material for this period is extremely extensive, and many years of work are necessary to reach any general conclusions even in one single field.  The following remarks should, therefore, be taken as very tentative and preliminary, and they are, naturally, fragmentary.

[Illustration:  14 Aborigines of South China, of the ‘Black Miao’ tribe, at a festival.  China-ink drawing of the eighteenth century. Collection of the Museum fuer Voelkerkunde, Berlin.  No. 1D 8756, 68.]

[Illustration:  15 Pavilion on the ‘Coal Hill’ at Peking, in which the last Ming emperor committed suicide. Photo Eberhard.]

[Illustration:  Chart POPULATION GROWTH OF CHINA]

The decline of the Manchu dynasty began at a time when the European trade was still insignificant, and not as late as after 1842, when China had to submit to the foreign Capitulations.  These cannot have been the true cause of the decline.  Above all, the decline was not so noticeable in the state of the Exchequer as in a general impoverishment of China.  The number of really wealthy persons among the gentry diminished, but the middle class, that is to say the people who had education but little or no money and property, grew steadily in number.

One of the deeper reasons for the decline of the Manchu dynasty seems to lie in the enormous increase in the population.  Here are a few Chinese statistics: 

Year Population

1578(before the Manchus) 10,621,463 families or 60,692,856 individuals
1662         19,203,233     "      100,000,000     "  [*]
1710         23,311,236     "      116,000,000     "  [*]
1729         25,480,498     "      127,000,000     "  [*]
1741                        "      143,411,559     "
1754                               184,504,493     "
1778                               242,965,618     "
1796                               275,662,414     "
1814                               374,601,132     "
1850                               414,493,899     "
(1953)                             (601,938,035     “)

[*] Approximately