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:  (Chart) POPULATION GROWTH OF CHINA]

[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.  ID 8756, 68.]

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

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 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 families   100,000,000 individuals *
1710           23,311,236 families   116,000,000 individuals *
1729           25,480,498 families   127,000,000 individuals *
1741                                 143,411,559 individuals
1754                                 184,504,493 individuals
1778                                 242,965,618 individuals
1796                                 275,662,414 individuals
1814                                 374,601,132 individuals
1850                                 414,493,899 individuals
(1953)                               (601,938,035 individuals)