page_title: History of Beijing
section_title: Qing dynasty
hierarchical_section_title: History of Beijing / Qing dynasty
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Beijing in Ming and Qing Dynasties
context_page_description: The city of Beijing has a long and rich history that dates back over 3,000 years. Prior to the unification of China by the First Emperor in 221 BC, Beijing had been for centuries the capital of the ancient states of Ji and Yan. During the first millennia of imperial rule, Beijing was a provincial city in northern China. Its stature grew in the 10th to the 13th centuries when the nomadic Khitan and forest-dwelling Jurchen peoples from beyond the Great Wall expanded southward and made the city a capital of their dynasties, the Liao and Jin. When Kublai Khan made Dadu the capital of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, all of China was ruled from Beijing for the first time. From 1279 onward, with the exception of two interludes from 1368 to 1420 and 1928 to 1949, Beijing would remain as China's capital, serving as the seat of power for the Ming dynasty, the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, the early Republic of China and now the People's Republic of China.
context_section_description: On May 3, 1644, the Manchus seized Beijing in the name of freeing the city from the rebel forces of Li Zicheng. Dorgon held a state funeral for the Chongzhen Emperor of the Ming dynasty and reappointed many Ming officials. In October, he moved the child Shunzhi Emperor from the old capital Shenyang into the Forbidden City and made Beijing the new seat of the Qing dynasty. In the following decades, the Manchus would conquer the rest of the country and ruled China for nearly three centuries from the city. During this era, Beijing was also known as Jingshi which corresponds with the Manchu name Gemun Hecen. The city's population, which had fallen to 144,000 in 1644, rebounded to 539,000 in 1647 (the population of the surrounding area rose from 554,000 to 1.3 million).
  The Qing largely retained the physical configuration of Beijing inside the city walls. Each of the Eight Banners, including the Manchu, Mongol, and Han Banners were assigned to guard and live near the eight gates of the Inner City. Outside the city, the Qing court seized large tracts of land for Manchu noble estates. Northwest of the city, Qing emperors built several large palatial gardens. In 1684, the Kangxi Emperor built the Changchun Garden on the site of the Ming dynasty's Qinghua (or Tsinghua) Garden (outside today's west gate of Peking University). In the early 18th century, he began building the Yuanmingyuan, also known as the "Old Summer Palace", which the Qianlong Emperor expanded with European Baroque-style garden pavilions. In 1750, the Qianlong Emperor built the Yiheyuan, commonly referred to as the "Summer Palace". The two summer palaces represent both the culmination of Qing imperial splendor and its decline. Both were ransacked and razed by invading Western powers in the late Qing dynasty.
  The Beijing dialect eventually became the official national language for the country. In the early Qing dynasty, Han officials serving in the imperial court were required to learn the Manchu language, but most Manchus eventually learned to speak Chinese. The Manchus adopted Beijing Mandarin as their spoken language and this was a feature of Manchu Banner garrisons in areas of southern China. In 1728, the Yongzheng Emperor, who could not understand officials from southern China, decreed that all takers of the civil service examination must be able to speak Beijing Mandarin. Though the decree was eventually lifted under the Jiaqing Emperor, the Beijing dialect spread first among officials and then among commoners under subsequent regimes. Shortly after the founding of the Republic of China, the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation made the Beijing dialect the national standard for spoken Chinese in 1913. After the capital was moved to Nanjing, National Languages Committee reaffirmed the Beijing dialect as the standard in 1932. The People's Republic of China followed suit in 1955.
  The Qing dynasty maintained a relatively stable supply of food for the population of the capital during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The government's grain tribute system brought food from the provinces and kept grain prices stable. Soup kitchens provided relief to the needy. The secure food supply helped the Qing court maintain a degree of political stability. Temple fairs such as the Huguo Fair, which are like monthly bazaars held around temples, added to the commercial vibrance of the city. At the height of the Qianlong Emperor's reign in 1781, the city had a population of 776,242 (and another 2.18 million in the surrounding region). Thereafter, Qing authorities began to restrict inward migration to the city. A century later, the census of 1881–82 showed similar figures of 776,111 and 2.45 million.
  In 1790, the Qing court's Nanfu office, which was in charge of organizing entertainment for the emperor, invited the dramatic opera troupes from Anhui to perform for the Qianlong Emperor. Under the Qianlong Emperor, the Nanfu had up to a thousand employees, including actors, musicians, and court eunuchs. In 1827, the Daoguang Emperor, the Qianlong Emperor's grandson, 
caption: Map of Beijing in Qing Dynasty
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