romikgosai/squad_modified huggingface dataset:
He moved rapidly. First, he promoted Confucian orthodoxy and reversed what he saw as his father's laxness by cracking down on unorthodox sects and by decapitating an anti-Manchu writer his father had pardoned. In 1723 he outlawed Christianity and expelled Christian missionaries, though some were allowed to remain in the capital. Next, he moved to control the government. He expanded his father's system of Palace Memorials which brought frank and detailed reports on local conditions directly to the throne without being intercepted by the bureaucracy, and created a small Grand Council of personal advisors which eventually grew into the emperor's de facto cabinet for the rest of the dynasty. He shrewdly filled key positions with Manchu and Han Chinese officials who depended on his patronage. When he began to realize that the financial crisis was even greater than he had thought, Yongzheng rejected his father's lenient approach to local landowning elites and mounted a campaign to enforce collection of the land tax. The increased revenues were to be used for "money to nourish honesty" among local officials and for local irrigation, schools, roads, and charity. Although these reforms were effective in the north, in the south and lower Yangzi valley, where Kangxi had wooed the elites, there were long established networks of officials and landowners. Yongzheng dispatched experienced Manchu commissioners to penetrate the thickets of falsified land registers and coded account books, but they were met with tricks, passivity, and even violence. The fiscal crisis persisted.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: Who did Yongzheng behead?
A: anti-Manchu writer', '
Q: What religion did Yongzheng ban?
A: Christianity', '
Q: What did Yongzheng crack down on?
A: collection of the land tax', '
Q: When did Yongzheng ban christianity?
A: 1723']
In 1725 Yongzheng bestowed the hereditary title of Marquis on a descendant of the Ming dynasty Imperial family, Zhu Zhiliang, who received a salary from the Qing government and whose duty was to perform rituals at the Ming tombs, and was also inducted the Chinese Plain White Banner in the Eight Banners. Later the Qianlong Emperor bestowed the title Marquis of Extended Grace posthumously on Zhu Zhuliang in 1750, and the title passed on through twelve generations of Ming descendants until the end of the Qing dynasty.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: Who did Yongzheng call Marquis?
A: Zhu Zhiliang', '
Q: When did Yongzheng give this title?
A: 1725', "
Q: What was Zhu's job?
A: perform rituals"]
Yongzheng also inherited diplomatic and strategic problems. A team made up entirely of Manchus drew up the Treaty of Kyakhta (1727) to solidify the diplomatic understanding with Russia. In exchange for territory and trading rights, the Qing would have a free hand dealing with the situation in Mongolia. Yongzheng then turned to that situation, where the Zunghars threatened to re-emerge, and to the southwest, where local Miao chieftains resisted Qing expansion. These campaigns drained the treasury but established the emperor's control of the military and military finance.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: When was the Treaty of Kyakhta written?
A: 1727', '
Q: Who was the partner in the Treaty of Kyakhta?
A: Russia', '
Q: What did the treaty give to the Russians?
A: territory and trading rights', '
Q: What did the Qing get from the Treaty of Kyakhta?
A: Mongolia']
Qianlong's reign saw the launch of several ambitious cultural projects, including the compilation of the Siku Quanshu, or Complete Repository of the Four Branches of Literature. With a total of over 3,400 books, 79,000 chapters, and 36,304 volumes, the Siku Quanshu is the largest collection of books in Chinese history. Nevertheless, Qianlong used Literary Inquisition to silence opposition. The accusation of individuals began with the emperor's own interpretation of the true meaning of the corresponding words. If the emperor decided these were derogatory or cynical towards the dynasty, persecution would begin. Literary inquisition began with isolated cases at the time of Shunzhi and Kangxi, but became a pattern under Qianlong's rule, during which there were 53 cases of literary persecution.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: How many books were in the Siku Quanshu?
A: 3,400 books', '
Q: How many volumes were in the Siku Quanshu?
A: 36,304 volumes', '
Q: Who created the Siku Quanshu?
A: Qianlong', '
Q: How many literary persecutions were there under Qianlongs reign?
A: 53']
China also began suffering from mounting overpopulation during this period. Population growth was stagnant for the first half of the 17th century due to civil wars and epidemics, but prosperity and internal stability gradually reversed this trend. The introduction of new crops from the Americas such as the potato and peanut allowed an improved food supply as well, so that the total population of China during the 18th century ballooned from 100 million to 300 million people. Soon all available farmland was used up, forcing peasants to work ever-smaller and more intensely worked plots. The Qianlong Emperor once bemoaned the country's situation by remarking "The population continues to grow, but the land does not." The only remaining part of the empire that had arable farmland was Manchuria, where the provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang had been walled off as a Manchu homeland. The emperor decreed for the first time that Han Chinese civilians were forbidden to settle. Mongols were forbidden by the Qing from crossing the borders of their banners, even into other Mongol Banners and from crossing into neidi (the Han Chinese 18 provinces) and were given serious punishments if they did in order to keep the Mongols divided against each other to benefit the Qing.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: What crops helped the Chinese?
A: potato and peanut', '
Q: What led to overpopulation in China?
A: prosperity and internal stability', '
Q: How many people lived in China at the start of the 18th century?
A: 100 million', '
Q: How many people lived in China at the end of the 20th century?
A: 300 million', '
Q: What was the last part of China with farmland left?
A: Manchuria']
However Qing rule saw an massively increasing amount of Han Chinese both illegally and legally streaming into Manchuria and settling down to cultivate land as Manchu landlords desired Han Chinese peasants to rent on their land and grow grain, most Han Chinese migrants were not evicted as they went over the Great Wall and Willow Palisade, during the eighteenth century Han Chinese farmed 500,000 hectares of privately owned land in Manchuria and 203,583 hectares of lands which were part of coutrier stations, noble estates, and Banner lands, in garrisons and towns in Manchuria Han Chinese made up 80% of the population.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: Where did Hans go to to find land?
A: Manchuria', '
Q: How much land did the Han cultivate?
A: 500,000 hectares', '
Q: What percent of the population in Manchuria was Han?
A: 80%']
Han Chinese farmers were resettled from north China by the Qing to the area along the Liao River in order to restore the land to cultivation. Wasteland was reclaimed by Han Chinese squatters in addition to other Han who rented land from Manchu landlords. Despite officially prohibiting Han Chinese settlement on the Manchu and Mongol lands, by the 18th century the Qing decided to settle Han refugees from northern China who were suffering from famine, floods, and drought into Manchuria and Inner Mongolia so that Han Chinese farmed 500,000 hectares in Manchuria and tens of thousands of hectares in Inner Mongolia by the 1780s. Qianlong allowed Han Chinese peasants suffering from drought to move into Manchuria despite him issuing edicts in favor of banning them from 1740–1776. Chinese tenant farmers rented or even claimed title to land from the "imperial estates" and Manchu Bannerlands in the area. Besides moving into the Liao area in southern Manchuria, the path linking Jinzhou, Fengtian, Tieling, Changchun, Hulun, and Ningguta was settled by Han Chinese during the Qianlong Emperor's rule, and Han Chinese were the majority in urban areas of Manchuria by 1800. To increase the Imperial Treasury's revenue, the Qing sold formerly Manchu only lands along the Sungari to Han Chinese at the beginning of the Daoguang Emperor's reign, and Han Chinese filled up most of Manchuria's towns by the 1840s according to Abbe Huc.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: Where were starving Han sent by the Qing?
A: Manchuria and Inner Mongolia', '
Q: How much land did the Han farm in Inner Mongolia?
A: tens of thousands of hectares', '
Q: What other types of land were the Han allowed to farm?
A: "imperial estates" and Manchu Bannerlands', '
Q: Who was the emperor in the later half of the 18th century?
A: Qianlong', '
Q: What ethnicity was the majority in urban Manchuria?
A: Han Chinese']
However, the 18th century saw the European empires gradually expand across the world, as European states developed economies built on maritime trade. The dynasty was confronted with newly developing concepts of the international system and state to state relations. European trading posts expanded into territorial control in nearby India and on the islands that are now Indonesia. The Qing response, successful for a time, was in 1756 to establish the Canton System, which restricted maritime trade to that city and gave monopoly trading rights to private Chinese merchants. The British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company had long before been granted similar monopoly rights by their governments.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: Which empires grew during the 18th century?
A: European states', '
Q: What country near China did the Europeans first control?
A: India', '
Q: What was the only city the Chinese allowed the Europeans into to trade?
A: Canton', '
Q: What were the economies of the European empires built on?
A: maritime trade', '
Q: Which two European companies traded in Canton?
A: British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company']
Demand in Europe for Chinese goods such as silk, tea, and ceramics could only be met if European companies funneled their limited supplies of silver into China. In the late 1700s, the governments of Britain and France were deeply concerned about the imbalance of trade and the drain of silver. To meet the growing Chinese demand for opium, the British East India Company greatly expanded its production in Bengal. Since China's economy was essentially self-sufficient, the country had little need to import goods or raw materials from the Europeans, so the usual way of payment was through silver. The Daoguang Emperor, concerned both over the outflow of silver and the damage that opium smoking was causing to his subjects, ordered Lin Zexu to end the opium trade. Lin confiscated the stocks of opium without compensation in 1839, leading Britain to send a military expedition the following year.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: What products from China did Europeans want?
A: silk, tea, and ceramics', '
Q: What did the Chinese want in return?
A: silver', '
Q: What were the British and French concerned about?
A: imbalance of trade and the drain of silver', '
Q: What else did the Chinese want from the British?
A: opium', '
Q: Where was opium made?
A: Bengal']
The First Opium War revealed the outdated state of the Chinese military. The Qing navy, composed entirely of wooden sailing junks, was severely outclassed by the modern tactics and firepower of the British Royal Navy. British soldiers, using advanced muskets and artillery, easily outmaneuvered and outgunned Qing forces in ground battles. The Qing surrender in 1842 marked a decisive, humiliating blow to China. The Treaty of Nanjing, the first of the unequal treaties, demanded war reparations, forced China to open up the five ports of Canton, Amoy, Fuchow, Ningpo and Shanghai to western trade and missionaries, and to cede Hong Kong Island to Britain. It revealed many inadequacies in the Qing government and provoked widespread rebellions against the already hugely unpopular regime.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: Who fought the Qing in the First Opium War?
A: British', '
Q: When did the Qing surrender to the British?
A: 1842', '
Q: What treaty marked the end of the First Opium War?
A: Treaty of Nanjing,', '
Q: What 5 ports did the treaty force open?
A: Canton, Amoy, Fuchow, Ningpo and Shanghai', '
Q: What island was given to the British?
A: Hong Kong Island']
The Taiping Rebellion in the mid-19th century was the first major instance of anti-Manchu sentiment threatening the stability of the dynasty. Hong Xiuquan, a failed civil service candidate, led the Taiping Rebellion, amid widespread social unrest and worsening famine. In 1851 Hong Xiuquan and others launched an uprising in Guizhou province, established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom with Hong himself as king, claiming he often had visions of God and that he was the brother of Jesus Christ. Slavery, concubinage, arranged marriage, opium smoking, footbinding, judicial torture, and the worship of idols were all banned. However, success and subsequent authority and power led to internal feuds, defections and corruption. In addition, British and French troops, equipped with modern weapons, had come to the assistance of the Qing imperial army. It was not until 1864 that Qing armies under Zeng Guofan succeeded in crushing the revolt. The rebellion not only posed the most serious threat towards Qing rulers; it was also "bloodiest civil war of all time." Between 20 and 30 million people died during its fourteen-year course from 1850 to 1864. After the outbreak of this rebellion, there were also revolts by the Muslims and Miao people of China against the Qing dynasty, most notably in the Dungan Revolt (1862–77) in the northwest and the Panthay Rebellion (1856–1873) in Yunnan.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: What marked the first occurence of anti-Manchu feeling?
A: The Taiping Rebellion', '
Q: Who led the Rebellion?
A: Hong Xiuquan', '
Q: When did the Rebellion start?
A: 1851', '
Q: What entity was established in Guizhou province?
A: Taiping Heavenly Kingdom', '
Q: Who was king of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom?
A: Hong']
The Western powers, largely unsatisfied with the Treaty of Nanjing, gave grudging support to the Qing government during the Taiping and Nian Rebellions. China's income fell sharply during the wars as vast areas of farmland were destroyed, millions of lives were lost, and countless armies were raised and equipped to fight the rebels. In 1854, Britain tried to re-negotiate the Treaty of Nanjing, inserting clauses allowing British commercial access to Chinese rivers and the creation of a permanent British embassy at Beijing.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: Were the European empires satisfied or unsatisfied by the Treaty of Nanjing?
A: unsatisfied', '
Q: Who did the Europeans support during the Rebellions?
A: Qing government', '
Q: When did the British try to redo the Treaty of Nanjing?
A: 1854']
Ratification of the treaty the following year led to resumption of hostilities and in 1860, with Anglo-French forces marching on Beijing, the emperor and his court fled the capital for the imperial hunting lodge at Rehe. Once in Beijing, the Anglo-French forces looted the Old Summer Palace, and in an act of revenge for the arrest of several Englishmen, burnt it to the ground. Prince Gong, a younger half-brother of the emperor, who had been left as his brother's proxy in the capital, was forced to sign the Convention of Beijing. Meanwhile, the humiliated emperor died the following year at Rehe.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: Whed did the British and French invade Beijing?
A: 1860', '
Q: Where did the emperor go?
A: Rehe', '
Q: What happened to the Old Summer Palace?
A: burnt it to the ground', '
Q: What did Prince Gong sign?
A: Convention of Beijing']
Chinese generals and officials such as Zuo Zongtang led the suppression of rebellions and stood behind the Manchus. When the Tongzhi Emperor came to the throne at the age of five in 1861, these officials rallied around him in what was called the Tongzhi Restoration. Their aim was to adopt western military technology in order to preserve Confucian values. Zeng Guofan, in alliance with Prince Gong, sponsored the rise of younger officials such as Li Hongzhang, who put the dynasty back on its feet financially and instituted the Self-Strengthening Movement. The reformers then proceeded with institutional reforms, including China's first unified ministry of foreign affairs, the Zongli Yamen; allowing foreign diplomats to reside in the capital; establishment of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service; the formation of modernized armies, such as the Beiyang Army, as well as a navy; and the purchase from Europeans of armament factories.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: Who put down the rebellions?
A: Zuo Zongtang', '
Q: How old was Tongzhi when he came to power?
A: five', '
Q: What year did Tongzhi take power?
A: 1861', '
Q: What would the Chinese use to continue Confucian values?
A: western military technology', '
Q: What was the name of a modern Chinese Army?
A: Beiyang Army']
The dynasty lost control of peripheral territories bit by bit. In return for promises of support against the British and the French, the Russian Empire took large chunks of territory in the Northeast in 1860. The period of cooperation between the reformers and the European powers ended with the Tientsin Massacre of 1870, which was incited by the murder of French nuns set off by the belligerence of local French diplomats. Starting with the Cochinchina Campaign in 1858, France expanded control of Indochina. By 1883, France was in full control of the region and had reached the Chinese border. The Sino-French War began with a surprise attack by the French on the Chinese southern fleet at Fuzhou. After that the Chinese declared war on the French. A French invasion of Taiwan was halted and the French were defeated on land in Tonkin at the Battle of Bang Bo. However Japan threatened to enter the war against China due to the Gapsin Coup and China chose to end the war with negotiations. The war ended in 1885 with the Treaty of Tientsin (1885) and the Chinese recognition of the French protectorate in Vietnam.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: Who did the Chinese lose territory to in exchange for help?
A: Russian', '
Q: When was the Tientsin Massacre?
A: 1870', '
Q: When was the Cochinchina Campaign?
A: 1858', '
Q: Which territory did France control?
A: Indochina', '
Q: What triggered the Tientsin Massacre?
A: murder of French nuns']
Historians have judged the Qing dynasty's vulnerability and weakness to foreign imperialism in the 19th century to be based mainly on its maritime naval weakness while it achieved military success against westerners on land, the historian Edward L. Dreyer said that "China’s nineteenth-century humiliations were strongly related to her weakness and failure at sea. At the start of the Opium War, China had no unified navy and no sense of how vulnerable she was to attack from the sea; British forces sailed and steamed wherever they wanted to go......In the Arrow War (1856–60), the Chinese had no way to prevent the Anglo-French expedition of 1860 from sailing into the Gulf of Zhili and landing as near as possible to Beijing. Meanwhile, new but not exactly modern Chinese armies suppressed the midcentury rebellions, bluffed Russia into a peaceful settlement of disputed frontiers in Central Asia, and defeated the French forces on land in the Sino-French War (1884–85). But the defeat of the fleet, and the resulting threat to steamship traffic to Taiwan, forced China to conclude peace on unfavorable terms."

Questions and answers:
['
Q: What was the main problem the Qing had in preventing invasion from Europe?
A: naval weakness', '
Q: When was the Arrow War?
A: (1856–60)', '
Q: Where did the French and English land in 1860?
A: Gulf of Zhili', '
Q: Which historian blamed naval weakness for European imperialism in China?
A: Edward L. Dreyer']
In 1884, pro-Japanese Koreans in Seoul led the Gapsin Coup. Tensions between China and Japan rose after China intervened to suppress the uprising. Japanese Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi and Li Hongzhang signed the Convention of Tientsin, an agreement to withdraw troops simultaneously, but the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895 was a military humiliation. The Treaty of Shimonoseki recognized Korean independence and ceded Taiwan and the Pescadores to Japan. The terms might have been harsher, but when Japanese citizen attacked and wounded Li Hongzhang, an international outcry shamed the Japanese into revising them. The original agreement stipulated the cession of Liaodong Peninsula to Japan, but Russia, with its own designs on the territory, along with Germany and France, in what was known as the Triple Intervention, successfully put pressure on the Japanese to abandon the peninsula.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: What coup happened in 1884?
A: Gapsin Coup', '
Q: Who was involved in the Gapsin Coup?
A: pro-Japanese Koreans', '
Q: What resulted between the Chinese and Japanese after the Coup?
A: Tensions', '
Q: Who signed the Convention of Tientsin?
A: Itō Hirobumi and Li Hongzhang', '
Q: When did the First Sino-Japanese War happen?
A: 1895']
These years saw an evolution in the participation of Empress Dowager Cixi (Wade–Giles: Tz'u-Hsi) in state affairs. She entered the imperial palace in the 1850s as a concubine to the Xianfeng Emperor (r. 1850–1861) and came to power in 1861 after her five-year-old son, the Tongzhi Emperor ascended the throne. She, the Empress Dowager Ci'an (who had been Xianfeng's empress), and Prince Gong (a son of the Daoguang Emperor), staged a coup that ousted several regents for the boy emperor. Between 1861 and 1873, she and Ci'an served as regents, choosing the reign title "Tongzhi" (ruling together). Following the emperor's death in 1875, Cixi's nephew, the Guangxu Emperor, took the throne, in violation of the dynastic custom that the new emperor be of the next generation, and another regency began. In the spring of 1881, Ci'an suddenly died, aged only forty-three, leaving Cixi as sole regent.

Questions and answers:
["
Q: What was the name of Xianfeng's concubine?
A: Cixi", "
Q: Who was Cixi's son?
A: Tongzhi", '
Q: When did Tongzhi Emperor die?
A: 1875', '
Q: Who took over from Tongzhi?
A: Guangxu']
From 1889, when Guangxu began to rule in his own right, to 1898, the Empress Dowager lived in semi-retirement, spending the majority of the year at the Summer Palace. On November 1, 1897, two German Roman Catholic missionaries were murdered in the southern part of Shandong Province (the Juye Incident). In response, Germany used the murders as a pretext for a naval occupation of Jiaozhou Bay. The occupation prompted a "scramble for concessions" in 1898, which included the German lease of Jiazhou Bay, the Russian acquisition of Liaodong, and the British lease of the New Territories of Hong Kong.

Questions and answers:
['
Q: Where did the Empress Dowager spend most of her time?
A: Summer Palace', '
Q: When were two missionaries killed?
A: November 1, 1897,', '
Q: Where were the missionaries killed?
A: Shandong Province', '
Q: What was the murders of the missionaries called?
A: Juye Incident']
In the wake of these external defeats, the Guangxu Emperor initiated the Hundred Days' Reform of 1898. Newer, more radical advisers such as Kang Youwei were given positions of influence. The emperor issued a series of edicts and plans were made to reorganize the bureaucracy, restructure the school system, and appoint new officials. Opposition from the bureaucracy was immediate and intense. Although she had been involved in the initial reforms, the empress dowager stepped in to call them off, arrested and executed several reformers, and took over day-to-day control of policy. Yet many of the plans stayed in place, and the goals of reform were implanted.

Questions and answers:
["
Q: What did the emperor do in response to so many defeats by the Europeans?
A: Hundred Days' Reform of 1898", '
Q: Name an advisor to Guangxu?
A: Kang Youwei', '
Q: Who took over the policy of China?
A: empress dowager']