Crossing Into the Qing Dynasty: I’m Qianlong

[No System] [Abolish the Eight Banners] [Cut off queues and change clothing] [Industrial Revolution] [Economic Takeoff] [Population Explosion] [Global Expansion] [Chinese Empire]

His soul travels to the third day of the ninth lunar month in 1735, on the very day Qianlong ascends the throne. China is already facing a crisis that is sweeping the world.

The Newcomen steam engine has been in commercial use for twenty-three years. It will still be twenty-nine years before the invention of the spinning jenny, and thirty years before Watt’s improved steam engine. The tide of the Industrial Revolution is close at hand.

The War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years’ War in Europe, and the American War of Independence are all approaching, and Western nations are about to rise.

There are only one hundred and five years left before the cannon fire of the Opium War blows open China’s doors.

Inside China, court officials cling to the ancestral system and refuse to change. Handicraft industries still rely on manual labor. Firearm blueprints left over from the Ming dynasty gather dust in warehouses, and shipbuilding artisans along the coast have been forced by the sea ban policy to change careers and farm instead.

Fortunately, the foundation for reform has not yet been severed. In the capital, there are missionaries skilled in Western mathematics. In Jiangnan, hidden among the common people, there are master artisans who understand machinery manufacturing. Among the naval forces, there are old soldiers who have seen the appearance of Western warships.

There is still time.

Everything is still in time!