Qing

After the Manchu Qing entered through the pass, the empire reached its greatest extent under the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong reigns: Taiwan recovered, the Dzungars defeated, Tibet governed — laying the outline of today's China.

Kangxi learned Western science from missionary tutors; Qianlong sponsored the Complete Library in Four Sections; Dream of the Red Chamber was written and Beijing opera took root. Population passed three hundred million, and market towns bustled.

But the closed-door policy let China slip behind the world. When the Opium War guns sounded in 1840, history turned into the heavy years of the late Qing.