Sarah Paine

The rebellions actually start in the late 18th centuries.

The rebellion's a misnomer.

These are civil wars.

Either people are like minority peoples who want out of empire.

They want to secede.

Other people who want to overthrow the government in Beijing.

The peak period is in red.

The really big ones are in white.

So China has got the two-front war problem, right?

It's got Europeans coming at them, plus all of this.

In fact, the Chinese have so many fronts that know how to deal with it.

So the Russians come on in to the Chinese and say, hey,

We can deal with the British and French for you and solve that problem, and then you can deal with all the internal stuff.

However, we need to have you sign a couple pieces of paper for us.

The Treaty of Vigun of 1858, the Treaty of Peking of 1860, what do they do?

They cede to Russia large swaths of territory in Central Asia and the Pacific coastline.

And the Qing Dynasty, they're vague on geography.

They're beset by these other things.

They don't understand that Europeans think these pieces of paper are permanent things.

And they figure that once they put their house back in order, they're going to come back and get the territory later.