Chapter 20 - Northern Eurasia, 1500–1800 Flashcards
Manchu
Federation of Northeast Asian peoples who founded the Qing Empire.
daimyo
Literally, great name(s). Japanese warlords and great landowners, whose armed samurai gave them control of the Japanese islands from the eighth to the later nineteenth century. Under the Tokugawa Shogunate they were subordinated to the imperial government.
samurai
Literally “those who serve,” the hereditary military elite of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Tokugawa Shogunate
The last of the three shogunates of Japan.
Ming Empire
Empire based in China that Zhu Yuanzhang established after the overthrow of the Yuan Empire. The Ming emperor Yongle sponsored the building of the Forbidden City and the voyages of Zheng He. The later years of the Ming saw a slowdown in technological development and economic decline.
Qing Empire
Empire established in China by Manchus who overthrew the Ming Empire in 1644. At various times the Qing also controlled Manchuria, Mongolia, Turkestan, and Tibet. The last Qing emperor was overthrown in 1911.
Kangxi
Qing emperor (r. 1662–1722). He oversaw the greatest expansion of the Qing Empire.
Amur River
This river valley was a contested frontier between northern China and eastern Russia until the settlement arranged in the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689).
Macartney mission
The unsuccessful attempt by the British Empire to establish diplomatic relations with the Qing Empire.
Muscovy
Russian principality that emerged gradually during the era of Mongol domination. The Muscovite dynasty ruled without interruption from 1276 to 1598.
Ural Mountains
This north-south range separates Siberia from the rest of Russia. It is commonly considered the boundary between the continents of Europe and Asia.
tsar (czar)
From Latin ‘caesar’, this Russian title for a monarch was first used in the sixteenth century.
Siberia
The extreme northeastern sector of Asia, including the Kamchatka Peninsula and the present Russian coast of the Arctic Ocean, the Bering Strait, and the Sea of Okhotsk.
Cossacks
Peoples of the Russian Empire who lived outside the farming villages, often as herders, mercenaries, or outlaws. Cossacks led the conquest of Siberia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
serf
In medieval Europe, an agricultural laborer legally bound to a lord’s property and obligated to perform set services for the lord. In Russia some serfs worked as artisans and in factories; serfdom was not abolished there until 1861.
