Tibet, because Nepalese had made two attacks
on Tibet. Thus English and Chinese political interests came here into
contact.

For the Ch'ien-lung period's many wars of conquest there seem to have
been two main reasons. The first was the need for security. The Mongols
had to be overthrown because otherwise the homeland of the Manchus was
menaced; in order to make sure of the suppression of the eastern
Mongols, the western Mongols (Kalmuks) had to be overthrown; to make
them harmless, Turkestan and the Ili region had to be conquered; Tibet
was needed for the security of Turkestan and Mongolia--and so on. Vast
territories, however, were conquered in this process which were of no
economic value, and most of which actually cost a great deal of money
and brought nothing in. They were conquered simply for security. That
advantage had been gained: an aggressor would have to cross great areas
of unproductive territory, with difficult conditions for reinforcements,
before he could actually reach China. In the second place, the Chinese
may actually have noticed the efforts that were being made by the
European powers, especially Russia and England, to divide Asia among
themselves, and accordingly they made sure of their own good share.

6 _Decline; revolts_

The period of Ch'ien-lung is not only that of the greatest expansion of
the Chinese empire, but also that of the greatest prosperity under the
Manchu regime. But there began at the same time to be signs of internal
decline. If we are to fix a particular year for this, perhaps it should
be the year 1774, in which came the first great popular rising, in the
province of Shantung. In 1775 there came another popular rising, in
Honan--that of the "Society of the White Lotus". This society, which had
long existed as a secret organization and had played a part in the Ming
epoch, had been reorganized by a man named Liu Sung. Liu Sung was
captured and was condemned to penal servitude. His followers, however,
regrouped themselves, particularly in the province of Anhui. These
risings had been produced, as always, by excessive oppression of the
people by the government or the governing class. As, however, the anger
of the population was naturally directed also against the idle Manchus
of the cities, who lived on their state pensions, did no work, and
behaved as a ruling class, the government saw in these movements a
nationalist spirit, and took drastic steps against them. The popular
lea