On the 12th February 1912 the Chinese Emperor Puyi abdicated the royal throne, effectively bringing to an end over two millennia of imperial rule in China. Puyi's abdication was the culmination of a long decline for the Qing Dynasty, a process which had started in the previous century.
The Qing Empire was the last great dynasty to rule over China, coming to power in the wake of the Ming Dynasty in the seventeenth century. Towards the end of its 270 year reign the Ming Dynasty had become beset with a host of problems. A crucial basis for imperial rule in China was the idea of the ‘Mandate of Heaven', the belief that an emperor was selected by heaven to act as a god on earth. A series of famines, natural disasters and economic calamities that hit the latter Ming Dyasty led to a growing popular belief that the Ming Emperors had lost this Mandate of Heaven.
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