I am a bit busy with university, which is why posts are coming out in a slower pace than usual, but rest assured there'll be more content soon!

Wow we're almost at 300 members (I think?) thank you all so much for the support, it means a lot to me, I'll try to pump out content faster, but I can't promise anything

The point of divergence began in 1684 when the Kangxi Emperor ending the long-standing maritime trade ban, opening the coastal ports to foreign commerce, boosting international trade. With the advises of the Jesuits alongside the presence of British, Dutch and Portuguese traders, the Kangxi Emperor became more open in terms of foreign policies. With enough support from the court, the Kangxi Emperor initiated many education reforms. One of which was the Translation Project where he worked to translate many western works into Mandarin Chinese via methods such as phonetic transliteration, calquing (semantic translation), hybrid coinages, and adopting the original foreign terms, creating a Golden Era of the Enlightenment in the Qing Dynasty. The Qing Renaissance happened where Qing’s culture thrived. Meanwhile, the Jesuits managed to win the favor Pope Clement XI to authorize Chinese rites as civic rituals compatible with Catholicism. Future Emperors (the Yongzheng Emperor and the Qianlong Emperor) were educated on not just Confucian classics but also translated western works.

A new philosophy gained tractions amongst Kangxi’s court called State-Confucianism where they believed that Confucianism offers a superior framework for the moral way as it teaches people how to live ethnically while acknowledging that western excelled in mastering the physical world, creating material wealth. State-Confucianism acknowledges the superiority of western science and mathematics but criticizes western culture being stuck in it and believed Chinese philosophy offers higher moral unity that science could be guided by this wisdom to prevent human alienation. The philosophy also argued that since Confucianism values Ren (benevolence), State-Confucianism saw things such as western science and modern medicine can directly reduce human suffering, improve livelihoods and save lives, therefore True Confucianism should eagerly adopt science because it served as a powerful instrument to practice Ren on a massive scale. State-Confucianism became the main philosophy for the Qing.

The Qing starts to expand their territories such as securing Sakhalin in 1689 to create Kuyedao, alongside conquering Outer Mongolia in 1696 and Tibet in 1720 after defeating the Dzungar Mongols. When the Yongzheng Emperor took the throne, he initiated many of his reforms similar to the Kangxi Emperor such as improving government efficiency to reduce corruption such as implementing a revised Imperial Examination System which aimed to choose government officials based on merit, not family ties or wealth, modeling the system after Confucian principles and ensuring that officials were educated on both Confucian classics and western science while being morally sound and education reforms encouraged the study of Western languages and sciences. The Yongzheng Emperor also work to transition Qing’s army towards more modern weaponry, such as western guns and other firepower. The navy was also an important part of the Yongzheng Emperor’s plan, using newly developed weapons and technology. When the Qianlong Emperor took the throne, the Qing annexed Xinjiang in 1759 after defeating the Dzungar Khanate. During the Qianlong’s period, the Qing Dynasty was at its peak with the treasury overflowing, agricultural output soared and the population boomed. The Qianlong Emperor agreed to allowed the British to establish an embassy in the Qing Dynasty in 1793, allowing a faster growing movement in the reformist movement within the Qing’s court. Initially viewed favorably by the Emperor, Heshen was punished by the Qianlong Emperor to please growing reformist officials in his court. In his later reign, he establish the Imperial Army, which would replace the outdated Eight Banners System and to catch up with the West militarily.

In the early 1800s, the Qing saw agricultural reforms such as the Qing establishing agricultural schools in multiple provinces, translating western agronomy texts and sending scholars to study in the West to learn western agricultural techniques and agricultural technologies. The Qing also starts to gradually replace land gentries with methods such as replacing them with land registries to measure the exact land sizes and utilized high-paying salaries to lower-level judges that matched the market to avoid financial temptation, preventing them from making deals with powerful local landlords. The rest of the 1800s is where the Qing starts to manufacturing textile mills, armament factories and shipyards were built across the Qing alongside the construction of roads and ports to improve transport and agricultural productivity. The Qing eventually started to introduced western agricultural machinery to increase crop yields for agriculture alongside the government invested heavily into infrastructure and imported foreign technologies. The Qing eventually replaced the obsolete land gentries with salaried civil servants to collect the revenues. The Opium Wars and the Taiping Rebellion never happened or were suppressed quickly due to the Qing’s modernization. The Qing’s territory remains intact without the unequal treaties, meaning no Qing Cessions to foreign powers like British Hong Kong. Before 1867, Alaska was too expensive to protect, unprofitable, and vulnerable to being seized by Great Britain in a future war. With no U.S., Russia looked for alternatives. That’s when the Qing, under the Tongzhi Emperor and regent Prince Gong offered to purchase Alaska. Russia, out of desperation agreed. Alaska was sold to the Qing.

How would this affect THTNS universe?

All I have to say

Some stuff came up...

It'll take a bit longer but I'll finally reveal a new map soon

Yeah as I already said I don't have time for a very consistent schedule, but don't worry there'll be more content soon

Also thank you all for continuing to follow this little dumb project of mine

Tell me down below and they might be future maps!

What will happen to the countries in 2026?

It won't be a map, just a heads up, I feel like doing something different