the Yangzhou massacre in which some 800,000 people, including women and children, were massacred by the Manchus. Whole provinces, such as Sichuan and Jiangnan, were thoroughly devastated and depopulated by the Manchu conquest, which killed an estimated 25 million people. Some scholars estimate that the Chinese economy did not the regain the level reached in the late Ming dynasty until 1750, nearly a century after the foundation of the Qing dynasty. According to economic historian Robert Allen, family incomes in the Yangtze delta, China's richest province, was actually below Ming levels in 1820 but equal to that of contemporary Britain. The destructive effects of the Qing were felt economically for decades. In the 1690s, Tang Chen (陈唐), a retired Chinese scholar and failed merchant wrote: More than fifty years have passed since the founding of the [Qing] dynasty, and the empire grows poorer each day. Farmers are destitute, artisans are destitute, merchants are destitute, and officials too are destitute. Grain is cheap, yet it is hard to eat one’s fill. Cloth is cheap, yet it is hard to cover one’s skin. Boatloads of goods travel from one marketplace to another, but the cargoes must be sold at a loss. Officials upon leaving their posts discover they have no wherewithal to support their households. Indeed the four occupations are all impoverished! Criticism Kenneth Pomeranz rejects the assertion that "certain Asian societies were headed toward an industrial breakthrough until Manchu or British invaders crushed the 'sprouts of capitalism'". However, he suggests that the Qing "revitalization of the state" may have impeded the growth of fashion. See also Economic history of China before 1912 References Sources Qing dynasty Case studies History of China