What if Manchuria have their own Hong Kong?

After Nurhaci unified the Jurchen tribes, Nurhaci delivered a manifesto where he wanted to create a united Manchu state that spoke Manchu and inhabited by the Jurchen, aiming for political independence as the Ming Dynasty deteriorated. Nurhaci said in his speech that modern day Manchu nationalists interpreted as "We’re not trying to took over China, we’re never a part of it in the first place." In 1616, he declared himself Khan and founded the Later Jin Khanate, which later declared itself self governing. The Later Jin Khanate went to war with the Ming to establish their core territory (Manchuria). After Nurhaci's death in 1626 during the conflict, his son Hong Taiji made reforms and renamed the Jurchens "Manchu," ultimately establishing the Manchu Khanate. Once Manchuria successfully conquered their core territory, through a ceasefire in 1634, Manchuria agreed to withdrew and stopped expanding beyond the Shanhaiguan Pass in exchange for the Ming to recognize Manchuria as an independent state and both sides agreed to not step foot beyond Shanhaiguan Pass. The Shun Dynasty took over as the next Chinese Dynasty.

Following the war, Hong Taiji established a core bureaucracy in Manchu Khanate. The Khan of the Manchu Khanate would held supreme, absolute authority over all state, legislative, and judicial matters. The Great Council of the Khanate would be responsible for translating the Khan’s decrees into practice, managed state treasury and collected taxes and coordinated the Eight Banners effectively. They’re appointed directly by the Khan under the advice of his advisors. Provinces in Manchuria would be handled by provincial governors who aimed to collect taxes, supervised regional public works like dikes, canals, and waterways, manage local civil services such as school systems, supervise lower-level local such as prefectures, county magistrates officials and more.

During Hong Taiji’s reign, Manchu Khanate focused on reforming the state such as land tax reforms where provinces are required to report comprehensive figures of their labor service and tax registers annually to monitor population changes and curb local officials' arbitrary use and embezzlement of poll tax revenue alongside the creation of the Complete Books of Taxes and Labor Service where it listed the fixed land tax and poll tax that each province, prefecture and county had to pay each year. By making these tax amounts official, ordinary people could see what they owed, taking away the local officials' ability to change tax rates at will.  Hong Taiji also focused on agricultural growth. This helped boosted the economy of Manchuria. Ijishūn Dasan Khan (the Shunzhi Emperor) became Khan under the regency of Dorgon.

Following the ceasefire in 1634, The Ming Dynasty continue to decline until its collapsed as the Shun Dynasty took over as the next dynasty at the cost of his nephew, Li Guo, death. Li Zicheng is crowned Emperor of the Shun Dynasty as the Yongchang Emperor in 1644. However, the Shun is very unpopular as many views them more as bandits than political leaders. Previously, his military previously sacking and pillaging Beijing before taking the Mandate of Heaven, alienating the very people they claimed to protect and proved to them that they lacked the morality needed to be the Son of Heaven. The Shun also previously torture former Ming officials to extract wealth alongside the Shun imposed strict monetary limits for former officials based on their rank to fund their new government and punish the so called corrupt. In 1644, within 6 months since enthronement, the Yongchang Emperor and his brother were assassinated by a group of Ming loyalists, creating chaos within the Shun’s court as they both have no heir. With no clear leadership, multiple states were formed across China with many self proclaimed dynasties established. China collapsed once again.

The Ijishūn Dasan Khan is still very young (6 years old at the time), meaning regency goes to Dorgon and he had a very different plan to destroy any hope of Chinese unity. Essentially, Manchuria launched an invasion on Northern Zhili (modern day Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin and parts of Shandong and Henan bordering the Yellow River) which contained the last remnant of the government of the Shun’s court. The Shun’s government collapsed and the territory would be militarily occupied by the Manchus. Manchuria then reformed the state into the State of Beizhili. Under the Charter of the State of Beizhili, Beizhili would be led by the Governor-General (appointed by the Khan or Regent) who oversaw local administration such as taxation or education, economic policy such as the monetary framework and public debts and judicial system with their own somewhat independent courts though the final ruling needed the approval of the Khan to passed through while Manchuria would have full control over foreign affairs and defense from internal and external revolts as Beizhili are not allowed to have their own army. The Governor-General would be assisted by the National Council composing of 22 Manchu bannermen and 25 Chinese collaborators alongside 2 supervisory Manchu officials who acted as the formal links to Manchuria by acting as a monitor to ensure that they don’t plan on acted too independently. To pass any law, the law needed the approval of the majority in the Council and needed the Governor-General’s approval to passed. The Governor-General would be appointed by the Khan for a renewable fixed term. In theory, Manchuria can appointed anyone but in practice, they prefer picking a Manchu bannerman as Governor-General. China became more fractured as their ideal location to take, Peking (Beijing), is now under Manchu’s influence.

The Ijishūn Dasan Khan continued the reforms from Hong Taiji. China is unified under the Yang Dynasty in 1654. That is until Elhe Taifin Khan (the Kangxi Emperor) took over in 1661. With a combination of Jesuits’s influence, the presence of western traders and Elhe Taifin Khan’s genuine interest on western science caused Manchuria to enter a period of modernization. Elhe Taifin Khan focused on boosting literacy amongst Manchus first. He first created the Updated Manchu Dictionary, which sought to expand Manchu language by adding new words through phonetic transliteration, calquing (semantic translation), hybrid coinages, and adopting the original foreign terms. Later in his reign, he initiated the Translation Project which aimed to translated many western works through the updated Manchu language which would be continued by his successors. Following a Manchurian victory through the Siege of Albazin, Manchuria and Russia signed the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689, setting borders and ceding Sakhalin to Manchuria.

The Hūwaliyasun Tob Khan (Yongzheng Emperor) took over as Khan. The Hūwaliyasun Tob Khan focused on lowering corruption within the Grand Council. He created an Anti-Corruption ministry (Office of Inspector General) to investigate and prosecute illicit favoritism without political interference alongside utilized high-paying salaries to the Office that matched the market to avoid financial temptation. To keep the Minister of the OIG in check from corruption, if the minister is suspected of corruption, the Manchu Justice System would step in and to conduct an independent, thorough investigation. The Hūwaliyasun Tob Khan also work to transition Manchurian’s army towards more modern weaponry, such as western guns and other firepower. The navy was also an important part of his plan, using newly developed weapons and technology. Abkai Wehiyehe Khan (the Qianlong Emperor) took the throne. Manchuria reached their absolute peak with the treasury overflowing, agricultural output soared and the population boomed. Many local national banks were chartered as private businesses gained permissions from the government to print money that people could used and Manchuria permit licensed private banks to issue redeemable banknotes. Britain established an Embassy in Manchuria. Initially trusted by the Khan himself, Heshen was ultimately punished by the Khan under the advice of the Office of Inspector General. In his later reign, he establish the Great Manchu Army, which would replace the outdated Eight Banners System and to catch up with the West militarily. Meanwhile, Russia conquered modern day Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang during Russia’s expansion into Central Asia. During this time period, Beizhili focused on improving the lives of the Chinese citizens such as establishing similar reforms to Manchuria, ironically, becoming more advanced than the Yang Dynasty mainly because of the Yang Dynasty still preserving Neo-Confucianism isolationism. However, Beizhili still faced internal revolts due to the facts that a Manchu is ruling over them and many desired to joins the Yang, but were eventually suppressed by Manchu’s army.

Following Abkai Wehiyehe Khan’s reign, Manchuria continued to modernized. New ministries were created such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Interior/Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture. Manchuria starts to built modernized arsenals, shipyards, mines, textiles factories, telegraph systems and more alongside modern schools which taught practical subjects such as Western sciences, mathematics, and practical governance. Agricultural reforms were introduced such as the establishment of agricultural schools. Multiple edicts were passed that would establish a commercial code and corporate laws that would recognize, regulate, and protect private merchant enterprises and joint-stock companies alongside approved and assisted in setting up modern chambers of commerce in major cities to support bankers, traders and business owners later on. During this time, immigration laws lessened as the later Khans believed that they would help created large domestic markets and workers to drive production, trade, and faster economic growth but only if they adopted Manchu’s culture. Meanwhile, following the conquest of Joseon by Japan, Meiji’s government, realizing that Manchuria could posed a threat, invited Manchurian’s representatives to proposed ways to calm tensions between the two states. That’s when the Nagasaki Pact was signed, Manchuria and Japan would gains each other’s markets via very low tariffs while foreign states still faced external tariffs from the two. This does not calmed the tensions between the two states but does calm the two economically. Meanwhile as the Yang Dynasty began to collapsed, Han-Chinese citizens from the Yang sought asylum to Beizhili.

As the Manchu Khanate approached the 1900s, many Manchu citizens demanded domestic representations. In 1912, Manchu Khanate, under Gehungge Yoso Khan (Xuantong Emperor) under the regency of Dzai Feng, adopt a constitution that would turned the Manchu Khanate into a Constitutional Monarchy in 1912. The Queue technically isn’t abolished, however, it’s mostly used as a symbol of Manchu nationalism rather than mandatory. Under the new constitution, the Khan of the Manchurian Khanate is now the Head of State where his main duties mainly involve attending domestic ceremonies and performing state functions. His main powers include: appointed the Prime Minister who has parliamentary support, officially appointed ministers based on the Prime Minister’s advice, opened and closed sessions of the Parliament, announced new laws, may refuse to approve laws in specific situations, can dissolve Parliament if the Prime Minister advises it, serves as the commander-in-chief in a mostly ceremonial role, meets with foreign ambassadors, symbolizes the stability of the nation, can appoint a temporary Prime Minister during a constitutional crisis and can issue emergency orders that need to be confirmed by Parliament. Meanwhile, Beizhili would finally became a constitutional monarchy with the Khan as the Head of State while the Head of Government would be led by a Prime Minister who would handle both domestic and foreign affairs.

In 1914, the Manchu Khanate remains neutral in World War 1 due to a lack of grievances for Manchuria to joined the war. Manchuria continued to industrialized. When the Great Depression hits, Manchuria abandoned their silver standard replaced it with a fiat currency alongside active fiscal spendings, recovering relatively quick than most nations. Tensions between Manchuria and Japan reached an all time worst when Japan invaded Manchuria through Japanese Korea in 1931, beginning the Manchurian-Japanese War. Manchuria put up a strong resistance against Japanese’s forces with diplomatic efforts to help secure aid from Americans and Soviets. Eventually in 1945, Japan is defeated. Manchuria oversaw the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, Manchuria sided with the American Bloc. Manchuria initially introduced reforms aimed at reduced tenant dependency on landowners such as rents could not exceed 40% of agricultural output, tenants receiving long-term leases and prohibit land owners from evicting tenants arbitrarily. Eventually, Manchuria began purchasing agricultural land from large landowners in exchange for landowners to receive government bonds, shares in industrial development corporations, etc… lands was then distributed to the peasants with capped ownership so that a single household could only own the amount of land they could farm directly with family labor. In 2010, Manchuria, Republic of Korea (consisted of the Korean Peninsula following South Korean’s victory in the Korean War) and Japan signed an economic alliance similar to ASEAN. The three members would drastically reduced tariffs between the three states to create a single market and production base.

Today, Manchuria is certainly not a top player in geopolitics, but remained a respected nation reputation wise. The current Khan of the Manchu Khanate is the Wenghūi Khan (Jin Yuzhang, ruling since 2015.) Beizhili remains part of Manchuria’s sphere of influence.