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THE EMPIRE
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China -- The Empire
From its genesis in the Qin dynasty to its end in the Qing, the Chinese empire was the most impressive feat of political stamina in ancient, medieval and modern times. The Chinese empire was the equal of the Roman empire, but less far-flung than the caliphate in the days of its suzerainty over the entire Islamic world; it was a mere component part of the Eurasian dominions of the Mongols; its communications were less precariously extended than those of the globe-encircling Spanish empire over the Americas and the Phillipines; its peoples less numerous than those of the British empire during its heyday, yet in terms of the subject-years that it ruled imperial China dwarfed them all - possibly even all of them put together.
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