ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with four empires of Asia: the Japanese Empire, the Qing/Chinese Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Czarist Empire. The Ottomans and the Qing polities already had an empire from the eighteenth century. The Murid War in the Caucasus region lasted from 1829 to 1859 and cost the lives of more than half a million men. Russia’s war against Khoqand lasted from 1853 to 1876. Against the forces of the Russian General Skobelev, the Muslims waged guerrilla style resistance in the Alai Valley and the surrounding highlands. State-sponsored maritime piracy was practised by the Ottomans during the sixteenth century. Between 1500 and 1800, while the Romanov monarchy emerged as a centralised bureaucratic military-fiscal state, the Ottoman Empire was transformed into a decentralised quasi-bureaucratic polity. The Qing government while suppressing the White Lotus rebels between 1796 and 1805 made large-scale use of militias besides the regular troops.
