Shunzhi Emperor - Historical Background

Historical Background

In the 1580s, when China was ruled by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), a number of Jurchen tribes lived northeast of Ming territory in the region that is now known as China's Northeast, or "Manchuria." In a series of campaigns from the 1580s to the 1610s, Nurhaci (1559–1626), the leader of the Jianzhou Jurchens, unified most Jurchen tribes under his rule. One of his most important reforms was to integrate Jurchen clans under flags of four different colors (yellow, white, red, and blue)––each further subdivided into two to form an encompassing social and military system known as the "Eight Banners." Nurhaci gave control of these Banners to his sons and grand-sons. Around 1612, Nurhaci renamed his clan Aisin Gioro ("golden Gioro"), both to distinguish his family from other Gioro lines, and to allude to an earlier dynasty that had been founded by Jurchens, the Jin ("golden") dynasty that had ruled northern China from 1115 to 1234. He formally announced the foundation of the "Later Jin" dynasty in 1616, effectively declaring his independence from the Ming. Two years later he moved to the offensive, besieging the Ming garrison and trading city of Fushun, which quickly surrendered, in April 1618. After defeating a Ming punitive campaign in 1619, Nurhaci wrested most major cities in Liaodong from Ming control over the next few years. His string of victories ended in February 1626 at the siege of Ningyuan, where Ming military commander Yuan Chonghuan defeated the Jurchens with the help of recently acquired Portuguese cannon. Probably hurt during the battle, Nurhaci died a few months later.

Nurhaci's successor Hong Taiji (1592–1643) continued his father's state-building efforts: he concentrated power into his own hands, modeled the Later Jin's government institutions on Chinese ones in preparation for an eventual invasion, and integrated Mongol allies and surrendered Chinese troops into the Eight Banners. In 1629 he led a Jurchen incursion to the outskirts of Beijing, during which he captured Chinese craftsmen who knew how to cast Portuguese cannon. In 1635, the year he brought the Chahar Mongols to submission, he renamed the Jurchens the "Manchus." In 1636, the year of a successful invasion of Joseon Korea (a Ming ally), Hong Taiji changed the name of his polity from "Later Jin" to "Qing." After capturing the last remaining Ming cities in Liaodong in the early 1640s, by 1643 the Qing was preparing to seize upon the struggling Ming dynasty, which was crumbling under the combined weight of financial bankruptcy, devastating epidemics, and large-scale bandit uprisings fed by widespread starvation.