241-796: Dorgon 17 November 1612 – 31 December 1650), was a Manchu prince and regent of the early Qing dynasty . Born in the House of Aisin-Gioro as the 14th son of Nurhaci (the founder of the Later Jin dynasty, which was the predecessor of the Qing), Dorgon started his career in military campaigns against the Mongols, the Koreans, and the Ming dynasty during the reign of Hong Taiji (his eighth brother) who succeeded their father. After Hong Taiji's death in 1643, he
482-636: A 34- or 35-year-old man with slightly dark skin complexion and sharp eyes. He was handsome, tall and slim, and had a shiny and beautiful beard . Primary Consort Secondary Consort Manchu people The Manchus ( Manchu : ᠮᠠᠨᠵᡠ , Möllendorff : manju ; Chinese : 滿族 ; pinyin : Mǎnzú ; Wade–Giles : Man -tsu ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia . They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and
723-462: A 48 km (30 mi) long wall around Nanjing , as well as new palaces and government halls. The History of Ming states that as early as 1364 Zhu Yuanzhang had begun drafting a new Confucian law code, the Da Ming Lü , which was completed by 1397 and repeated certain clauses found in the old Tang Code of 653. Hongwu organized a military system known as the weisuo , which was similar to
964-458: A Han Chinese named Zhao Tinglu, the son of former Han bannerman Zhao Quan, and gave him a new name, Quanheng in order that he be able to benefit from his adopted son receiving a salary as a Banner soldier. Commoner Manchu bannermen who were not nobility were called irgen which meant common, in contrast to the Manchu nobility of the "Eight Great Houses" who held noble titles. Manchu bannermen of
1205-590: A Manchu banner in the reign of the Kangxi emperor . Select groups of Han Chinese bannermen were mass transferred into Manchu Banners by the Qing, changing their ethnicity from Han Chinese to Manchu. Han Chinese bannermen of Tai Nikan (台尼堪, watchpost Chinese) and Fusi Nikan (撫順尼堪, Fushun Chinese) backgrounds into the Manchu banners in 1740 by order of the Qing Qianlong emperor . It was between 1618 and 1629 when
1446-749: A Muslim leader known in Chinese sources as Milayin (米喇印) revolted against Qing rule in Ganzhou ( Gansu ). He was soon joined by another Muslim named Ding Guodong (丁國棟). Proclaiming that they wanted to restore the Ming, they occupied a number of towns in Gansu, including the provincial capital Lanzhou . These rebels' willingness to collaborate with non-Muslim Chinese suggests that they were not only driven by religion. Both Milayin and Ding Guodong were captured and killed by Meng Qiaofang (孟喬芳; 1595–1654) in 1648, and by 1650
1687-767: A coup against the Tianshun Emperor out of fear of being next on his purge-list of those who aided him in the Wresting the Gate Incident. Cao's rebel force managed to set fire to the western and eastern gates of the Imperial City (doused by rain during the battle) and killed several leading ministers before his forces were finally cornered and he was forced to commit suicide. While the Yongle Emperor had staged five major offensives north of
1928-629: A destruction of all the records related to the elimination of the heirs of Dorgon. This was an inglorious chapter not only of Qing history but also the history of the imperial clan of Aisin-Gioro. In the March 1651 purge of Dorgon, Shunzhi also ordered that the ancestral temple records be written to indicate that no woman had ever conceived a son for Dorgon (not that all of his sons had died due to infant mortality or some other reasons), to conceal this political conspiracy against Dorgon and his two biological brothers, who had conquered more than half of China for
2169-619: A eunuch servant, hanged himself on a tree in the imperial garden right outside the Forbidden City. Seizing opportunity, the Eight Banners crossed the Great Wall after the Ming border general Wu Sangui (1612–1678) opened the gates at Shanhai Pass . This occurred shortly after he learned about the fate of the capital and an army of Li Zicheng marching towards him; weighing his options of alliance, he decided to side with
2410-487: A fifth generation descendant of Dodo, was designated to inherit the iron-cap princely title of Dorgon. The expression "Dorgon's heirs having been exterminated" (后嗣废绝) does not carry the same meaning as "Dorgon never had a son." Regardless, after a lapse of 128 years, the Qianlong Emperor could no longer find the heirs of Dorgon. The Qianlong Emperor also ordered that the rehabilitation of Dorgon be accompanied by
2651-588: A force personally to face the Oirats after a recent Ming defeat; the emperor left the capital and put his half-brother Zhu Qiyu in charge of affairs as temporary regent. On 8 September, Esen routed Zhengtong's army, and Zhengtong was captured—an event known as the Tumu Crisis . The Oirats held the Zhengtong Emperor for ransom. However, this scheme was foiled once the emperor's younger brother assumed
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#17327724857342892-504: A future prince descending from Empress Xiaolewu would repeat the two Dorgon competitions for succession to the throne happening in 1626, upon the death of Nurhaci, and 1643, upon the death of Hongtaiji. However, Dorgon was posthumously rehabilitated during the Qianlong Emperor 's reign. In 1778, the Qianlong Emperor granted Dorgon a posthumous name zhong (忠; "loyal"), so Dorgon's full posthumous title became "Prince Ruizhong of
3133-514: A group of unrelated people founded a new Manchu clan (mukun) using a geographic origin name such as a toponym for their hala (clan name). The irregularities over Jurchen and Manchu clan origin led to the Qing trying to document and systematize the creation of histories for Manchu clans, including manufacturing an entire legend around the origin of the Aisin-Gioro clan by taking mythology from the northeast. In 1603, Nurhaci gained recognition as
3374-433: A historical work lambasting and belittling his political opponents. The instability at court came right as natural calamity, pestilence, rebellion, and foreign invasion came to a peak. The Chongzhen Emperor (r. 1627–44) had Wei dismissed from court, which led to Wei's suicide shortly after. The eunuchs built their own social structure, providing and gaining support to their birth clans. Instead of fathers promoting sons, it
3615-432: A low civil service rank. The one great advantage of the lesser functionaries over officials was that officials were periodically rotated and assigned to different regional posts and had to rely on the good service and cooperation of the local lesser functionaries. Eunuchs gained unprecedented power over state affairs during the Ming dynasty. One of the most effective means of control was the secret service stationed in what
3856-474: A major cause of "China's cultural stagnation and economic backwardness." However Benjamin Ellman argues there were some positive features, since the essay form was capable of fostering "abstract thinking, persuasiveness, and prosodic form" and that its elaborate structure discouraged a wandering, unfocused narrative". Scholar-officials who entered civil service through examinations acted as executive officials to
4097-447: A massive influx of South American silver. This abundance of specie remonetized the Ming economy, whose paper money had suffered repeated hyperinflation and was no longer trusted. While traditional Confucians opposed such a prominent role for commerce and the newly rich it created, the heterodoxy introduced by Wang Yangming permitted a more accommodating attitude. Zhang Juzheng 's initially successful reforms proved devastating when
4338-465: A memorial staying Xi'an Manchu bannermen still had martial skills although not up to those in the past in a 1737 memorial from Cimbu. By the 1780s, the military skills of Xi'an Manchu bannermen dropped enormously and they had been regarded as the most militarily skilled provincial Manchu banner garrison. Manchu women from the Xi'an garrison often left the walled Manchu garrison and went to hot springs outside
4579-518: A minority within the Banners, making up only 16% in 1648, with Han Bannermen dominating at 75% and Mongol Bannermen making up the rest. It was this multi-ethnic, majority Han force in which Manchus were a minority, which conquered China for the Qing Empire. A mass marriage of Han Chinese officers and officials to Manchu women was organized to balance the massive number of Han women who entered
4820-498: A much larger body of non-ranked personnel called lesser functionaries. They outnumbered officials by four to one; Charles Hucker estimates that they were perhaps as many as 100,000 throughout the empire. These lesser functionaries performed clerical and technical tasks for government agencies. Yet they should not be confused with lowly lictors, runners, and bearers; lesser functionaries were given periodic merit evaluations like officials and after nine years of service might be accepted into
5061-458: A one-week siege. Dorgon's brother, Dodo , then ordered the slaughter of Yangzhou's entire population . As intended, this massacre terrorised other Jiangnan cities into surrendering to the Qing Empire. Indeed, Nanjing surrendered without a fight on 16 June after its last defenders made Dodo promise he would not harm the population. The Qing forces soon captured the Ming emperor (who died in Beijing
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#17327724857345302-477: A period of 25 years, whereas only a daughter was born at the end of this 25-year period, in the same year when he died. These records do not suggest that Dorgon was infertile. In the midst of the 1651 purge, a son of Dorgon managed to escape from execution. He fled Beijing with the active assistance of a key member of the White Banner under the command of Dorgon when he was alive. This heir of Dorgon ran all
5543-645: A power struggle with Hong Taiji's eldest son, Hooge , over the succession to the throne. The conflict was resolved with a compromise – both backed out, and Hong Taiji's ninth son, Fulin, ascended the throne as the Shunzhi Emperor . Since the Shunzhi Emperor was only six years old at that time, Dorgon and his cousin Jirgalang were appointed co-regents. In 1645, Dorgon was conferred the title "Emperor's Uncle and Prince-Regent" (皇叔父攝政王). Later, in 1649,
5784-532: A puppet state in Manchuria, was created by the Empire of Japan which was nominally ruled by the deposed Last Emperor, Puyi , in 1932. Although the nation's name implied a primarily Manchu affiliation, it was actually a completely new country for all the ethnicities in Manchuria, which had a majority Han population and was opposed by many Manchus as well as people of other ethnicities who fought against Japan in
6025-467: A rebellion that sparked a three-year civil war . Under the pretext of rescuing the young Jianwen from corrupting officials, Zhu Di personally led forces in the revolt; the palace in Nanjing was burned to the ground, along with Jianwen himself, his wife, mother, and courtiers. Zhu Di assumed the throne as the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–24); his reign is universally viewed by scholars as a "second founding" of
6266-572: A regime loyal to the Ming. Factional bickering and numerous defections prevented the Southern Ming from mounting an efficient resistance. Several Qing armies swept south, taking the key city of Xuzhou north of the Huai River in early May 1645 and soon converging on Yangzhou , the main city on the Southern Ming's northern line of defence. Bravely defended by Shi Kefa , who refused to surrender, Yangzhou fell to Qing artillery on 20 May after
6507-564: A series of lit beacons and signalling stations to allow rapid warning to friendly units of advancing enemy troops. There were many problems—fiscal or other—facing Ming China that started during the reign of the Wanli Emperor (1572–1620). In the beginning of his reign, Wanli surrounded himself with able advisors and made a conscientious effort to handle state affairs. His Grand Secretary Zhang Juzheng (1572–82) built up an effective network of alliances with senior officials. However, there
6748-613: A skilled work force, and conducting trade in the region's products, which resulted in a continuous trickle of Han convicts, workers, and merchants to the northeast. Han Chinese transfrontiersmen and other non-Jurchen origin people who joined the Later Jin very early were put into the Manchu Banners and were known as "Baisin" in Manchu, and not put into the Han Banners to which later Han Chinese were placed in. An example
6989-471: A slowdown in agriculture was produced by the Little Ice Age . The value of silver rapidly increased because of a disruption in the supply of imported silver from Spanish and Portuguese sources, making it impossible for Chinese farmers to pay their taxes. Combined with crop failure, floods, and an epidemic , the dynasty collapsed in 1644 as Li Zicheng's rebel forces entered Beijing. Li then established
7230-559: A vast imperial household, staffed with thousands of eunuchs, who were headed by the Directorate of Palace Attendants. The eunuchs were divided into different directorates in charge of staff surveillance, ceremonial rites, food, utensils, documents, stables, seals, apparel, and so on. The offices were in charge of providing fuel, music, paper, and baths. The bureaus were in charge of weapons, silverwork, laundering, headgear, bronze work, textile manufacture, wineries, and gardens. At times,
7471-442: A very expensive, sophisticated tutoring of the sort that wealthy gentry families specialized in providing their talented sons. In practice, 90 percent of the population was ineligible due to lack of education, but the upper 10 percent had equal chances for moving to the top. To be successful young men had to have extensive, expensive training in classical Chinese, the use of Mandarin in spoken conversation, calligraphy, and had to master
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7712-717: Is of paternal Mongol origin. Many Jurchen families descended from the original Jin Jurchen migrants in Han areas like those using the surnames Wang and Nian 粘 have openly reclaimed their ethnicity and registered as Manchus. Wanyan (完顏) clan members who had changed their surnames to Wang (王) after the Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty applied successfully to the PRC government for their ethnic group to be marked as Manchu despite never having been part of
7953-588: Is underrepresented in modern scholarship. Others note the Ming need for Central Asian horses and the need to maintain the tea-horse trade . The Ming sporadically sent armed forays into Tibet during the 14th century, which the Tibetans successfully resisted. Several scholars point out that unlike the preceding Mongols, the Ming dynasty did not garrison permanent troops in Tibet. The Wanli Emperor (r. 1572–1620) attempted to reestablish Sino-Tibetan relations in
8194-466: Is unique in all history of feudal China when only direct ancestors and deceased heirs of a higher degree to an emperor (such as one's own older brothers, one's father's older brothers, or one's cousins born into such uncles) were posthumously granted the title of Emperor. The Shunzhi Emperor even bowed thrice in front of Dorgon's coffin during the funeral. However, the suspicion that Dorgon was actually murdered by his political enemies while being away from
8435-581: The fubing system of the Tang dynasty (618–907). In 1380 Hongwu had the Chancellor Hu Weiyong executed upon suspicion of a conspiracy plot to overthrow him; after that Hongwu abolished the Chancellery and assumed this role as chief executive and emperor, a precedent mostly followed throughout the Ming period. With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established
8676-455: The Battle of Shanhai Pass on 27 May. Li Zicheng and his defeated troops looted Beijing for several days until they left the capital on 4 June with all the wealth they could carry. After six weeks of mistreatment at the hands of rebel troops, the residents of Beijing sent a party of elders and officials to greet their liberators on 5 June. They were startled when, instead of meeting Wu Sangui and
8917-736: The Censorate , and the Chief Military Commission and personally took charge of the Six Ministries and the regional Five Military Commissions. Thus a whole level of administration was cut out and only partially rebuilt by subsequent rulers. The Grand Secretariat , at the beginning a secretarial institution that assisted the emperor with administrative paperwork, was instituted, but without employing grand counselors, or chancellors . The Hongwu Emperor sent his heir apparent to Shaanxi in 1391 to "tour and soothe" ( xunfu )
9158-558: The Eight Banners after they were moved there in 1644, since Han Chinese were expelled and not allowed to re-enter the inner part of the city. Only after the " Hundred Days Reform ", during the reign of emperor Guangxu , were Han were allowed to re-enter inner Beijing. Many Manchu Bannermen in Beijing supported the Boxers in the Boxer Rebellion and shared their anti-foreign sentiment. The Manchu Bannermen were devastated by
9399-489: The Embroidered Uniform Guard , and other peoples such as Jurchens were also prominent. He frequently wrote to Mongol, Japanese, Korean, Jurchen, Tibetan, and Southwest frontier rulers offering advice on their governmental and dynastic policy, and insisted on leaders from these regions visiting the Ming capital for audiences. He resettled 100,000 Mongols into his territory, with many serving as guards in
9640-491: The Great Wall against the Mongols and the Oirats, the constant threat of Oirat incursions prompted the Ming authorities to fortify the Great Wall from the late 15th century to the 16th century; nevertheless, John Fairbank notes that "it proved to be a futile military gesture but vividly expressed China's siege mentality." Yet the Great Wall was not meant to be a purely defensive fortification; its towers functioned rather as
9881-643: The Han River to Wuchang , and finally along the northern border of Jiangxi province, Li Zicheng died there in the summer of 1645, thus ending the Shun dynasty . One report says his death was a suicide; another states that he was beaten to death by peasants after he was caught stealing their food. Despite the loss of Beijing and the death of the emperor, the Ming were not yet totally destroyed. Nanjing, Fujian, Guangdong, Shanxi, and Yunnan were all strongholds of Ming resistance. However, there were several pretenders for
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10122-539: The Indian Ocean as far as Arabia and the eastern coasts of Africa. Hongwu and Yongle emperors had also expanded the empire's rule into Inner Asia . The rise of new emperors and new factions diminished such extravagances; the capture of the Emperor Yingzong of Ming during the 1449 Tumu Crisis ended them completely. The imperial navy was allowed to fall into disrepair while forced labor constructed
10363-508: The Japanese invasions of Korea in the 1590s. Ming officials declined the offer, but granted him the title of dragon-tiger general for his gesture. Recognizing the weakness of Ming authority in Manchuria at the time, he consolidated power by co-opting or conquering surrounding territories. In 1616 he declared himself Khan and established the Later Jin dynasty in reference to the previous Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty . In 1618 he openly renounced
10604-505: The Jinyiwei , a network of secret police drawn from his own palace guard. Some 100,000 people were executed in a series of purges during his rule. The Hongwu Emperor issued many edicts forbidding Mongol practices and proclaiming his intention to purify China of barbarian influence. However, he also sought to use the Yuan legacy to legitimize his authority in China and other areas ruled by
10845-516: The Mongol siege upon Zhongdu (Beijing) in the Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty . The Yuan grouped people into different groups based on how recently their state surrendered to the Yuan. Subjects of southern Song were grouped as southerners (nan ren) and also called manzi. Subjects of the Jin dynasty, Western Xia and kingdom of Dali in Yunnan in southern China were classified as northerners, also using
11086-612: The Mongols and the Khitans on the steppes. Most Jurchens raised pigs and stock animals and were farmers. In 1019, Jurchen pirates raided Japan for slaves. Fujiwara Notada, the Japanese governor was killed. In total, 1,280 Japanese were taken prisoner, 374 Japanese were killed and 380 Japanese-owned livestock were killed for food. Only 259 or 270 were returned by Koreans from the 8 ships. The woman Uchikura no Ishime's report
11327-523: The Qing dynasty in 1739—states that the Ming established itinerant commanderies overseeing Tibetan administration while also renewing titles of ex-Yuan dynasty officials from Tibet and conferring new princely titles on leaders of Tibetan Buddhist sects . However, Turrell V. Wylie states that censorship in the Mingshi in favor of bolstering the Ming emperor's prestige and reputation at all costs obfuscates
11568-548: The Qiqihar ( Manchu : ᠴᡳᠴᡳᡤᠠᡵ , Möllendorff : cicigar , Abkai : qiqigar ) District of Heilongjiang Province. Until 1924, the Chinese government continued to pay stipends to Manchu bannermen, but many cut their links with their banners and took on Han-style names to avoid persecution. The official total of Manchus fell by more than half during this period, as they refused to admit their ethnicity when asked by government officials or other outsiders. On
11809-472: The Second Manchu invasion of Korea and forced Joseon to become a Qing tributary. Shortly after, the Koreans renounced their long-held loyalty to the Ming dynasty. A peasant soldier named Li Zicheng mutinied with his fellow soldiers in western Shaanxi in the early 1630s after the Ming government failed to ship much-needed supplies there. In 1634 he was captured by a Ming general and released only on
12050-638: The Second Sino-Japanese War . The Japanese Ueda Kyōsuke labeled all 30 million people in Manchuria "Manchus", including Han Chinese, even though most of them were not ethnic Manchu, and the Japanese-written "Great Manchukuo" built upon Ueda's argument to claim that all 30 million "Manchus" in Manchukuo had the right to independence to justify splitting Manchukuo from China. In 1942, the Japanese-written "Ten Year History of
12291-637: The Shaanxi earthquake of 1556 , occurred during the Jiajing Emperor 's reign, killing approximately 830,000 people. Originally a Ming vassal who officially considered himself a guardian of the Ming border and a local representative of imperial Ming power, Nurhaci , leader of the Jianzhou Jurchens , unified other Jurchen clans to create a new Manchu ethnic identity. He offered to lead his armies to support Ming and Joseon armies against
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#173277248573412532-868: The Shaowu Emperor , and sent the Yongli court fleeing to Nanning in Guangxi. In May 1648, however, Li mutinied against the Qing Empire, and the concurrent rebellion of another former Ming general in Jiangxi helped the Yongli Emperor to retake most of south China. Li's loyalist resurgence failed. New Qing armies managed to reconquer the central provinces of Huguang (present-day Hubei and Hunan ), Jiangxi, and Guangdong in 1649 and 1650. The Yongli Emperor had to flee again. Finally on 24 November 1650, Qing forces led by Shang Kexi captured Guangzhou and massacred
12773-601: The Shun dynasty , but it was defeated shortly afterwards by the Manchu -led Eight Banner armies of the Qing dynasty , with the help of the defecting Ming general Wu Sangui . The Mongol -led Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty. Explanations for the demise of the Yuan include institutionalized ethnic discrimination against the Han people that stirred resentment and rebellion, overtaxation of areas hard-hit by inflation , and massive flooding of
13014-432: The Shunzhi Emperor a long memorial listing a series of crimes committed by Dorgon, which included: possession of yellow robes, which were strictly for use only by the emperor; plotting to seize the throne from the Shunzhi Emperor by calling himself "Emperor's Father"; killing Hooge and taking Hooge's wife for himself. It is difficult to prove verbal accusations made at the time when all records were ordered to be purged by
13255-582: The Southern Ming —survived until 1662. The Ming dynasty's founder, the Hongwu Emperor ( r. 1368–1398), attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile system that would guarantee and support a permanent class of soldiers for his dynasty: the empire's standing army exceeded one million troops and the navy 's dockyards in Nanjing were
13496-437: The Yellow River as a result of the abandonment of irrigation projects. Consequently, agriculture and the economy were in shambles, and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dykes of the Yellow River. A number of Han groups revolted, including the Red Turbans in 1351. The Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus , a Buddhist secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang
13737-504: The conquest of Tibet by Güshi Khan (1582–1655) in 1642, establishing the Khoshut Khanate . The Hongwu Emperor specified his grandson Zhu Yunwen as his successor, and he assumed the throne as the Jianwen Emperor (r. 1398–1402) after Hongwu's death in 1398. The most powerful of Hongwu's sons, Zhu Di, then the militarily mighty disagreed with this, and soon a political showdown erupted between him and his nephew Jianwen. After Jianwen arrested many of Zhu Di's associates, Zhu Di plotted
13978-572: The "New Manchu" Warka foragers in Ningguta and attempted to turn them into normal agricultural farmers but then the Warka just reverted to hunter gathering and requested money to buy cattle for beef broth. The Qing wanted the Warka to become soldier-farmers and imposed this on them but the Warka simply left their garrison at Ningguta and went back to the Sungari river to their homes to herd, fish and hunt. The Qing accused them of desertion. 建州毛憐則渤海大氏遺孽，樂住種，善緝紡，飲食服用，皆如華人，自長白山迤南，可拊而治也。 "The (people of) Chien-chou and Mao-lin [YLSL always reads Mao-lien] are
14219-414: The "dependent class". The change of the name from Jurchen to Manchu was made to hide the fact that the ancestors of the Manchus, the Jianzhou Jurchens, had been ruled by the Chinese. The Qing dynasty carefully hid the two original editions of the books of " Qing Taizu Wu Huangdi Shilu " and the " Manzhou Shilu Tu " (Taizu Shilu Tu) in the Qing palace, forbidden from public view because they showed that
14460-420: The 10th century AD, the term Jurchen first appeared in documents of the late Tang dynasty in reference to the state of Balhae in present-day northeastern China. The Jurchens were sedentary, settled farmers with advanced agriculture. They farmed grain and millet as their cereal crops, grew flax, and raised oxen, pigs, sheep and horses. Their farming way of life was very different from the pastoral nomadism of
14701-400: The 1120s. It was mainly derived from the Khitan script . In 1206, the Mongols , vassals to the Jurchens, rose in Mongolia. Their leader, Genghis Khan , led Mongol troops against the Jurchens, who were finally defeated by Ögedei Khan in 1234. The Jurchen Jin emperor Wanyan Yongji 's daughter, Jurchen Princess Qiguo was married to Mongol leader Genghis Khan in exchange for relieving
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#173277248573414942-642: The 12th century. Ming era examinations were perhaps more difficult to pass since the 1487 requirement of completing the " eight-legged essay ", a departure from basing essays off progressing literary trends. The exams increased in difficulty as the student progressed from the local level, and appropriate titles were accordingly awarded successful applicants. Officials were classified in nine hierarchic grades, each grade divided into two degrees, with ranging salaries (nominally paid in piculs of rice) according to their rank. While provincial graduates who were appointed to office were immediately assigned to low-ranking posts like
15183-400: The 1690s and 18th century. In the 1720s Jingzhou, Hangzhou and Nanjing Manchu banner garrisons fought in Tibet. For the over 200 years they lived next to each other, Han civilians and Manchu bannermen in Xi'an did not intermarry with each other at all. In a book published in 1911 American sociologist Edward Alsworth Ross wrote of his visit to Xi'an just before the Xinhai revolution:"In Sianfu
15424-400: The 1850s, large numbers of Manchu bannermen were sent to central China to fight the Taiping rebels . (For example, just the Heilongjiang province – which at the time included only the northern part of today's Heilongjiang – contributed 67,730 bannermen to the campaign, of whom only 10–20% survived). Those few who returned were demoralized and often disposed to opium addiction. In 1860, in
15665-461: The Bedchamber, Bureau of Handicrafts, and Office of Staff Surveillance. Starting in the 1420s, eunuchs began taking over these ladies' positions until only the Bureau of Apparel with its four subsidiary offices remained. Hongwu had his eunuchs organized into the Directorate of Palace Attendants, but as eunuch power at court increased, so did their administrative offices, with eventual twelve directorates, four offices, and eight bureaus. The dynasty had
15906-457: The Construction of Manchukuo" attempted to emphasize the right of ethnic Japanese to the land of Manchukuo while attempting to delegitimize the Manchus' claim to Manchukuo as their native land, noting that most Manchus moved out during the Qing dynasty and only returned later. Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty ( / m ɪ ŋ / MING ), officially the Great Ming , was an imperial dynasty of China , ruling from 1368 to 1644 following
16147-426: The Dorgon clan. He named the large piece of land where he finally settled Haizhou 海洲, a combination of Haixi 海西，the tribal native place of Empress Xiaoliewu, his grandmother; and Jianzhou 建洲, the tribal native place of Nurhaci, his grandfather. The village where his descendants have sprung up since 1651 was named "Revelation of the Dragon 顯龍", indicating his hope that one day someone in his line would be able to reclaim
16388-635: The Eight Banner system at all during the Qing dynasty. The surname Nianhan (粘罕), shortened to Nian ( 粘 ) is a Jurchen origin surname, also originating from one of the members of the royal Wanyan clan. It is an extremely rare surname in China, and 1,100 members of the Nian clan live in Nan'an, Quanzhou, they live in Licheng district of Quanzhou, 900 in Jinjiang, Quanzhou, 40 in Shishi city of Quanzhou, and 500 in Quanzhou city itself in Fujian, and just over 100 people in Xiamen, Jin'an district of Fuzhou, Zhangpu and Sanming, as well as 1000 in Laiyang, Shandong, and 1,000 in Kongqiao and Wujiazhuang in Xingtai, Hebei. Some of
16629-437: The Eight Banners, initially capped to 4 then growing to 8 with three different types of ethnic banners as Han, Mongol and Jurchen were recruited into Nurhaci's forces. Jurchens like Nurhaci spoke both their native Tungusic language and Chinese, adopting the Mongol script for their own language unlike the Jin Jurchen's Khitan derived script. They adopted Confucian values and practiced their shamanist traditions. The Qing stationed
16870-478: The February 1651 imperial edict trying to justify the ultimate punishment to a dead person as well as a key member of the imperial clan, Shunzhi ordered that not only Dorgon's name be removed from the scrolls of the imperial ancestral temple. His biological mother, Empress Xiaoliewu, got the same treatment. It was a political act to remove the legitimacy for succession to the throne by any future heir descended from Empress Xiaoliewu. Execution of all of Dorgon's heirs
17111-439: The First Rank" (和碩睿忠親王). The word "loyal" was intentionally picked. It starkly testified that the charges made by Jirgalang in 1651 were all trumped up. The Qianlong Emperor, either intentionally or inadvertently, contradicted the records of the imperial ancestral temple left behind by Shunzhi when he ordered that the words "Dorgon's heirs having been exterminated" (后嗣废绝) be included into official Qing history to indicate why Dorbo,
17352-768: The Han Chinese from Liaodong who later became the Fushun Nikan and Tai Nikan defected to the Jurchens (Manchus). These Han Chinese origin Manchu clans continue to use their original Han surnames and are marked as of Han origin on Qing lists of Manchu clans . The Fushun Nikan became Manchufied and the originally Han banner families of Wang Shixuan, Cai Yurong, Zu Dashou, Li Yongfang, Shi Tingzhu and Shang Kexi intermarried extensively with Manchu families. A Manchu Bannerman in Guangzhou called Hequan illegally adopted
17593-520: The Jianzhou Jurchens' culture. Although Manchus practiced equestrianism and archery on horseback, their immediate progenitors practiced sedentary agriculture. The Manchus also partook in hunting but were sedentary. Their primary mode of production was farming while they lived in villages, forts, and walled towns. Their Jurchen Jin predecessors also practiced farming. Only the Mongols and the northern "wild" Jurchen were semi-nomadic, unlike
17834-401: The Jurchen script was officially abandoned. More Jurchens adopted Mongolian as their writing language and fewer used Chinese. The final recorded Jurchen writing dates to 1526. The Manchus are sometimes mistakenly identified as nomadic people. The Manchu way of life (economy) was agricultural, farming crops and raising animals on farms. Manchus practiced slash-and-burn agriculture in
18075-501: The Jurchen tribes and established a military system called the " Eight Banners ", which organized Jurchen soldiers into groups of "Bannermen", and ordered his scholar Erdeni and minister Gagai to create a new Jurchen script (later known as Manchu script ) using the traditional Mongolian alphabet as a reference. When the Jurchens were reorganized by Nurhaci into the Eight Banners, many Manchu clans were artificially created as
18316-609: The Jurchens became vassals of the Khitan -led Liao dynasty . The Jurchens in the Yalu River region were tributaries of Goryeo since the reign of Wang Geon , who called upon them during the wars of the Later Three Kingdoms period, but the Jurchens switched allegiance between Liao and Goryeo multiple times, taking advantage of the tension between the two nations; posing a potential threat to Goryeo's border security,
18557-465: The Jurchens began to respect dogs around the time of the Ming dynasty, and passed this tradition on to the Manchus. It was prohibited in Jurchen culture to use dog skin, and forbidden for Jurchens to harm, kill, or eat dogs. For political reasons, the Jurchen leader Nurhaci chose variously to emphasize either differences or similarities in lifestyles with other peoples like the Mongols. Nurhaci said to
18798-516: The Jurchens offered tribute to the Goryeo court, expecting lavish gifts in return. Before the Jurchens overthrew the Khitan, married Jurchen women and Jurchen girls were raped by Liao Khitan envoys as a custom which caused resentment. The Jurchens and their Manchu descendants had Khitan linguistic and grammatical elements in their personal names like suffixes. Many Khitan names had a "ju" suffix. In
19039-563: The Korean Sin Chung-il when it was very cold. These Jurchens who lived in the north-east's harsh cold climate sometimes half sunk their houses in the ground which they constructed of brick or timber and surrounded their fortified villages with stone foundations on which they built wattle and mud walls to defend against attack. Village clusters were ruled by beile, hereditary leaders. They fought each other's and dispensed weapons, wives, slaves and lands to their followers in them. This
19280-556: The Later Jin dynasty ( Manchu : ᠠᡳᠰᡳᠨ ᡤᡠᡵᡠᠨ , Möllendorff : aisin gurun , Abkai : aisin gurun , 後金). Nurhaci then renounced the Ming overlordship with the Seven Grievances and launched his attack on the Ming dynasty and moved the capital to Mukden after his conquest of Liaodong. In 1635, his son and successor Hong Taiji changed the name of the Jurchen ethnic group ( Manchu : ᠵᡠᡧᡝᠨ , Möllendorff : jušen , Abkai : juxen ) to
19521-538: The Liaodong palisade and connected and fortified the Great Wall into its modern form. Wide-ranging censuses of the entire empire were conducted decennially, but the desire to avoid labor and taxes and the difficulty of storing and reviewing the enormous archives at Nanjing hampered accurate figures. Estimates for the late-Ming population vary from 160 to 200 million, but necessary revenues were squeezed out of smaller and smaller numbers of farmers as more disappeared from
19762-540: The Manchu Aisin-Gioro family had been ruled by the Ming dynasty. In the Ming period, the Koreans of Joseon referred to the Jurchen inhabited lands north of the Korean peninsula, above the rivers Yalu and Tumen to be part of Ming China, as the "superior country" (sangguk) which they called Ming China. The Qing deliberately excluded references and information that showed the Jurchens (Manchus) as subservient to
20003-476: The Manchu court as courtesans, concubines, and wives. These couples were arranged by Prince Yoto and Hong Taiji in 1632 to promote harmony between the two ethnic groups. Also to promote ethnic harmony, a 1648 decree from the Shunzhi Emperor allowed Han Chinese civilian men to marry Manchu women from the Banners with the permission of the Board of Revenue if they were registered daughters of officials or commoners or
20244-470: The Manchu. A year later, Hong Taiji proclaimed himself the emperor of the Qing dynasty ( Manchu : ᡩᠠᡳᠴᡳᠩ ᡤᡠᡵᡠᠨ , Möllendorff : daicing gurun , Abkai : daiqing gurun ). Factors for the change of name of these people from Jurchen to Manchu include the fact that the term "Jurchen" had negative connotations since the Jurchens had been in a servile position to the Ming dynasty for several hundred years, and it also referred to people of
20485-527: The Manchus. The Eight Banners under the Manchu Prince Dorgon (1612–1650) and Wu Sangui approached Beijing after the army sent by Li was destroyed at Shanhaiguan ; the Prince of Shun's army fled the capital on the fourth of June. On 6 June, the Manchus and Wu entered the capital and proclaimed the young Shunzhi Emperor ruler of China. After being forced out of Xi'an by the Qing, chased along
20726-465: The Ming Empire. In the very first imperial examination held under Qing rule in 1646, candidates, most of whom were northern Chinese, were asked how the Manchus and Han Chinese could work together for a common purpose. The 1649 examination asked "how Manchus and Han Chinese could be unified so that their hearts were the same and they worked together without division." Under the Shunzhi Emperor's reign,
20967-660: The Ming court in 1557 to settle Macau as their permanent trade base in China. Their role in providing silver was gradually surpassed by the Spanish , while even the Dutch challenged them for control of this trade. Philip IV of Spain (r. 1621–1665) began cracking down on illegal smuggling of silver from New Spain and Peru across the Pacific through the Philippines towards China, in favor of shipping silver mined in
21208-454: The Ming dynasty since he reversed many of his father's policies. Yongle demoted Nanjing to a secondary capital and in 1403 announced the new capital of China was to be at his power base in Beijing . Construction of a new city there lasted from 1407 to 1420, employing hundreds of thousands of workers daily. At the center was the political node of the Imperial City , and at the center of this
21449-531: The Ming dynasty, from the History of Ming to hide their former subservient relationship to the Ming. The Ming Veritable Records were not used to source content on Jurchens during Ming rule in the History of Ming because of this. In 1644, the Ming capital, Beijing , was sacked by a peasant revolt led by Li Zicheng , a former minor Ming official who became the leader of the peasant revolt, who then proclaimed
21690-495: The Ming government. They had to present tribute as secretariats ( 中書舍人 ) with less reward from the Ming court than in the time when they were heads of guards – an unpopular development. Subsequently, more and more Jurchens recognised the Ming Empire's declining power due to Esen's invasion. The Zhengtong Emperor's capture directly caused Jurchen guards to go out of control. Tribal leaders, such as Cungšan and Wang Gao , brazenly plundered Ming territory. At about this time,
21931-606: The Ming heir apparent, they saw Dorgon, a horse-riding Manchu with the front half of his head shaved, present himself as the Prince-Regent . In the midst of this upheaval, Dorgon installed himself as Prince-Regent in Wuying Palace (武英殿), the only building that remained more or less intact after Li Zicheng had set fire to the Forbidden City on 3 June. Banner troops were ordered not to loot; their discipline made
22172-456: The Ming in campaigns against aboriginal tribes. In 1381, the Ming dynasty annexed the areas of the southwest that had once been part of the Kingdom of Dali following the successful effort by Hui Muslim Ming armies to defeat Yuan -loyalist Mongol and Hui Muslim troops holding out in Yunnan province. The Hui troops under General Mu Ying , who was appointed Governor of Yunnan, were resettled in
22413-538: The Ming overlordship and effectively declared war against the Ming with the " Seven Grievances ." In 1636, Nurhaci's son Hong Taiji renamed his dynasty the " Great Qing " at Mukden (modern Shenyang), which had been made their capital in 1625. Hong Taiji also adopted the Chinese imperial title huangdi , declared the Chongde ("Revering Virtue") era, and changed the ethnic name of his people from "Jurchen" to " Manchu ". In 1636, Banner Armies defeated Joseon during
22654-439: The Ming overtures, but was unsuccessful, and Möngke Temür submitted to the Ming Empire. Since then, more and more Jurchen tribes presented tribute to the Ming Empire in succession. The Ming divided them into 384 guards, and the Jurchen became vassals to the Ming Empire. During the Ming dynasty, the name for the Jurchen land was Nurgan . The Jurchens became part of the Ming dynasty's Nurgan Regional Military Commission under
22895-432: The Ming throne, and their forces were divided. These scattered Ming remnants in southern China after 1644 were collectively designated by 19th-century historians as the Southern Ming . Each bastion of resistance was individually defeated by the Qing until 1662, when the last Southern Ming emperor, Zhu Youlang , the Yongli Emperor, was captured and executed. Despite the Ming defeat, smaller loyalist movements continued until
23136-572: The Mongol commander Naghachu 's resisting forces who settled in the Haixi area and began to summon the Jurchen tribes to pay tribute. At the time, some Jurchen clans were vassals to the Joseon dynasty of Korea such as Odoli and Huligai . Their elites served in the Korean royal bodyguard. The Joseon Koreans tried to deal with the military threat posed by the Jurchen by using both forceful means and incentives, and by launching military attacks. At
23377-422: The Mongols that "the languages of the Chinese and Koreans are different, but their clothing and way of life is the same. It is the same with us Manchus (Jušen) and Mongols. Our languages are different, but our clothing and way of life is the same." Later Nurhaci indicated that the bond with the Mongols was not based in any real shared culture. It was for pragmatic reasons of "mutual opportunism," since Nurhaci said to
23618-532: The Mongols: "You Mongols raise livestock, eat meat, and wear pelts. My people till the fields and live on grain. We two are not one country and we have different languages." A century after the chaos started in the Jurchen lands, Nurhaci , a chieftain of the Jianzhou Left Guard who officially considered himself a local representative of imperial power of the Ming dynasty , made efforts to unify
23859-521: The Muslim rebels had been crushed in campaigns that inflicted heavy casualties.· Dorgon died on 31 December 1650, during a hunting trip in Kharahotun (present-day Chengde , Hebei), after sustaining injuries despite the presence of imperial doctors. He was posthumously granted the title "Emperor Yi" (義皇帝) and the temple name "Chengzong" (成宗), even though he was never emperor during his lifetime, which
24100-761: The Nian from Quanzhou immigrated to Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. In Taiwan they are concentrated in Lukang township and Changhua city of Changhua county as well as in Dingnien village, Xianne village Fuxing township of Changhua county. There are less than 30,000 members of the Nian clan worldwide, with 9,916 of them in Taiwan, and 3,040 of those in Fuxing township of Changhua county and its most common in Dingnian village. During
24341-505: The Odoli clan of the Jianzhou Jurchens , defected from paying tribute to Korea, becoming a tributary state to China instead. Yi Seong-gye , the Taejo of Joseon , asked the Ming Empire to send Möngke Temür back but was refused. The Yongle Emperor was determined to wrest the Jurchens out of Korean influence and have China dominate them instead. Korea tried to persuade Möngke Temür to reject
24582-593: The Prince of Yan upon the throne as the Yongle Emperor in 1402. The Yongle Emperor established Yan as a secondary capital and renamed it Beijing , constructed the Forbidden City , and restored the Grand Canal and the primacy of the imperial examinations in official appointments. He rewarded his eunuch supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats . One eunuch, Zheng He , led seven enormous voyages of exploration into
24823-459: The Qianlong Emperor in 1778 when he also ordered the rehabilitation of Dorgon. The last charge that Dorgon took Hooge's wife was mostly contrived, as the Manchu tradition dating from the 12th century had allowed a male relative to marry the deceased person's wife almost as a charitable act to save her and her children from being starved to death in the minus 20, merciless winters of the northeastern tip of China, known nowadays as Manchuria. Jirgalang
25064-606: The Spanish Latin American colonies through Spanish ports. People began hoarding precious silver as there was progressively less of it, forcing the ratio of the value of copper to silver into a steep decline. In the 1630s a string of one thousand copper coins equaled an ounce of silver; by 1640 that sum could fetch half an ounce; and, by 1643 only one-third of an ounce. For peasants this meant economic disaster, since they paid taxes in silver while conducting local trade and crop sales in copper. Historians have debated
25305-500: The Sure Kundulen Khan ( Manchu : ᠰᡠᡵᡝ ᡴᡠᠨᡩᡠᠯᡝᠨ ᡥᠠᠨ , Möllendorff : sure kundulen han , Abkai : sure kundulen han , "wise and respected khan") from his Khalkha Mongol allies; then, in 1616, he publicly enthroned himself and issued a proclamation naming himself Genggiyen Khan ( Manchu : ᡤᡝᠩᡤᡳᠶᡝᠨ ᡥᠠᠨ , Möllendorff : genggiyen han , Abkai : genggiyen han , "bright khan") of
25546-616: The Tartar quarter is a dismal picture of crumbling walls, decay, indolence and squalor. On the big drill grounds you see the runways along which the horseman gallops and shoots arrows at a target while the Tartar military mandarins look on. These lazy bannermen were tried in the new army but proved flabby and good-for-nothing; they would break down on an ordinary twenty-mile march. Battening on their hereditary pensions they have given themselves up to sloth and vice, and their poor chest development, small weak muscles, and diminishing families foreshadow
25787-609: The Xi'an dialect of Mandarin. Many Bannermen got jobs as teachers, writing textbooks for learning Mandarin and instructing people in Mandarin. In Guangdong, the Manchu Mandarin teacher Sun Yizun advised that the Yinyun Chanwei and Kangxi Zidian , dictionaries issued by the Qing government, were the correct guides to Mandarin pronunciation, rather than the pronunciation of the Beijing and Nanjing dialects. In
26028-655: The Yongle Emperor's reign (1402–1424) and afterwards managed huge imperial workshops, commanded armies, and participated in matters of appointment and promotion of officials. Yongle put 75 eunuchs in charge of foreign policy; they traveled frequently to vassal states including Annam, Mongolia, the Ryukyu Islands, and Tibet and less frequently to farther-flung places like Japan and Nepal. In the later 15th century, however, eunuch envoys generally only traveled to Korea. The eunuchs developed their own bureaucracy that
26269-850: The Yongle Emperor, the Ming Dynasty established the Nurgan Regional Military Commission on the banks of the Amur River , and Yishiha , a eunuch of Haixi Jurchen origin, was ordered to lead an expedition to the mouth of the Amur to pacify the Wild Jurchens. After the death of Yongle Emperor, the Nurgan Regional Military Commission was abolished in 1435, and the Ming court ceased to have substantial activities there, although
26510-730: The Yongle Emperor, with Ming forces erecting the Yongning Temple Stele in 1413, at the headquarters of Nurgan. The stele was inscribed in Chinese, Jurchen, Mongolian, and Tibetan. In 1449, Mongol taishi Esen attacked the Ming Empire and captured the Zhengtong Emperor in Tumu . Some Jurchen guards in Jianzhou and Haixi cooperated with Esen's action, but more were attacked in the Mongol invasion. Many Jurchen chieftains lost their hereditary certificates granted by
26751-468: The Yuan capital Dadu (present-day Beijing ) in 1368. The last Yuan emperor fled north to the upper capital Shangdu , and Zhu declared the founding of the Ming dynasty after razing the Yuan palaces in Dadu to the ground; the city was renamed Beiping in the same year. Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu, or "Vastly Martial", as his era name . Hongwu made an immediate effort to rebuild state infrastructure. He built
26992-510: The Yuan directive to treat Jurchens the same as Mongols referred to Jurchens and Khitans in the northwest (not the Jurchen homeland in the northeast), presumably in the lands of Qara Khitai, where many Khitan live but it is a mystery as to how Jurchens were living there. Many Jurchens adopted Mongolian customs, names, and the Mongolian language. As time went on, fewer and fewer Jurchens could recognize their own script. The Jurchen Yehe Nara clan
27233-402: The Yuan. He continued policies of the Yuan dynasty such as continued request for Korean concubines and eunuchs, Mongol-style hereditary military institutions, Mongol-style clothing and hats, promoting archery and horseback riding, and having large numbers of Mongols serve in the Ming military. Until the late 16th century Mongols still constituted one-in-three officers serving in capital forces like
27474-413: The aftermath of the loss of Outer Manchuria , and with the imperial and provincial governments in deep financial trouble, parts of Manchuria became officially open to Chinese settlement ; within a few decades, the Manchus became a minority in most of Manchuria's districts. The majority of the hundreds of thousands of people living in inner Beijing during the Qing were Manchus and Mongol bannermen from
27715-814: The aloof emperor and his officials; any senior official who wanted to discuss state matters had to persuade powerful eunuchs with a bribe simply to have his demands or message relayed to the emperor. There were several military campaigns, which included the Ordos campaign , Bozhou rebellion by the Chiefdom of Bozhou in southwestern China and the Imjin War , during the Wanli Emperor's reign. The Hongwu Emperor forbade eunuchs to learn how to read or engage in politics. Whether or not these restrictions were carried out with absolute success in his reign, eunuchs during
27956-415: The areas north of Shenyang . The Haixi Jurchens were "semi-agricultural, the Jianzhou Jurchens and Maolian ( 毛憐 ) Jurchens were sedentary, while hunting and fishing was the way of life of the "Wild Jurchens". Han Chinese society resembled that of the sedentary Jianzhou and Maolian, who were farmers. Hunting, archery on horseback, horsemanship, livestock raising, and sedentary agriculture were all part of
28197-452: The average number of graduates of the metropolitan examination per session was the highest of the Qing dynasty ("to win more Chinese support"), continuing until 1660 when lower quotas were established. Under the reign of Dorgon – whom historians have called "the mastermind of the Qing conquest" and "the principal architect of the great Manchu enterprise" – the Qing subdued almost all of China and pushed loyalist " Southern Ming " resistance into
28438-547: The capital garrison in Beijing were said to be the worst militarily, unable to draw bows, unable to ride horses and fight properly and losing their Manchu culture. Manchu bannermen from the Xi'an banner garrison were praised for maintaining Manchu culture by Kangxi in 1703. Xi'an garrison Manchus were said to retain Manchu culture far better than all other Manchus at martial skills in the provincial garrisons and they were able to draw their bows properly and perform cavalry archery unlike Beijing Manchus. The Qianlong emperor received
28679-460: The capital. The emperor also strongly advertised the hospitality and role granted to Chinggisid nobles in his court. Hongwu insisted that he was not a rebel, and he attempted to justify his conquest of the other rebel warlords by claiming that he was a Yuan subject and had been divinely-appointed to restore order by crushing rebels. Most Chinese elites did not view the Yuan's Mongol ethnicity as grounds to resist or reject it. Hongwu emphasised that he
28920-513: The city and gained bad reputations for their sexual lives. A Manchu from Beijing, Sumurji, was shocked and disgusted by this after being appointed Lieutenant general of the Manchu garrison of Xi'an and informed the Yongzheng emperor what they were doing. Han civilians and Manchu bannermen in Xi'an had bad relations, with the bannermen trying to steal at the markets. Manchu Lieutenant general Cimbru reported this to Yongzheng emperor in 1729 after he
29161-463: The city walls were finally breached on 9 October 1645, the Qing army led by the previous Ming defector Liu Liangzuo (劉良佐; d. 1667) massacred the entire population, killing between 74,000 and 100,000 people. These massacres ended armed resistance against the Qing Empire in the Lower Yangtze. A few committed loyalists became hermits, hoping that for lack of military success, their withdrawal from
29402-541: The city's population, killing as many as 70,000 people. Although Dutch traveler Johan Nieuhof who witnessed the event happened claimed only 8000 people were slaughtered Meanwhile, in October 1646, Qing armies led by Hooge reached Sichuan, where their mission was to destroy the regime of bandit chief Zhang Xianzhong . Zhang was killed in a battle against Qing forces near Xichong in central Sichuan on 1 February 1647. Also late in 1646 but further north, forces assembled by
29643-399: The collapse of the Mongol -led Yuan dynasty . The Ming dynasty was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people , the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the short-lived Shun dynasty ), numerous rump regimes ruled by remnants of the Ming imperial family —collectively called
29884-596: The control imposed upon the Jurchens in Manchuria by the Mongols, yet it created a norm of organization that would ultimately serve as the main instrument for the relations with peoples along the northeast frontiers. By the end of the Hongwu reign, the essentials of a policy toward the Jurchens had taken shape. Most of the inhabitants of Manchuria, except for the Wild Jurchens , were at peace with China. In 1409, under
30125-665: The country. They are found in 31 Chinese provincial regions. Among them, Liaoning has the largest population and Hebei , Heilongjiang , Jilin , Inner Mongolia and Beijing have over 100,000 Manchu residents. About half of the population live in Liaoning and one-fifth in Hebei . There are a number of Manchu autonomous counties in China, such as Xinbin , Xiuyan , Qinglong , Fengning , Yitong , Qingyuan , Weichang , Kuancheng , Benxi , Kuandian , Huanren , Fengcheng , Beizhen and over 300 Manchu towns and townships. Manchus are
30366-441: The county graduates, those who passed the palace examination were awarded a jinshi ('presented scholar') degree and assured a high-level position. In 276 years of Ming rule and ninety palace examinations, the number of doctoral degrees granted by passing the palace examinations was 24,874. Ebrey states that "there were only two to four thousand of these jinshi at any given time, on the order of one out of 10,000 adult males." This
30607-549: The court of the Tianqi Emperor (r. 1620–1627) and had his political rivals tortured to death, mostly the vocal critics from the faction of the Donglin Society . He ordered temples built in his honor throughout the Ming Empire, and built personal palaces created with funds allocated for building the previous emperor's tombs. His friends and family gained important positions without qualifications. Wei also published
30848-581: The descendants of the family Ta of Po-hai . They love to be sedentary and sew, and they are skilled in spinning and weaving. As for food, clothing and utensils, they are the same as (those used by) the Chinese. Those living south of the Ch'ang-pai mountain are apt to be soothed and governed." 魏焕《皇明九邊考》卷二《遼東鎮邊夷考》 Translation from Sino-Jürčed relations during the Yung-Lo period, 1403–1424 by Henry Serruys Although their Mohe ancestors did not respect dogs,
31089-480: The dynasty. At the beginning of the Qing dynasty, the Qing allowed Han civilians to marry Manchu women. Then the Qing banned civilians from marrying women from the Eight banners later. In 1865, the Qing allowed Han civilian men to marry Manchu bannerwomen in all garrisons except the capital garrison of Beijing. There was no formal law on marriage between people in the different banners like the Manchu and Han banners but it
31330-479: The earliest use of Manchu. However, the actual etymology of the ethnic name "Manju" is debatable. According to the Qing dynasty's official historical record, the Researches on Manchu Origins , the ethnic name came from Mañjuśrī . The Qianlong Emperor also supported the point of view and even wrote several poems on the subject. Meng Sen, a scholar of the Qing dynasty, agreed. On the other hand, he thought
31571-469: The early dying out of the stock. Where is there a better illustration of the truth that parasitism leads to degeneration!" Ross spoke highly of the Han and Hui population of Xi'an, Shaanxi and Gansu in general, saying: "After a fortnight of mule litter we sight ancient yellow Sianfu, "the Western capital," with its third of a million souls. Within the fortified triple gate the facial mold abruptly changes and
31812-556: The east, the Red Banners to the west, and the Blue Banners to the south. This distribution complied with the order established in the Manchu homeland before the conquest and under which "each of the banners was given a fixed geographical location according to the points of the compass." Despite tax remissions and large-scale building programmes designed to facilitate the transition, in 1648 many Chinese civilians still lived among
32053-597: The emperor and ministers at times). The Secretariat operated as a coordinating agency, whereas the Six Ministries— Personnel , Revenue , Rites , War , Justice , and Public Works —were direct administrative organs of the state: The imperial household was staffed almost entirely by eunuchs and ladies with their own bureaus. Female servants were organized into the Bureau of Palace Attendance, Bureau of Ceremonies, Bureau of Apparel, Bureau of Foodstuffs, Bureau of
32294-531: The emperor, handling paperwork under the reign of the Yongle Emperor and later appointed as top officials of agencies and Grand Preceptor, a top-ranking, non-functional civil service post, under the Hongxi Emperor (r. 1424–25). The Grand Secretariat drew its members from the Hanlin Academy and were considered part of the imperial authority, not the ministerial one (hence being at odds with both
32535-497: The emperor. As in prior dynasties, the provincial administrations were monitored by a travelling inspector from the Censorate. Censors had the power to impeach officials on an irregular basis, unlike the senior officials who were to do so only in triennial evaluations of junior officials. Although decentralization of state power within the provinces occurred in the early Ming, the trend of central government officials delegated to
32776-615: The establishment of the Shun dynasty . The last Ming ruler, the Chongzhen Emperor , died by suicide by hanging himself when the city fell. When Li Zicheng moved against the Ming general Wu Sangui , the latter made an alliance with the Manchus and opened the Shanhai Pass to the Manchu army. After the Manchus defeated Li Zicheng , they moved the capital of their new Qing Empire to Beijing ( Manchu : ᠪᡝᡤᡳᠩ , Möllendorff : beging , Abkai : beging ) in
33017-504: The establishment of the Xi dynasty , while Li's center of power was in Hubei with extended influence over Shaanxi and Henan. In 1640, masses of Chinese peasants who were starving, unable to pay their taxes, and no longer in fear of the frequently defeated Chinese army, began to form into huge bands of rebels. The Chinese military, caught between fruitless efforts to defeat the Manchu raiders from
33258-466: The exam generally limited participants to those already coming from the landholding class. However, the government did exact provincial quotas while drafting officials. This was an effort to curb monopolization of power by landholding gentry who came from the most prosperous regions, where education was the most advanced. The expansion of the printing industry since Song times enhanced the spread of knowledge and number of potential exam candidates throughout
33499-459: The far southwestern reaches of China. After repressing anti-Qing revolts in Hebei and Shandong in the summer and fall of 1644, Dorgon sent armies to root out Li Zicheng from the important city of Xi'an ( Shaanxi province), where Li had reestablished his headquarters after fleeing Beijing in early June 1644. Under the pressure of Qing armies, Li was forced to leave Xi'an in February 1645. He
33740-419: The fighting during the First Sino-Japanese War and the Boxer Rebellion, sustaining massive casualties during the wars and subsequently being driven into extreme suffering and hardship. Much of the fighting in the Boxer Rebellion against the foreigners in defense of Beijing and Manchuria was done by Manchu Banner armies, which were destroyed while resisting the invasion. The German Minister Clemens von Ketteler
33981-405: The following year) and seized Jiangnan's main cities, including Suzhou and Hangzhou ; by early July 1645, the frontier between the Qing Empire and the Southern Ming regime had been pushed south to the Qiantang River . On 21 July 1645, after Jiangnan had been superficially pacified, Dorgon issued a most inopportune edict ordering all Han Chinese men to shave the front half of their heads and wear
34222-444: The government to properly manage irrigation and flood-control projects caused widespread loss of life and normal civility. The central government, starved of resources, could do very little to mitigate the effects of these calamities. Making matters worse, a widespread epidemic, the Great Plague of 1633–1644 , spread across China from Zhejiang to Henan, killing an unknown but large number of people. The deadliest earthquake of all time,
34463-424: The guards continued to exist in Manchuria. Throughout its existence, the Ming established a total of 384 guards (衛, wei ) and 24 battalions (所, suo ) in Manchuria, but these were probably only nominal offices and did not necessarily imply political control. By the late Ming period, Ming's political presence in Manchuria has declined significantly. The Mingshi —the official history of the Ming dynasty compiled by
34704-414: The heavy protection afforded him inside the Forbidden City never went away. Dorgon had 25 years of experience of horse-riding and managed to survive, on horseback, numerous battles with the Koreans, Mongols, Han Chinese rebels, as well as regular Han Chinese armies. The official Qing history claim that he injured his leg while riding on his horse and that the injuries were so severe that he could not survive
34945-430: The intricate poetic requirements of the eight-legged essay. Not only did the traditional gentry dominated the system, they also learned that conservatism and resistance to new ideas was the path to success. For centuries critics had pointed out these problems, but the examination system only became more abstract and less relevant to the needs of China. The consensus of scholars is that the eight-legged essay can be blamed as
35186-632: The kingdoms visited by Zheng He, Yongle proclaimed the Kingdom of Cochin to be its protectorate. The Chinese had sent diplomatic missions over land since the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) and engaged in private overseas trade , but these missions were unprecedented in grandeur and scale. To service seven different tributary voyages, the Nanjing shipyards constructed two thousand vessels from 1403 to 1419, including treasure ships measuring 112 to 134 m (367 to 440 ft) in length and 45 to 54 m (148 to 177 ft) in width. Yongle used woodblock printing to spread Chinese culture. He also used
35427-436: The largest in the world. He also took great care breaking the power of the court eunuchs and unrelated magnates, enfeoffing his many sons throughout China and attempting to guide these princes through the Huang-Ming Zuxun , a set of published dynastic instructions. This failed when his teenage successor, the Jianwen Emperor , attempted to curtail his uncle's power, prompting the Jingnan campaign , an uprising that placed
35668-456: The largest minority group in China without an autonomous region . "Manchu" ( Manchu : ᠮᠠᠨᠵᡠ , Möllendorff : manju ) was adopted as the official name of the people by Emperor Hong Taiji in 1635, replacing the earlier name " Jurchen ". It appears that manju was an old term for the Jianzhou Jurchens , although the etymology is not well understood. The Jiu Manzhou Dang , archives of early 17th century documents, contains
35909-489: The largest political division was the circuit ( lu 路). However, after the Jurchen invasion in 1127, the Song court established four semi-autonomous regional command systems based on territorial and military units, with a detached service secretariat that would become the provincial administrations of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. Copied on the Yuan model, the Ming provincial bureaucracy contained three commissions: one civil, one military, and one for surveillance. Below
36150-399: The last opposing rebel faction, leaving Zhu Yuanzhang in uncontested control of the bountiful Yangtze River Valley and cementing his power in the south. After the dynastic head of the Red Turbans suspiciously died in 1367 while a guest of Zhu, there was no one left who was remotely capable of contesting his march to the throne, and he made his imperial ambitions known by sending an army toward
36391-402: The late 19th century and early 1900s, intermarriage between Manchus and Han bannermen in the northeast increased as Manchu families were more willing to marry their daughters to sons from well off Han families to trade their ethnic status for higher financial status. Most intermarriage consisted of Han Bannermen marrying Manchus in areas like Aihun. Han Chinese Bannermen wedded Manchus and there
36632-413: The level of the province ( sheng 省) were prefectures ( fu 府) operating under a prefect ( zhifu 知府), followed by subprefectures ( zhou 州) under a subprefect. The lowest unit was the county ( xian 縣), overseen by a magistrate. Besides the provinces, there were also two large areas that belonged to no province, but were metropolitan areas ( jing 京) attached to Nanjing and Beijing. Departing from
36873-419: The local dialect instead of Standard Chinese. By the early years of the Republic of China , very few areas of China still had traditional Manchu populations. Among the few regions where such comparatively traditional communities could be found, and where the Manchu language was still widely spoken, were the Aigun ( Manchu : ᠠᡳᡥᡡᠨ , Möllendorff : aihūn , Abkai : aihvn ) District and
37114-409: The local peoples. After the overthrow of the Mongol Yuan dynasty by the Ming dynasty in 1368, Manchuria remained under control of the Mongols of the Northern Yuan dynasty based in Mongolia . Naghachu , a former Yuan official and a Uriankhai general of the Northern Yuan dynasty, won hegemony over the Mongol tribes in Manchuria ( Liaoyang province of the former Yuan dynasty). He grew strong in
37355-447: The local population surrendered, the officials would be allowed to stay at their posts. Besides, all the men had to shave the front half of their heads and wear the rest of their hair in queues . He had to repeal this command three weeks later after several peasant rebellions erupted around Beijing, threatening Qing control over the capital region. Dorgon greeted the Shunzhi Emperor at the gates of Beijing on 19 October 1644. On 30 October
37596-401: The main central administrative system generally known as the Three Departments and Six Ministries system, which was instituted by various dynasties since late Han (202 BCE – 220 CE), the Ming administration had only one department, the Secretariat, that controlled the six ministries. Following the execution of the Chancellor Hu Weiyong in 1380, the Hongwu Emperor abolished the Secretariat,
37837-427: The mainstream Jiahnzhou Jurchens descended from the Jin dynasty who were farmers that foraged, hunted, herded and harvested crops in the Liao and Yalu river basins. They gathered ginseng root, pine nuts, hunted for came pels in the uplands and forests, raised horses in their stables, and farmed millet and wheat in their fallow fields. They engaged in dances, wrestling and drinking strong liquor as noted during midwinter by
38078-436: The military to expand China's borders. This included the brief occupation of Vietnam , from the initial invasion in 1406 until the Ming withdrawal in 1427 as a result of protracted guerrilla warfare led by Lê Lợi , the founder of the Vietnamese Lê dynasty . The Oirat leader Esen Tayisi launched an invasion into Ming China in July 1449. The chief eunuch Wang Zhen encouraged the Zhengtong Emperor (r. 1435–49) to lead
38319-546: The most influential eunuch in the Directorate of Ceremonial acted as a de facto dictator over the state. Although the imperial household was staffed mostly by eunuchs and palace ladies, there was a civil service office called the Seal Office, which cooperated with eunuch agencies in maintaining imperial seals, tallies, and stamps. There were also civil service offices to oversee the affairs of imperial princes. The Hongwu emperor from 1373 to 1384 staffed his bureaus with officials gathered through recommendations only. After that
38560-630: The name Manchu might stem from Li Manzhu ( 李滿住 ), the chieftain of the Jianzhou Jurchens . Another scholar, Chang Shan, thinks Manju is a compound word. Man was from the word mangga ( ᠮᠠᠩᡤᠠ ) which means "strong," and ju ( ᠵᡠ ) means "arrow." So Manju actually means "intrepid arrow". There are other hypotheses, such as Fu Sinian 's "etymology of Jianzhou"; Zhang Binglin 's "etymology of Manshi"; Ichimura Sanjiro 's "etymology of Wuji and Mohe"; Sun Wenliang's "etymology of Manzhe"; "etymology of mangu(n) river" and so on. An extensive etymological study from 2022 lends additional support to
38801-553: The newly arrived Banner population and there was still animosity between the two groups. Agricultural land outside the capital was also delineated ( quan 圈) and given to Qing troops. Former landowners now became tenants who had to pay rent to their absentee Bannermen landlords. This transition in land use caused "several decades of disruption and hardship." In 1646, Dorgon also ordered that the imperial civil service examinations for selecting government officials be reinstated. From then on, examinations were held every three years as under
39042-415: The news, Dorgon's Han Chinese advisors Hong Chengchou and Fan Wencheng (范文程; 1597–1666) urged the prince to seize this opportunity to present themselves as avengers of the fallen Ming Empire and claim the Mandate of Heaven for the Qing Empire. The last obstacle between Dorgon and Beijing was Wu Sangui , a former Ming general guarding the Shanhai Pass at the eastern end of the Great Wall . Wu Sangui
39283-422: The north and huge peasant revolts in the provinces, essentially fell apart. Unpaid and unfed, the army was defeated by Li Zicheng—now self-styled as the Prince of Shun —and deserted the capital without much of a fight. On 25 April 1644, Beijing fell to a rebel army led by Li Zicheng when the city gates were opened by rebel allies from within. During the turmoil, Chongzhen , the last Ming emperor, accompanied only by
39524-457: The northeast, with forces large enough (numbering hundreds of thousands) to threaten invasion of the newly founded Ming dynasty in order to restore the Mongols to power in China. The Ming decided to defeat him instead of waiting for the Mongols to attack. In 1387 the Ming sent a military campaign to attack Naghachu , which concluded with the surrender of Naghachu and Ming conquest of Manchuria. The early Ming court could not, and did not, aspire to
39765-412: The nuanced history of Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming era. Modern scholars debate whether the Ming dynasty had sovereignty over Tibet. Some believe it was a relationship of loose suzerainty that was largely cut off when the Jiajing Emperor (r. 1521–67) persecuted Buddhism in favor of Daoism at court. Others argue that the significant religious nature of the relationship with Tibetan lamas
40006-664: The official records or "donated" their lands to tax-exempt eunuchs or temples. Haijin laws intended to protect the coasts from Japanese pirates instead turned many into smugglers and pirates themselves. By the 16th century, the expansion of European trade —though restricted to islands near Guangzhou such as Macau —spread the Columbian exchange of crops, plants, and animals into China, introducing chili peppers to Sichuan cuisine and highly productive maize and potatoes , which diminished famines and spurred population growth. The growth of Portuguese , Spanish , and Dutch trade created new demand for Chinese products and produced
40247-425: The other hand, in warlord Zhang Zuolin 's reign in Manchuria, much better treatment was reported. There was no particular persecution of Manchus. Even the mausoleums of Qing emperors were still allowed to be managed by Manchu guardsmen, as in the past. Many Manchus joined the Fengtian clique , such as Xi Qia , a member of the Qing dynasty's imperial clan. As a follow-up to the Mukden Incident , Manchukuo ,
40488-406: The palace until the coup against the Jingtai Emperor in 1457 known as the "Wresting the Gate Incident". The former emperor retook the throne under the new era name Tianshun (r. 1457–64). Tianshun proved to be a troubled time and Mongol forces within the Ming military structure continued to be problematic. On 7 August 1461, the Chinese general Cao Qin and his Ming troops of Mongol descent staged
40729-423: The people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) and Qing (1636–1912) dynasties of China were established and ruled by the Manchus, who are descended from the Jurchen people who earlier established the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) in northern China. Manchus form the largest branch of the Tungusic peoples and are distributed throughout China, forming the fourth largest ethnic group in
40970-527: The permission of their banner company captain if they were unregistered commoners. It was only later in the dynasty that these policies allowing intermarriage were done away with. As a result of their conquest of Ming China , almost all the Manchus followed the prince regent Dorgon and the Shunzhi Emperor to Beijing and settled there. A few of them were sent to other places such as Inner Mongolia , Xinjiang and Tibet to serve as garrison troops. There were only 1524 Bannermen left in Manchuria at
41211-451: The places of stationed works, Beijing is their homeland." While the Manchu ruling elite at the Qing imperial court in Beijing and posts of authority throughout China increasingly adopted Han culture, the Qing imperial government viewed the Manchu communities (as well as those of various tribal people) in Manchuria as a place where traditional Manchu virtues could be preserved, and as a vital reservoir of military manpower fully dedicated to
41452-457: The policy of forcing all Han Chinese men to shave the front of the heads and wear their hair in queues just like the Manchus. He died in 1650 during a hunting trip and was posthumously honoured as an emperor even though he was never an emperor during his lifetime. A year after Dorgon's death, however, the Shunzhi Emperor accused Dorgon of several crimes, stripped him of his titles, and ordered his remains to be exhumed and flogged in public. Dorgon
41693-406: The proclamation of the Republic of China . Described as "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history" by Edwin O. Reischauer , John K. Fairbank and Albert M. Craig , the Ming emperors took over the provincial administration system of the Yuan dynasty, and the thirteen Ming provinces are the precursors of the modern provinces. Throughout the Song dynasty,
41934-553: The provinces as virtual provincial governors began in the 1420s. By the late Ming dynasty, there were central government officials delegated to two or more provinces as supreme commanders and viceroys, a system which reined in the power and influence of the military by the civil establishment. Governmental institutions in China conformed to a similar pattern for some two thousand years, but each dynasty installed special offices and bureaus, reflecting its own particular interests. The Ming administration utilized Grand Secretaries to assist
42175-427: The provinces. For young schoolchildren there were printed multiplication tables and primers for elementary vocabulary; for adult examination candidates there were mass-produced, inexpensive volumes of Confucian classics and successful examination answers. As in earlier periods, the focus of the examination was classical Confucian texts, while the bulk of test material centered on the Four Books outlined by Zhu Xi in
42416-439: The refined intellectual type appears. Here and there faces of a Hellenic purity of feature are seen and beautiful children are not uncommon. These Chinese cities make one realize how the cream of the population gathers in the urban centers. Everywhere town opportunities have been a magnet for the élite of the open country." The Qing dynasty altered its law on intermarriage between Han civilians and Manchu bannermen several times in
42657-432: The regime. The Qing emperors tried to protect the traditional way of life of the Manchus (as well as various other tribal peoples) in central and northern Manchuria by a variety of means. In particular, they restricted the migration of Han settlers to the region. This had to be balanced with practical needs, such as maintaining the defense of northern China against the Russians and the Mongols, supplying government farms with
42898-468: The region as part of a colonization effort. By the end of the 14th century, some 200,000 military colonists settled some 2,000,000 mu (350,000 acres) of land in what is now Yunnan and Guizhou . Roughly half a million more Chinese settlers came in later periods; these migrations caused a major shift in the ethnic make-up of the region, since formerly more than half of the population were non-Han peoples. Resentment over such massive changes in population and
43139-479: The region; in 1421 the Yongle Emperor commissioned 26 officials to travel the empire and uphold similar investigatory and patrimonial duties. By 1430 these xunfu assignments became institutionalized as " grand coordinators ". Hence, the Censorate was reinstalled and first staffed with investigating censors, later with censors-in-chief. By 1453, the grand coordinators were granted the title vice censor-in-chief or assistant censor-in-chief and were allowed direct access to
43380-453: The remaining centers of Ming resistance in Jiangxi province fell to the Qing. In late 1646, two more Southern Ming monarchs emerged in the southern province of Guangzhou , reigning under the era names of Shaowu and Yongli . Short of official robes, the Shaowu court had to purchase from local theatre troupes. The two Ming regimes fought each other until 20 January 1647, when a small Qing force led by Li Chengdong captured Guangzhou, killed
43621-410: The rest of their hair in queues identical to those of the Manchus. The punishment for non-compliance was death. This policy of symbolic submission helped the Manchus distinguish friend from foe. For Han officials and literati, however, the new hairstyle was shameful and demeaning (because it breached a common Confucian directive to preserve one's body intact), whereas for common folk cutting their hair
43862-401: The restoration of the civil service system to look for talents nationwide. Dorgon is usually considered a good, devoted politician but he is also blamed for "Six Bad Policies (六大弊政)". These were policies designed to bolster the rule of the Qing conquerors, but which caused considerable disturbance and bloodshed in China, and included: According to the account of Japanese travellers, Dorgon was
44103-448: The resulting government presence and policies sparked more Miao and Yao revolts in 1464 to 1466, which were crushed by an army of 30,000 Ming troops (including 1,000 Mongols) joining the 160,000 local Guangxi . After the scholar and philosopher Wang Yangming (1472–1529) suppressed another rebellion in the region, he advocated single, unitary administration of Chinese and indigenous ethnic groups in order to bring about sinification of
44344-416: The right to establish a new dynasty . In 1363, Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated his archrival and leader of the rebel Han faction, Chen Youliang , in the Battle of Lake Poyang , arguably the largest naval battle in history . Known for its ambitious use of fire ships , Zhu's force of 200,000 Ming sailors were able to defeat a Han rebel force over triple their size, claimed to be 650,000-strong. The victory destroyed
44585-431: The same time they tried to appease them with titles and degrees, traded with them, and sought to acculturate them by having Jurchens integrate into Korean culture. Their relationship was eventually stopped by the Ming dynasty government who wanted the Jurchens to protect the border. In 1403, Ahacu, chieftain of Huligai, paid tribute to the Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty. Soon after that, Möngke Temür , chieftain of
44826-413: The same year. The Qing government differentiated between Han Bannermen and ordinary Han civilians. Han Bannermen were Han Chinese who defected to the Qing Empire up to 1644 and joined the Eight Banners, giving them social and legal privileges in addition to being acculturated to Manchu culture. So many Han defected to the Qing Empire and swelled up the ranks of the Eight Banners that ethnic Manchus became
45067-408: The scholar-officials who populated the many ranks of bureaucracy were recruited through a rigorous examination system that was initially established by the Sui dynasty (581–618). Theoretically the system of exams allowed anyone to join the ranks of imperial officials (although it was frowned upon for merchants to join); in reality the time and funding needed to support the study in preparation for
45308-414: The scrutiny of recorded evaluation, although they were expected to confess any of their faults. There were over 4,000 school instructors in county and prefectural schools who were subject to evaluations every nine years. The Chief Instructor on the prefectural level was classified as equal to a second-grade county graduate. The Supervisorate of Imperial Instruction oversaw the education of the heir apparent to
45549-401: The six-year-old monarch performed sacrifices to Heaven and Earth at the Altar of Heaven . The southern cadet branch of Confucius 's descendants who held the title wujing boshi and the northern branch 65th generation descendant of Confucius to hold the title Duke Yansheng had their titles confirmed by the Shunzhi Emperor on 31 October. A formal ritual of enthronement for the Shunzhi Emperor
45790-414: The term Han. However the use of the word Han as the name of a class category used by the Yuan dynasty was a different concept from Han ethnicity. The grouping of Jurchens in northern China grouped with northern Han into the northerner class did not mean they were regarded the same as ethnic Han people, who themselves were in two different classes in the Yuan, Han ren and Nan Ren as said by Stephen G. Haw. Also
46031-407: The terms that he return to service. The agreement soon broke down when a local magistrate had thirty-six of his fellow rebels executed; Li's troops retaliated by killing the officials and continued to lead a rebellion based in Rongyang, central Henan province by 1635. By the 1640s, an ex-soldier and rival to Li— Zhang Xianzhong (1606–1647)—had created a firm rebel base in Chengdu , Sichuan , with
46272-426: The throne under the era name Jingtai (r. 1449–57); the Oirats were also repelled once the Jingtai Emperor's confidant and defense minister Yu Qian (1398–1457) gained control of the Ming armed forces. Holding the Zhengtong Emperor in captivity was a useless bargaining chip for the Oirats as long as another sat on his throne, so they released him back into Ming China. The former emperor was placed under house arrest in
46513-399: The throne, in order to remove all evidence that Dorgon was murdered. His death also took place when Emperor Shunzhi was about 13, an appropriate age for removing the regency over his head. That is, if Dorgon had died any earlier, Shunzhi would still need a regent to supervise the empire on his behalf. In 1651, Dorgon's political enemies, led by his former co-regent Jirgalang , submitted to
46754-413: The throne, which never happened through the remaining years of the Qing dynasty. After Dorgon led Manchu and Han Chinese troops loyal to him into Beijing on 6 June 1644, he immediately ordered restoration of order, as well as penalties for extortion and corruption activities conducted by any member of the imperial clan and other officials. Later, he declared that all Ming officials would be re-employed and
46995-408: The throne; this office was headed by a Grand Supervisor of Instruction, who was ranked as first class of grade three. Historians debate whether the examination system expanded or contracted upward social mobility. On the one hand, the exams were graded without regard to a candidate's social background, and were theoretically open to everyone. In actual practice, the successful candidates had years of
47236-418: The time of the initial Manchu conquest. After a series of border conflicts with the Russians , the Qing emperors started to realize the strategic importance of Manchuria and gradually sent Manchus back where they originally came from. But throughout the Qing dynasty, Beijing was the focal point of the ruling Manchus in the political, economic and cultural spheres. The Yongzheng Emperor noted: "Garrisons are
47477-402: The title was changed to "Emperor's Father and Prince-Regent" (皇父攝政王). It was rumoured that Dorgon had a romantic affair with the Shunzhi Emperor's mother, Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang , and even secretly married her, but there are also refutations. Whether they secretly married, had a secret affair or kept their distance remains a controversy in Chinese history. On 17 February 1644, Jirgalang, who
47718-422: The transition between the Ming and Qing Zhang Sunzhen, a civilian official in Nanjing himself remarked that he had a portrait of his ancestors wearing Manchu clothes because his family were Tartars so it was appropriate that he was going to shave his head into the Manchu hairstyle when the queue order was given. The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty was replaced by the Ming dynasty in 1368. In 1387, Ming forces defeated
47959-418: The transition to Qing rule "remarkably smooth." Yet, at the same time, as he claimed to have come to avenge the Ming Empire, Dorgon ordered that all claimants to the Ming throne (including descendants of the last Ming emperor) should be executed along with their supporters. On 7 June, just two days after entering the city, Dorgon issued special proclamations to officials around the capital, assuring them that if
48200-436: The trip back to the Forbidden City, despite the presence of imperial doctors, was dubious at best. In the dry winter of northern China, the ground was not wet. Or else, it would have easily caused horses to trip. Another cause for suspicion is that Dorgon's corpse was exhumed, flogged, and incinerated in the purge ordered by Emperor Shunzhi, a likely method camouflaged as the ultimate punishment for his alleged plot to take over
48441-453: The two loyalist groups failed to cooperate, making their chances of success even lower than they already were. In July 1646, a new southern campaign led by Bolo sent Prince Lu's Zhejiang court into disarray and proceeded to attack the Longwu regime in Fujian. Zhu Yujian was caught and summarily executed in Tingzhou (western Fujian) on 6 October. His adoptive son Zheng Chenggong fled to the island of Taiwan with his fleet. Finally in November,
48682-412: The unification of Manchu tribes as a threat to Japan. The Japanese mistakenly thought that Hokkaido (Ezochi) had a land bridge to Tartary (Orankai) where Manchus lived and thought the Manchus could invade Japan. The Tokugawa Shogunate bakufu sent a message to Korea via Tsushima offering help to Korea against the 1627 Manchu invasion of Korea . Korea declined the help. Following the fall of Balhae,
48923-456: The validity of the theory that silver shortages caused the downfall of the Ming dynasty. Famines became common in northern China in the early 17th century because of unusually dry and cold weather that shortened the growing season—effects of a larger ecological event now known as the Little Ice Age . Famine, alongside tax increases, widespread military desertions, a declining relief system, and natural disasters such as flooding and inability of
49164-602: The view that manju is cognate with words referring to the lower Amur river in other Tungusic languages and can be reconstructed to Proto-Tungusic *mamgo 'lower Amur, large river'. The Manchus are descended from the Jurchen people who earlier established the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) in China. The name Mohe might refer to an ancestral population of the Manchus. The Mohe practiced pig farming extensively and were mainly sedentary, and also used both pig and dog skins for coats. They were predominantly farmers and grew soybeans, wheat, millet and rice, in addition to hunting. In
49405-401: The wake of a Mongol-Tibetan alliance initiated in 1578, an alliance which affected the foreign policy of the subsequent Manchu Qing dynasty (1644–1912) in their support for the Dalai Lama of the Yellow Hat sect. By the late 16th century, the Mongols proved to be successful armed protectors of the Yellow Hat Dalai Lama after their increasing presence in the Amdo region, culminating in
49646-403: The way to modern-day Zhongshan, Guangdong province, the southern tip of China fronting the South China Sea, where there was no more way to maximize the distance between his hiding place and the Forbidden City. He changed his family name from Aisin-Gioro to Yuan 袁 (or Yuen in the Cantonese dialect). As a Chinese character, Yuan 袁 (Yuen) substantially resembles the word "Gon 袞" as in "Dorgon 多尔袞" in
49887-436: The world would at least symbolise their continued defiance against Qing rule. After the fall of Nanjing, two more members of the Ming imperial household created new Southern Ming regimes: one centred in coastal Fujian around the “Longwu Emperor” Zhu Yujian, Prince of Tang , – a ninth-generation descendant of the Hongwu Emperor , the Ming dynasty's founder – and one in Zhejiang around "Regent" Zhu Yihai , Prince of Lu. But
50128-413: The written form. After successfully escaping execution, the camouflage to re-emerge as a Han Chinese person was considered perfect, as Yuan 袁 (Yuen) was also the family name of Yuan Chonghuan 袁崇煥 the Han Chinese general who fatally wounded Nurhaci in the 1626 Battle of Ningyuan, making it highly unlikely that pursuing forces from the Forbidden City would suspect that he and/or his descendants were members of
50369-400: The year 1114, Wanyan Aguda united the Jurchen tribes and established the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) . His brother and successor, Wanyan Wuqimai defeated the Liao dynasty. After the fall of the Liao dynasty, the Jurchens went to war with the Northern Song dynasty , and captured most of northern China in the Jin–Song wars . During the Jin dynasty, the first Jurchen script came into use in
50610-416: The young Qing empire since 1644. The extermination of Dorgon's heirs did not include his daughter, whose birth year of 1650, the same year when Dorgon died, was allowed to be left on records. Dorgon had married at least 10 wives and concubines over a period of 25 years or more. Records in the imperial ancestral temple indicate that none of his 10 wives and concubines was able to conceive a son for Dorgon over
50851-475: Was a capable military leader but appeared uninterested in managing state affairs, willingly yielded control of all official matters to Dorgon. After an alleged plot by Hooge to undermine the regency was exposed on 6 May of that year, Hooge was stripped of his princely title and his co-conspirators were executed. Dorgon soon replaced Hooge's supporters (mostly from the Yellow Banners) with his own, thus gaining closer control of two more banners. By early June 1644, he
51092-441: Was a matter of uncles promoting nephews. The Heishanhui Society in Peking sponsored the temple that conducted rituals for worshiping the memory of Gang Tie, a powerful eunuch of the Yuan dynasty. The Temple became an influential base for highly placed eunuchs, and continued in a somewhat diminished role during the Qing dynasty. During the last years of the Wanli era and those of his two successors, an economic crisis developed that
51333-401: Was a penniless peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352; he soon gained a reputation after marrying the foster daughter of a rebel commander. In 1356, Zhu's rebel force captured the city of Nanjing , which he would later establish as the capital of the Ming dynasty. With the Yuan dynasty crumbling, competing rebel groups began fighting for control of the country and thus
51574-403: Was also ordered but intentionally not recorded in official Qing history. Dorgon had two biological brothers: Ajige, the eighth son of Nurhaci and Dodo, the 15th. With Dodo dying of smallpox a few months prior to the death of Dorgon in December 1650 and the death of Ajige after he was arrested by Jirgalang's forces and put in jail, the 1651 purge was meant to permanently eliminate the potential that
51815-459: Was an ally of Hooge in the 1643 bitter fight against Dorgon, who allied with his biological brothers for succession to the throne. Jirgalang had been expelled by Dorgon from the joint regency in 1646. This time, Jirgalang succeeded in convincing Emperor Shunzhi that even Dorgon's descendants could become a threat to the throne. As a result, Shunzhi posthumously stripped Dorgon of his titles and even had Dorgon's corpse exhumed and flogged in public. In
52056-642: Was assassinated by a Manchu. Thousands of Manchus fled south from Aigun during the fighting in the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, their cattle and horses then stolen by Russian Cossacks who razed their villages and homes. The clan system of the Manchus in Aigun was obliterated by the despoliation of the area at the hands of the Russian invaders. By the 19th century, most Manchus in the city garrison spoke only Mandarin Chinese, not Manchu, which still distinguished them from their Han neighbors in southern China, who spoke non-Mandarin dialects. That they spoke Beijing dialect made recognizing Manchus folks relatively easy. It
52297-411: Was assigned there. Governor Yue Rui of Shandong was then ordered by the Yongzheng to report any bannerman misbehaving and warned him not to cover it up in 1730 after Manchu bannermen were put in a quarter in Qingzhou. Manchu bannermen from the garrisons in Xi'an and Jingzhou fought in Xinjiang in the 1770s and Manchus from Xi'an garrison fought in other campaigns against the Dzungars and Uyghurs throughout
52538-427: Was caught between the Manchus and Li Zicheng's forces. He requested Dorgon's help in ousting the rebels and restoring the Ming Empire. When Dorgon asked Wu Sangui to work for the Qing Empire instead, Wu had little choice but to accept. Aided by Wu Sangui's elite soldiers, who fought the rebel army for hours before Dorgon finally chose to intervene with his cavalry, the Qing army won a decisive victory against Li Zicheng at
52779-417: Was centered on a sudden widespread lack of the empire's chief medium of exchange: silver. The Portuguese first established trade with China in 1516. Following the Ming Emperor's decision to ban direct trade with Japan, Portuguese traders acted as an intermediary between China and Japan by buying Chinese silks from China and selling it to Japan for silver. After some initial hostilities gained consent from
53020-401: Was copied down . Traumatic memories of the Jurchen raids on Japan in the 1019 Toi invasion , the Mongol invasions of Japan in addition to Japan viewing the Jurchens as "Tatar" "barbarians" after copying China's barbarian-civilized distinction, may have played a role in Japan's antagonistic views against Manchus and hostility towards them in later centuries such as when Tokugawa Ieyasu viewed
53261-420: Was demoted from "Prince Regent" to "Assistant Uncle Prince Regent" (輔政叔王). In June 1645, Dorgon eventually decreed that all official documents should refer to him as "Imperial Uncle Prince Regent" (皇叔父攝政王), leaving him one step short of claiming the throne for himself. Dorgon gave a Manchu woman as a wife to the Han Chinese official Feng Quan, who had defected from the Ming to the Qing. The Manchu queue hairstyle
53502-405: Was given the honorary title "Emperor's Uncle and Prince-Regent" (皇叔父攝政王); the title was changed to "Emperor's Father and Prince-Regent" (皇父攝政王) in 1649. Under Dorgon's regency, Qing forces occupied Beijing, the capital of the fallen Ming dynasty, and gradually conquered the rest of the Ming in a series of battles against Ming loyalists and other opposing forces around China. Dorgon also introduced
53743-425: Was held on 8 November, during which the young emperor compared Dorgon's achievements to those of the Duke of Zhou , a revered regent of the Zhou dynasty . During the ceremony, Dorgon's official title was raised from "Prince Regent" to "Uncle and Prince Regent" (叔父攝政王), in which the Manchu term for "Uncle" ( ecike ) represented a rank higher than that of imperial prince. Three days later Dorgon's co-regent, Jirgalang ,
53984-509: Was how the Jurchens who founded the Qing lived and how their ancestors lived before the Jin. Alongside Mongols and Jurchen clans there were migrants from Liaodong provinces of Ming China and Korea living among these Jurchens in a cosmopolitan manner. Nurhaci who was hosting Sin Chung-il was uniting all of them into his own army, having them adopt the Jurchen hairstyle of a long queue and a shaved fore=crown and wearing leather tunics. His armies had black, blue, red, white and yellow flags. These became
54225-536: Was in comparison to the 100,000 shengyuan ('government students'), the lowest tier of graduates, by the 16th century. The maximum tenure in office was nine years, but every three years officials were graded on their performance by senior officials. If they were graded as superior then they were promoted, if graded adequate then they retained their ranks, and if graded inadequate they were demoted one rank. In extreme cases, officials would be dismissed or punished. Only capital officials of grade 4 and above were exempt from
54466-425: Was in firm control of the Qing government and its military. In early 1644, just as Dorgon and his advisors were pondering how to attack the Ming Empire , peasant rebellions were dangerously approaching Beijing. On 24 April of that year, rebel forces led by Li Zicheng breached the walls of the Ming capital. The last Ming emperor, the Chongzhen Emperor , hanged himself at a hill behind the Forbidden City . Hearing
54707-401: Was informally regulated by social status and custom. In northeastern China such as Heilongjiang and Liaoning it was more common for Manchu women to marry Han men since they were not subjected to the same laws and institutional oversight as Manchus and Han in Beijing and elsewhere. The policy of artificially isolating the Manchus of the northeast from the rest of China could not last forever. In
54948-402: Was involved in a power struggle against Hong Taiji's eldest son, Hooge , over the succession to the throne. Both of them eventually came to a compromise by backing out and letting Hong Taiji's ninth son, Fulin, become the emperor; Fulin was installed on the throne as the Shunzhi Emperor . Dorgon served as Prince-Regent from 1643 to 1650, throughout the Shunzhi Emperor's early reign. In 1645, he
55189-431: Was killed – either by his own hand or by a peasant group that had organised for self-defence during this time of rampant banditry – in September 1645 after fleeing though several provinces. From newly captured Xi'an, in early April 1645, the Qing forces mounted a campaign against the rich commercial and agricultural region of Jiangnan south of the lower Yangtze River , where in June 1644 the Prince of Fu had established
55430-511: Was no law against this. As the end of the Qing dynasty approached, Manchus were portrayed as outside colonizers by Chinese nationalists such as Sun Yat-sen , even though the Republican revolution he brought about was supported by many reform-minded Manchu officials and military officers. This portrayal dissipated somewhat after the 1911 revolution as the new Republic of China now sought to include Manchus within its national identity . In order to blend in, some Manchus switched to speaking
55671-431: Was no one after him skilled enough to maintain the stability of these alliances; officials soon banded together in opposing political factions. Over time Wanli grew tired of court affairs and frequent political quarreling amongst his ministers, preferring to stay behind the walls of the Forbidden City and out of his officials' sight. Scholar-officials lost prominence in administration as eunuchs became intermediaries between
55912-400: Was northern Standard Chinese which the Manchu Bannermen spoke instead of the local dialect the Han people around the garrison spoke, so that Manchus in the garrisons at Jingzhou and Guangzhou both spoke Beijing Mandarin even though Cantonese was spoken at Guangzhou, and the Beijing dialect of Mandarin distinguished the Manchu bannermen at the Xi'an garrison from the local Han people who spoke
56153-449: Was not conquering territory from the Yuan dynasty but rather from the rebel warlords. He used this line of argument to attempt to persuade Yuan loyalists to join his cause. The Ming used the tribute they received from former Yuan vassals as proof that the Ming had taken over the Yuan's legitimacy. Tribute missions were regularly celebrated with music and dance in the Ming court. Hui Muslim troops settled in Changde , Hunan , after serving
56394-407: Was one of the most influential among Nurhaci's sons, and his role was instrumental to the Qing occupation of Beijing, the capital of the fallen Ming dynasty , in 1644. During Hong Taiji's reign, Dorgon participated in many military campaigns, including the conquests of Mongolia and Korea. He fought against the Chahar Mongols in 1628 and 1635. After Hong Taiji died in 1643, Dorgon became involved in
56635-404: Was only later in the Qing dynasty that these policies allowing intermarriage were done away with. The decree was formulated by Dorgon. One of Dorgon's first orders in the new Qing capital was to vacate the entire northern part of Beijing and give it to Bannermen , including Han Chinese Bannermen. The Yellow Banners were given the place of honor north of the palace, followed by the White Banners to
56876-448: Was organized parallel to but was not subject to the civil service bureaucracy. Although there were several dictatorial eunuchs throughout the Ming, such as Wang Zhen , Wang Zhi, and Liu Jin , excessive tyrannical eunuch power did not become evident until the 1590s when the Wanli Emperor increased their rights over the civil bureaucracy and granted them power to collect provincial taxes. The eunuch Wei Zhongxian (1568–1627) dominated
57117-413: Was posthumously rehabilitated and restored of his honorary titles by the Qianlong Emperor in 1778. Dorgon was born in the Manchu Aisin-Gioro clan as the 14th son of Nurhaci , the Khan of the Later Jin dynasty (the precursor to the Qing dynasty ). His mother was Nurhaci's primary consort, Lady Abahai . Ajige and Dodo were his full brothers, and Hong Taiji was one of his half-brothers. Dorgon
57358-438: Was the Forbidden City , the palatial residence of the emperor and his family. By 1553, the Outer City was added to the south, which brought the overall size of Beijing to 6.5 by 7 kilometres (4 by 4 + 1 ⁄ 2 miles). Beginning in 1405, the Yongle Emperor entrusted his favored eunuch commander Zheng He (1371–1433) as the admiral for a gigantic new fleet of ships designated for international tributary missions . Among
57599-443: Was the Tokoro Manchu clan in the Manchu banners which claimed to be descended from a Han Chinese with the surname of Tao who had moved north from Zhejiang to Liaodong and joined the Jurchens before the Qing in the Ming Wanli emperor's era. The Han Chinese Banner Tong 佟 clan of Fushun in Liaoning falsely claimed to be related to the Jurchen Manchu Tunggiya 佟佳 clan of Jilin , using this false claim to get themselves transferred to
57840-428: Was the same as losing their virility . Because it united Chinese of all social backgrounds into resistance against Qing rule, the hair cutting command greatly hindered the Qing conquest. The defiant population of Jiading and Songjiang was massacred by former Ming general Li Chengdong (李成東; d. 1649), respectively on 24 August and 22 September. Jiangyin also held out against about 10,000 Qing troops for 83 days. When
58081-455: Was willingly adopted by Feng Quan before it was enforced on the Han population and Feng learned the Manchu language . To promote ethnic harmony, a 1648 decree from the Shunzhi Emperor allowed Han Chinese civilian men to marry Manchu women from the Banners with the permission of the Board of Revenue if they were registered daughters of officials or commoners or the permission of their banner company captain if they were unregistered commoners, it
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