Nurhaci

Nurhaci began as a minor Jurchen chieftain on the north-eastern frontier of Ming China and ended as khan of a powerful state that had seized the whole Liaodong region. He united the Jurchen tribes, the people later called Manchus, organised them into the Eight Banners, and opened the long war with the Ming that his descendants finished by founding the Qing dynasty. The Qing honoured him as their founder, with the temple name Taizu.

Nurhaci was born on 14 May 1559 near Hetu Ala, in what is now Liaoning province, into the Gioro clan of the Jianzhou Jurchens. As a young man he lived among the troops of the Ming commander Li Chengliang at Fushun, where he learned Chinese and, by tradition, absorbed military lessons from popular novels such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In 1582 his grandfather Giocangga and father Taksi were killed when Ming forces, guided by a rival chief, Nikan Wailan, attacked a Jurchen fort. The Ming recognised Nurhaci as his grandfather's heir but would not surrender Nikan Wailan, so Nurhaci set out to take revenge himself, reportedly starting with just thirteen suits of armour inherited from his father. By 1587 his enemy had been handed over and beheaded.

For decades Nurhaci presented himself as a loyal guardian of the Ming frontier, leading tribute missions to Beijing from 1590 and receiving Ming titles, while he conquered his Jurchen neighbours. In 1593 he defeated a coalition of nine tribes led by the Yehe. He then absorbed the Hada by 1603, the Hoifa in 1607 and the Ula in 1613; the Yehe were the last to fall, in 1619. In 1599 he ordered two of his translators to devise a written form of the Manchu language adapted from Mongolian script. He grouped his followers into large military and social units, each under its own banner, which became the Eight Banners that later formed the core of the Qing army.

In 1616 Nurhaci proclaimed himself khan of a new Jin state, named after the earlier Jurchen Jin dynasty of the twelfth century and therefore known to historians as the Later Jin. In 1618 he issued a list of Seven Grievances against the Ming dynasty and went to war, taking Fushun, whose commander surrendered and was given a granddaughter of Nurhaci in marriage. In 1619, at Sarhu, he faced a Ming army that had divided into several columns, together with Korean troops sent by Joseon, and with perhaps 50,000 to 60,000 men he defeated the columns one at a time.

In 1621 his banners took Shenyang and Liaoyang, and in 1625 he made Shenyang his capital, the seat of the dynasty until the conquest of Beijing in 1644. After a revolt by Han Chinese in Liaodong in 1623, he turned against the conquered Han population, imposing harsh, discriminatory rules and killings. He avoided a full war with Korea, unwilling to fight on two fronts.

In 1626 the Ming general Yuan Chonghuan beat back his assault on Ningyuan, the first serious defeat of Nurhaci's life; according to accounts, he was wounded by cannon fire from guns made in Macau and served by Portuguese gunners. He died on 30 September 1626 near Shenyang and was buried in the Fu Mausoleum east of the city. He left no clear heir, and his son Hong Taiji emerged as khan after the senior princes forced Nurhaci's principal consort, Lady Abahai, to take her own life. Hong Taiji later renamed his people Manchu and, in 1636, the state Qing.

Our 1600 map shows the Ming frontier in the north-east where Nurhaci was building his power; the 1650 map shows the Qing in control of China.