The Manchus (; ) are a
Tungusic East Asian
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea a ...
ethnic group
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
native to
Manchuria
Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...
in
Northeast Asia
Northeast Asia or Northeastern Asia is a geographical subregion of Asia; its northeastern landmass and islands are bounded by the Pacific Ocean.
The term Northeast Asia was popularized during the 1930s by American historian and political scienti ...
. They are an officially recognized
ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The
Later Jin Later Jin may refer to two states in imperial China:
* Later Jin (Five Dynasties) (後晉; 936–947), one of the Five Dynasties
* Later Jin (1616–1636) (後金; 1616–1636), precursor to the Qing dynasty
See also
* Jin (disambiguation)
Jin ...
(1616–1636) and
Qing
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...
(1636–1912) dynasties of China were established and ruled by the Manchus, who are descended from the
Jurchen people
Jurchen (Manchu: ''Jušen'', ; zh, 女真, ''Nǚzhēn'', ) is a term used to collectively describe a number of East Asian Tungusic-speaking peoples, descended from the Donghu people. They lived in the northeast of China, later known as Manchu ...
who earlier established the
Jin dynasty (1115–1234) in northern China.
Manchus form the largest branch of the
Tungusic peoples
Tungusic peoples are an ethno-linguistic group formed by the speakers of Tungusic languages (or Manchu–Tungus languages). They are native to Siberia and Northeast Asia.
The Tungusic phylum is divided into two main branches, northern (Evenic or ...
and are distributed throughout China, forming the fourth largest ethnic group in the country.
They can be found in 31 Chinese provincial regions. Among them,
Liaoning
Liaoning () is a coastal province in Northeast China that is the smallest, southernmost, and most populous province in the region. With its capital at Shenyang, it is located on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea, and is the northernmost ...
has the largest population and
Hebei
Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, an ...
,
Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost province ...
,
Jilin
Jilin (; alternately romanized as Kirin or Chilin) is one of the three provinces of Northeast China. Its capital and largest city is Changchun. Jilin borders North Korea (Rasŏn, North Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Chagang) and Russia (Prim ...
,
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...
and
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
have over 100,000 Manchu residents. About half of the population live in
Liaoning
Liaoning () is a coastal province in Northeast China that is the smallest, southernmost, and most populous province in the region. With its capital at Shenyang, it is located on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea, and is the northernmost ...
and one-fifth in
Hebei
Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, an ...
. There are a number of Manchu autonomous counties in China, such as
Xinbin,
Xiuyan
Xiuyan Manchu Autonomous County (, Manchu: ; Möllendorff: siuyan manju beye dasangga siyan) is a county in the southeast of Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is also one of the 11 Manchu autonomous counties and one of 117 autonomo ...
,
Qinglong,
Fengning
Fengning Manchu Autonomous County (; Manchu: ; Mölendroff: fengning manju beye dasangga siyan) is a Manchu autonomous county of northern Hebei province, bordering Beijing to the southwest and Inner Mongolia to the north, and lying under the admin ...
,
Yitong,
Qingyuan
Qingyuan, formerly romanized as Tsingyun, is a prefecture-level city in northern Guangdong province, China, on the banks of the Bei or North River. During the 2020 census, its total population was 3,969,473, out of whom 1,738,424 lived in the ...
,
Weichang
Weichang Manchu and Mongol Autonomous County (; Manchu language, Manchu: ; Mölendroff: weicang manju monggo beye dasangga siyan; Mongolian language, Mongolian: ) is a Manchu people, Manchu and Mongols, Mongol autonomous county located in far nort ...
,
Kuancheng,
Benxi
Benxi (, ) is a prefecture-level city located in the east of Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, south-southeast of the provincial capital Shenyang. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,326,018 (1,709,538 in 2010) whom 809,655 ...
,
Kuandian
Kuandian Manchu Autonomous County (; Manchu: ; Mölendroff: kuwandiyan manju beye dasangga siyan), is a county of eastern Liaoning province, China, bordering North Korea to the southeast and Jilin in the northeast. It is under the administration o ...
,
Huanren
Huanren Manchu Autonomous County (, Manchu: ; Mölendroff: huwanren manju beye dasangga siyan), formerly Huairen County (), is a county under the administration of Benxi City, in eastern Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, bordering Jil ...
,
Fengcheng,
Beizhen
Beizhen () is a city in west-central Liaoning province of Northeast China. It is under the administration of Jinzhou City.
History
In 1123, the Jin Dynasty set Guangning County () in nowadays Beizhen. In Ming Dynasty, the town of Guangning becam ...
and over 300 Manchu towns and townships.
[ Manchus are the largest minority group in China without an ]autonomous region
An autonomous administrative division (also referred to as an autonomous area, entity, unit, region, subdivision, or territory) is a subnational administrative division or internal territory of a sovereign state that has a degree of autonomy ...
.
Name
"Manchu" () was adopted as the official name of the people by Emperor Hong Taiji
Hong Taiji (28 November 1592 – 21 September 1643), also rendered as Huang Taiji and sometimes referred to as Abahai in Western literature, also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizong of Qing, was the second khan of the Later Jin ...
in 1635, replacing the earlier name " Jurchen". It appears that ''manju'' was an old term for the Jianzhou Jurchens
The Jianzhou Jurchens () were one of the three major groups of Jurchens as identified by the Ming dynasty. Although the geographic location of the Jianzhou Jurchens changed throughout history, during the 14th century they were located south of t ...
, although the etymology is not well understood.[
The '']Jiu Manzhou Dang
''Jiu Manzhou Dang'' () (Manchu: ''Fe Manju Dangse'') is a set of Manchu archives stored at the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan. It is the sourcebook of '' Manwen Laodang'' and a primary source of early Manchu history. It is often called ...
'', archives of early 17th century documents, contains 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
''Researches on Manchu Origins'', also known as ''Manzhou Yuanliu Kao'', is an important history book published by the Qing Dynasty government in 1777. The Qianlong Emperor sponsored its compilation with the goal of legitimizing Qing rule, as w ...
'', the ethnic name came from Mañjuśrī
Mañjuśrī (Sanskrit: मञ्जुश्री) is a ''bodhisattva'' associated with '' prajñā'' (wisdom) in Mahāyāna Buddhism. His name means "Gentle Glory" in Sanskrit. Mañjuśrī is also known by the fuller name of Mañjuśrīkumārab ...
. The Qianlong Emperor
The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, born Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1735 t ...
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 the name ''Manchu'' might stem from Li Manzhu (), the chieftain of the Jianzhou Jurchens
The Jianzhou Jurchens () were one of the three major groups of Jurchens as identified by the Ming dynasty. Although the geographic location of the Jianzhou Jurchens changed throughout history, during the 14th century they were located south of t ...
.[
Another scholar, Chang Shan, thinks Manju is a compound word. ''Man'' was from the word ''mangga'' () which means "strong," and ''ju'' () means "arrow." So ''Manju'' actually means "intrepid arrow".
There are other hypotheses, such as ]Fu Sinian
Fu Ssu-nien (; 26 March 1896 – 20 December 1950), was a Chinese historian, linguist, and writer. He was one of the leaders of the May Fourth Movement in 1919. He was also one of the creators of the Academia Sinica, and was named director of t ...
's "etymology of Jianzhou"; Zhang Binglin
Zhang Binglin (January 12, 1869 – June 14, 1936), also known by his art name Zhang Taiyan, was a Chinese philologist, textual critic, philosopher, and revolutionary.
His philological works include ''Wen Shi'' (文始 "The Origin of Writing"), t ...
's "etymology of Manshi"; Isamura Sanjiro's "etymology of Wuji and Mohe"; Sun Wenliang's "etymology of Manzhe"; "etymology of mangu(n) river" and so on.
History
Origins and early history
The Manchus are descended from the Jurchen people
Jurchen (Manchu: ''Jušen'', ; zh, 女真, ''Nǚzhēn'', ) is a term used to collectively describe a number of East Asian Tungusic-speaking peoples, descended from the Donghu people. They lived in the northeast of China, later known as Manchu ...
who earlier established the Jin dynasty (1115–1234)
The Jin dynasty (,
; ) or Jin State (; Jurchen: Anchun Gurun), officially known as the Great Jin (), was an imperial dynasty of China that existed between 1115 and 1234. Its name is sometimes written as Kin, Jurchen Jin, Jinn, or Chin
in ...
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 the 10th century AD, the term Jurchen first appeared in documents of the late ]Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
in reference to the state of Balhae
Balhae ( ko, 발해, zh, c=渤海, p=Bóhǎi, russian: Бохай, translit=Bokhay, ), also rendered as Bohai, was a multi-ethnic kingdom whose land extends to what is today Northeast China, the Korean Peninsula and the Russian Far East. It wa ...
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 the Mongols
The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal membe ...
and the Khitans
The Khitan people (Khitan small script: ; ) were a historical nomadic people from Northeast Asia who, from the 4th century, inhabited an area corresponding to parts of modern Mongolia, Northeast China and the Russian Far East.
As a people desce ...
on the steppes. Most Jurchens raised pigs and stock animals and were farmers.[
In 1019, Jurchen pirates raided Japan for slaves. The Jurchen pirates slaughtered Japanese men while seizing Japanese women as prisoners in northern Kyushu. 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 was copied down. Traumatic memories of the Jurchen raids on Japan in the 1019 ]Toi invasion
The was the invasion of northern Kyūshū by Jurchen pirates in 1019.
History
At the time, Toi (, ''Doe'') meant "barbarian" in the Korean language. The Toi pirates sailed with about 50 ships from direction of Goryeo, then assaulted Tsushima a ...
, the Mongol invasions of Japan
Major military efforts were taken by Kublai Khan of the Yuan dynasty in 1274 and 1281 to conquer the Japanese archipelago after the submission of the Korean kingdom of Goryeo to vassaldom. Ultimately a failure, the invasion attempts are of mac ...
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
was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...
viewed the unification of Manchu tribes as a threat to Japan. The Japanese mistakenly thought that Hokkaido
is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel.
The la ...
(Ezochi) had a land bridge to Tartary (Orankai) where Manchus lived and thought the Manchus could invade Japan. The Tokugawa Shogunate
The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...
bakufu
, officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamakur ...
sent a message to Korea via Tsushima offering help to Korea against the 1627 Manchu invasion of Korea. Korea refused it.
Following the fall of Balhae, the Jurchens became vassals of the Khitan-led Liao dynasty
The Liao dynasty (; Khitan: ''Mos Jælud''; ), also known as the Khitan Empire (Khitan: ''Mos diau-d kitai huldʒi gur''), officially the Great Liao (), was an imperial dynasty of China that existed between 916 and 1125, ruled by the Yelü ...
. The Jurchens in the Yalu River
The Yalu River, known by Koreans as the Amrok River or Amnok River, is a river on the border between North Korea and China. Together with the Tumen River to its east, and a small portion of Paektu Mountain, the Yalu forms the border between ...
region were tributaries of Goryeo
Goryeo (; ) was a Korean kingdom founded in 918, during a time of national division called the Later Three Kingdoms period, that unified and ruled the Korean Peninsula until 1392. Goryeo achieved what has been called a "true national unificati ...
since the reign of Wang Geon
Taejo of Goryeo (31 January 877 – 4 July 943), also known as Taejo Wang Geon (; ), was the founder of the Goryeo dynasty, which ruled Korea from the 10th to the 14th century. Taejo ruled from 918 to 943, achieving unification of the Later Three ...
, who called upon them during the wars of the Later Three Kingdoms
The Later Three Kingdoms period (889-935 AD) of ancient Korea saw a partial revival of the old three kingdoms which had dominated the peninsula from the 1st century BC to the 7th century AD. After the Unified Silla kingdom had ruled Korea alone ...
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, 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. Khitan envoys among the Jurchens were treated to guest prostitutes by their Jurchen hosts. Unmarried Jurchen girls and their families hosted the Liao envoys who had sex with the girls. Song envoys among the Jin were similarly entertained by singing girls in Guide, Henan. The practice of guest prostitution – giving female companions, food and shelter to guests – was common among Jurchens. Unmarried daughters of Jurchen families of lower and middle classes in Jurchen villages were provided to Khitan messengers for sex as recorded by Hong Hao. There is no evidence that guest prostitution of unmarried Jurchen girls to Khitans was resented by the Jurchens. It was only when the aristocratic Jurchen families were forced to give up their beautiful wives as guest prostitutes to Khitan messengers that the Jurchens became angered. This probably meant only a husband had the right to his married wife while among lower class Jurchens, the virginity of unmarried girls and sex did not impede their ability to marry later.[ 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 the year 1114, ]Wanyan Aguda
Emperor Taizu of Jin (August 1, 1068 – September 19, 1123), personal name Aguda, sinicised name Min (), was the founder and first emperor of the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty of China. He was originally the chieftain of the Wanyan tribe, the most ...
united the Jurchen tribes and established the Jin dynasty (1115–1234)
The Jin dynasty (,
; ) or Jin State (; Jurchen: Anchun Gurun), officially known as the Great Jin (), was an imperial dynasty of China that existed between 1115 and 1234. Its name is sometimes written as Kin, Jurchen Jin, Jinn, or Chin
in ...
. His brother and successor, Wanyan Wuqimai
Emperor Taizong of Jin (25 November 1075 – 9 February 1135), personal name Wuqimai, sinicised name Wanyan Sheng, was the second emperor of the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty of China. His era name was "Tianhui" (天會). During his reign, the Jin ...
defeated the Liao dynasty. After the fall of the Liao dynasty, the Jurchens went to war with the Northern Song dynasty
Northern may refer to the following:
Geography
* North, a point in direction
* Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe
* Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States
* Northern Province, Sri Lanka
* Northern Range, a ra ...
, and captured most of northern China in the Jin–Song wars
The Jin–Song Wars were a series of conflicts between the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty (1115–1234) and the Han-led Song dynasty (960–1279). In 1115, Jurchen tribes rebelled against their overlords, the Khitan-led Liao dynasty (916–1125) ...
.[ During the Jin dynasty, the first ]Jurchen script
The Jurchen script (Jurchen: ) was the writing system used to write the Jurchen language, the language of the Jurchen people who created the Jin Empire in northeastern China in the 12th–13th centuries. It was derived from the Khitan script, ...
came into use in the 1120s. It was mainly derived from the Khitan script Khitan scripts may refer to one of two mutually exclusive scripts used by the Khitan people during the 10th-12th centuries:
*Khitan small script, invented in about 924 or 925 CE by a scholar named Diela
*Khitan large script
The Khitan large scri ...
.[ Poor Jurchen families in the southern Routes (Daming and Shandong) Battalion and Company households tried to live the lifestyle of wealthy Jurchen families and avoid doing farming work by selling their own Jurchen daughters into slavery and renting their land to Han tenants. The Wealthy Jurchens feasted and drank and wore damask and silk. The ]History of Jin
The ''History of Jin'' (''Jin Shi'') is a Chinese historical text, one of the ''Twenty Four Histories'', which details the history of the Jin dynasty founded by the Jurchens in northern China. It was compiled by the Yuan dynasty historian and mi ...
(Jinshi) says that Emperor Shizong of Jin
An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...
took note and attempted to halt these things in 1181.
In 1206, the Mongols
The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal membe ...
, vassal
A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain. W ...
s to the Jurchens, rose in Mongolia. Their leader, Genghis Khan
''Chinggis Khaan'' ͡ʃʰiŋɡɪs xaːŋbr />Mongol script: ''Chinggis Qa(gh)an/ Chinggis Khagan''
, birth_name = Temüjin
, successor = Tolui (as regent)Ögedei Khan
, spouse =
, issue =
, house = Borjigin
, ...
, led Mongol troops against the Jurchens, who were finally defeated by Ögedei Khan
Ögedei Khagan (also Ogodei;, Mongolian: ''Ögedei'', ''Ögüdei''; – 11 December 1241) was second khagan-emperor of the Mongol Empire. The third son of Genghis Khan, he continued the expansion of the empire that his father had begun.
...
in 1234.[ The Jurchen Jin emperor ]Wanyan Yongji
Wanyan Yongji (died 11 September 1213), childhood name Xingsheng, was the seventh emperor of the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty of China. He reigned for about five years from 1208 until 1213, when he was assassinated by the general Heshilie Zhizhong.
...
's daughter, Jurchen Princess Qiguo was married to Mongol leader Genghis Khan
''Chinggis Khaan'' ͡ʃʰiŋɡɪs xaːŋbr />Mongol script: ''Chinggis Qa(gh)an/ Chinggis Khagan''
, birth_name = Temüjin
, successor = Tolui (as regent)Ögedei Khan
, spouse =
, issue =
, house = Borjigin
, ...
in exchange for relieving the Mongol siege upon Zhongdu (Beijing) in the Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty
The Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty, also known as the Mongol–Jin War, was fought between the Mongol Empire and the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty in Manchuria and North China. The war, which started in 1211, lasted over 23 years and ended w ...
. Under the Mongols' control, the Jurchens were divided into two groups and treated differently: the ones who were born and raised in North China
North China, or Huabei () is a List of regions of China, geographical region of China, consisting of the provinces of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia. Part of the larger region of Northern China (''Beifang''), it lies north ...
and fluent in Chinese were considered to be Chinese (Han), but the people who were born and raised in the Jurchen homeland (Manchuria) without Chinese-speaking abilities were treated as Mongols politically.[ From that time, the Jurchens of North China increasingly merged with the Han Chinese while those living in their homeland started to be Mongolized.] They adopted Mongolian customs, names, and the Mongolian language. As time went on, fewer and fewer Jurchens could recognize their own script.
The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty
The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fifth ...
was replaced by the Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
in 1368. In 1387, Ming forces defeated the Mongol commander Naghachu Naghachu ( mn, Naγaču, script=Latn; ; d. 1388), also written as Nahacu, was an ethnic Mongol leader and general of the Northern Yuan in Manchuria, which was under Liaoyang province of the former Yuan dynasty. Originally a Yuan official, he had wo ...
'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 the same time they tried to appease them with titles and degrees, traded with them, and sought to ]acculturate
Acculturation is a process of social, psychological, and cultural change that stems from the balancing of two cultures while adapting to the prevailing culture of the society. Acculturation is a process in which an individual adopts, acquires and ...
them by having Jurchens integrate into Korean culture. Despite these measures, however, fighting continued between the Jurchen and the Koreans. 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
The Yongle Emperor (; pronounced ; 2 May 1360 – 12 August 1424), personal name Zhu Di (), was the third Emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigning from 1402 to 1424.
Zhu Di was the fourth son of the Hongwu Emperor, the founder of the Ming dyn ...
of the Ming dynasty. Soon after that, Möngke Temür
Möngke Temür ( or ) or Dudu Mengtemu (Manchu: ;遼寧省檔案館 『滿州實錄 上函』 ) (1370–1433) was a Jurchen chieftain of the Odoli tribe, one of the three tribes of the lower Sunggari river valley in Manchuria. In the 1380s the tr ...
, chieftain of the Odoli clan of the Jianzhou Jurchens
The Jianzhou Jurchens () were one of the three major groups of Jurchens as identified by the Ming dynasty. Although the geographic location of the Jianzhou Jurchens changed throughout history, during the 14th century they were located south of t ...
, defected from paying tribute to Korea, becoming a tributary state
A tributary state is a term for a pre-modern state in a particular type of subordinate relationship to a more powerful state which involved the sending of a regular token of submission, or tribute, to the superior power (the suzerain). This tok ...
to China instead. Yi Seong-gye
Taejo of Joseon (4 November 1335 – 27 June 1408), born Yi Seong-gye (), was the founder and first ruler of the Joseon dynasty of Korea. After ascending to the throne, he changed his name to Yi Dan (), and reigned from 1392 to 1398. He was ...
, the Taejo of Joseon
Taejo of Joseon (4 November 1335 – 27 June 1408), born Yi Seong-gye (), was the founder and first ruler of the Joseon dynasty of Korea. After ascending to the throne, he changed his name to Yi Dan (), and reigned from 1392 to 1398. He was ...
, 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 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 Nurgan Regional Military Commission () was a Chinese administrative seat established in Manchuria during the Ming dynasty, located on the banks of the Amur River, about 100 km from the sea, at Nurgan city (modern Tyr, Russia). Nurgan ( ...
. The Jurchens became part of the Ming dynasty's Nurgan Regional Military Commission
The Nurgan Regional Military Commission () was a Chinese administrative seat established in Manchuria during the Ming dynasty, located on the banks of the Amur River, about 100 km from the sea, at Nurgan city (modern Tyr, Russia). Nurgan ( ...
under the Yongle Emperor, with Ming forces erecting the Yongning Temple Stele
The Yongning Temple Stele () is a stele erected by the Chinese Ming dynasty in 1413 with a trilingual inscription to commemorate the founding of the Yongning Temple (永寧寺) in the Nurgan outpost, near the mouth of the Amur River, by the eunu ...
in 1413, at the headquarters of Nurgan. The stele was inscribed in Chinese, Jurchen, Mongolian, and Tibetan. Yishiha
Yishiha (; also Išiqa or Isiha; Jurchen: ) ( fl. 1409–1451) was a Jurchen eunuch of the Ming dynasty of China. He served the Ming emperors who commissioned several expeditions down the Songhua and Amur Rivers during the period of Ming rule o ...
, who was a Jurchen eunuch slave in the Ming imperial palace after he was captured and castrated as a boy by Ming Chinese forces, was the one who led the Ming expedition into Nurgan to erect the stele and established the Nurgan Regional Military Commission.
In 1449, Mongol
The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member of ...
taishi
Taishi may refer to:
Names
*Taishi (surname), Chinese family name
*Taishi (given name), Japanese given name
Ranks
* Grand Preceptor, ancient Chinese top civilian position: ''taishi'' () in Chinese
*Taishi, an alternate name of the Japanese Daij ...
Esen attacked the Ming Empire and captured the Zhengtong Emperor
Emperor Yingzong of Ming (; 29 November 1427 – 23 February 1464), personal name Zhu Qizhen (), was the sixth and eighth Emperor of the Ming dynasty. He ascended the throne as the Zhengtong Emperor () in 1435, but was forced to abdicate in 1 ...
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 the Ming government.][ They had to present tribute as secretariats () 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 Cungšan (, , sometimes written as 董山) was a chieftain of the Jurchen Jianzhou Left Guard. Cungšan was the great-great-great-grandfather of Nurhaci, the founder of the Later Jin dynasty of China. His posthumous name was Emperor Chun (). His f ...
and Wang Gao Wang Gao () was a warlord late in the Chinese dynasty Tang Dynasty, who controlled Yiwu Circuit (義武, headquartered in modern Baoding, Hebei) after succeeding his father Wang Chucun in 895 until his defeat in 900.
Background and governance of ...
, brazenly plundered Ming territory. At about this time, 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
Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed vegeta ...
agriculture in the areas north of Shenyang
Shenyang (, ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly known as Fengtian () or by its Manchu language, Manchu name Mukden, is a major China, Chinese sub-provincial city and the List of capitals in China#Province capitals, provincial capital of Lia ...
. The Haixi Jurchens The Haixi Jurchens () were a grouping of the Jurchens as identified by the Chinese of the Ming dynasty. They inhabited an area that consists of parts of modern-day Jilin, Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia in China.
Etymology
Haixi Jurchen ...
were "semi-agricultural, the Jianzhou Jurchens and Maolian () 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.
Although their Mohe ancestors did not respect dogs, 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
Nurhaci (14 May 1559 – 30 September 1626), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Qing (), was a Jurchen chieftain who rose to prominence in the late 16th century in Manchuria. A member of the House of Aisin-Gioro, he reigned ...
chose variously to emphasize either differences or similarities in lifestyles with other peoples like the Mongols. Nurhaci said to 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 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."[
]
Manchu rule over China
A century after the chaos started in the Jurchen lands, Nurhaci
Nurhaci (14 May 1559 – 30 September 1626), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Qing (), was a Jurchen chieftain who rose to prominence in the late 16th century in Manchuria. A member of the House of Aisin-Gioro, he reigned ...
, a chieftain of the Jianzhou Left Guard, began a campaign against the Ming Empire
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peop ...
in revenge for their manslaughter of his grandfather
Grandparents, individually known as grandmother and grandfather, are the parents of a person's father or mother – paternal or maternal. Every sexually-reproducing living organism who is not a genetic chimera has a maximum of four genetic ...
and father
A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. An adoptive fathe ...
in 1583. He reunified the Jurchen tribes, established a military system called the "Eight Banners
The Eight Banners (in Manchu language, Manchu: ''jakūn gūsa'', ) were administrative and military divisions under the Later Jin (1616–1636), Later Jin and Qing dynasty, Qing dynasties of China into which all Manchu people, Manchu households ...
", 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
The Manchu alphabet ( mnc, m=, v=manju hergen, a=manju hergen) is the alphabet used to write the now nearly-extinct Manchu language. A similar script is used today by the Xibe people, who speak a language considered either as a dialect of Ma ...
) using the traditional Mongolian alphabet
The classical or traditional Mongolian script, also known as the , was the first writing system created specifically for the Mongolian language, and was the most widespread until the introduction of Cyrillic in 1946. It is traditionally written ...
as a reference.
When the Jurchens were reorganized by Nurhaci into the Eight Banners, many Manchu clans were artificially created as 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 the Sure Kundulen Khan (, "wise and respected khan") from his Khalkha Mongol allies;[ then, in 1616, he publicly enthroned himself and issued a proclamation naming himself Genggiyen Khan (, "bright khan") of the Later Jin dynasty (, 後金). Nurhaci then launched his attack on the Ming dynasty][ and moved the capital to ]Mukden
Shenyang (, ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly known as Fengtian () or by its Manchu name Mukden, is a major Chinese sub-provincial city and the provincial capital of Liaoning province. Located in central-north Liaoning, it is the provi ...
after his conquest of Liaodong.[ In 1635, his son and successor Huangtaiji changed the name of the Jurchen ethnic group () to the Manchu.][ A year later, Huangtaiji proclaimed himself the emperor of the ]Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
(). 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 the "dependent class".[
In 1644, the Ming capital, ]Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
, was sacked by a peasant revolt led by Li Zicheng
Li Zicheng (22 September 1606 – 1645), born Li Hongji, also known by the nickname, Dashing King, was a Chinese peasant rebel leader who overthrew the Ming dynasty in 1644 and ruled over northern China briefly as the emperor of the short-li ...
, a former minor Ming official who became the leader of the peasant revolt, who then proclaimed the establishment of the Shun dynasty
The Shun dynasty (), officially the Great Shun (), was a short-lived Chinese dynasty that existed during the Ming–Qing transition. The dynasty was founded in Xi'an on 8 February 1644, the first day of the lunar year, by Li Zicheng, the leader ...
. The last Ming ruler, the Chongzhen Emperor
The Chongzhen Emperor (; 6 February 1611 – 25 April 1644), personal name Zhu Youjian (), courtesy name Deyue (),Wang Yuan (王源),''Ju ye tang wen ji'' (《居業堂文集》), vol. 19. "聞之張景蔚親見烈皇帝神主題御諱字德 ...
, died by suicide by hanging himself when the city fell. When Li Zicheng moved against the Ming general Wu Sangui
Wu Sangui (; 8 June 1612 – 2 October 1678), courtesy name Changbai () or Changbo (), was a notorious Ming Dynasty military officer who played a key role in the fall of the Ming dynasty and the founding of the Qing dynasty in China. In Chinese ...
, the latter made an alliance with the Manchus and opened the Shanhai Pass
Shanhai Pass or Shanhaiguan () is one of the major passes in the Great Wall of China, being the easternmost stronghold along the Ming Great Wall, and commands the narrowest choke point in the Liaoxi Corridor. It is located in Shanhaiguan Di ...
to the Manchu army. After the Manchus defeated Li Zicheng
Li Zicheng (22 September 1606 – 1645), born Li Hongji, also known by the nickname, Dashing King, was a Chinese peasant rebel leader who overthrew the Ming dynasty in 1644 and ruled over northern China briefly as the emperor of the short-li ...
, they moved the capital of their new Qing Empire to Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
() in 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 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 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
The Shunzhi Emperor (15 March 1638 – 5 February 1661) was the second Emperor of China, emperor of the Qing dynasty of China, and the first Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1644 to 1661. A Deliberative Council of Prince ...
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 was only later in the dynasty that these policies allowing intermarriage were done away with.[
]
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 the Manchu Aisin-Gioro family had been ruled by the Ming dynasty. In the Ming period, the Koreans of ]Joseon
Joseon (; ; Middle Korean: 됴ᇢ〯션〮 Dyǒw syéon or 됴ᇢ〯션〯 Dyǒw syěon), officially the Great Joseon (; ), was the last dynastic kingdom of Korea, lasting just over 500 years. It was founded by Yi Seong-gye in July 1392 and re ...
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 the Ming dynasty, from the History of Ming
The ''History of Ming'' or the ''Ming History'' (''Míng Shǐ'') is one of the official Chinese historical works known as the ''Twenty-Four Histories''. It consists of 332 volumes and covers the history of the Ming dynasty from 1368 to 1644. It ...
to hide their former subservient relationship to the Ming. The Veritable Records of Ming
The ''Ming Shilu'' () contains the imperial annals of the emperors of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). It is the single largest historical source for the dynasty. According to modern historians, it "plays an extremely important role in the histo ...
were not used to source content on Jurchens during Ming rule in the History of Ming because of this.
As a result of their conquest of China, almost all the Manchus followed the prince regent
A prince regent or princess regent is a prince or princess who, due to their position in the line of succession, rules a monarchy as regent in the stead of a monarch regnant, e.g., as a result of the sovereign's incapacity (minority or illness ...
Dorgon
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, predecessor of the Qing dynasty) ...
and the Shunzhi Emperor
The Shunzhi Emperor (15 March 1638 – 5 February 1661) was the second Emperor of China, emperor of the Qing dynasty of China, and the first Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1644 to 1661. A Deliberative Council of Prince ...
to Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
and settled there. A few of them were sent to other places such as Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...
, Xinjiang
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
and Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
to serve as garrison troops.[ There were only 1524 Bannermen left in Manchuria at 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
, regnal name =
, posthumous name = Emperor Jingtian Changyun Jianzhong Biaozhen Wenwu Yingming Kuanren Xinyi Ruisheng Daxiao Zhicheng Xian()Manchu: Temgetulehe hūwangdi ()
, temple name = Shizong()Manchu: Šidzung ()
, house = Aisin Gioro ...
noted: "Garrisons are 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
Han may refer to:
Ethnic groups
* Han Chinese, or Han People (): the name for the largest ethnic group in China, which also constitutes the world's largest ethnic group.
** Han Taiwanese (): the name for the ethnic group of the Taiwanese p ...
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 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 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 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
Fushun (, formerly romanised as ''Fouchouen'', using French spelling, also as Fuxi ()) is a prefecture level city in Liaoning province, China, about east of Shenyang, with a total area of , of which is the city proper. Situated on the Hun Ri ...
in Liaoning
Liaoning () is a coastal province in Northeast China that is the smallest, southernmost, and most populous province in the region. With its capital at Shenyang, it is located on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea, and is the northernmost ...
falsely claimed to be related to the Jurchen Manchu Tunggiya 佟佳 clan of Jilin
Jilin (; alternately romanized as Kirin or Chilin) is one of the three provinces of Northeast China. Its capital and largest city is Changchun. Jilin borders North Korea (Rasŏn, North Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Chagang) and Russia (Prim ...
, using this false claim to get themselves transferred to a Manchu banner in the reign of the Kangxi emperor
The Kangxi Emperor (4 May 1654– 20 December 1722), also known by his temple name Emperor Shengzu of Qing, born Xuanye, was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1661 to 1 ...
.
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
The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, born Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1735 t ...
.[ It was between 1618 and 1629 when 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.
Manchu families adopted Han Chinese sons from families of bondservant ]Booi Aha
Booi Aha (Manchu: (''booi niyalma'') for male, (''booi hehe'') for female; Chinese transliteration: 包衣阿哈) is a Manchu word literally meaning "household person", referring to hereditarily servile people in 17th-century Qing China. It ...
(baoyi) origin and they served in Manchu company registers as detached household Manchus and the Qing imperial court found this out in 1729. Manchu Bannermen who needed money helped falsify registration for Han Chinese servants being adopted into the Manchu banners and Manchu families who lacked sons were allowed to adopt their servant's sons or servants themselves.[ The Manchu families were paid to adopt Han Chinese sons from bondservant families by those families. The Qing Imperial Guard captain Batu was furious at the Manchus who adopted Han Chinese as their sons from slave and bondservant families in exchange for money and expressed his displeasure at them adopting Han Chinese instead of other Manchus.][ These Han Chinese who infiltrated the Manchu Banners by adoption were known as "secondary-status bannermen" and "false Manchus" or "separate-register Manchus", and there were eventually so many of these Han Chinese that they took over military positions in the Banners which should have been reserved for Manchus. Han Chinese foster-son and separate register bannermen made up 800 out of 1,600 soldiers of the Mongol Banners and Manchu Banners of Hangzhou in 1740 which was nearly 50%. Han Chinese foster-son made up 220 out of 1,600 unsalaried troops at Jingzhou in 1747 and an assortment of Han Chinese separate-register, Mongol, and Manchu bannermen were the remainder. Han Chinese secondary status bannermen made up 180 of 3,600 troop households in Ningxia while Han Chinese separate registers made up 380 out of 2,700 Manchu soldiers in Liangzhou. The result of these Han Chinese fake Manchus taking up military positions resulted in many legitimate Manchus being deprived of their rightful positions as soldiers in the Banner armies, resulting in the real Manchus unable to receive their salaries as Han Chinese infiltrators in the banners stole their social and economic status and rights. These Han Chinese infiltrators were said to be good military troops and their skills at marching and archery were up to par so that the Zhapu lieutenant general couldn't differentiate them from true Manchus in terms of military skills.][ Manchu Banners contained a lot of "false Manchus" who were from Han Chinese civilian families but were adopted by Manchu bannermen after the Yongzheng reign. The Jingkou and Jiangning Mongol banners and Manchu Banners had 1,795 adopted Han Chinese and the Beijing Mongol Banners and Manchu Banners had 2,400 adopted Han Chinese in statistics taken from the 1821 census. Despite Qing attempts to differentiate adopted Han Chinese from normal Manchu bannermen the differences between them became hazy.][ These adopted Han Chinese bondservants who managed to get themselves onto Manchu banner roles were called kaihu ren (開戶人) in Chinese and dangse faksalaha urse in Manchu. Normal Manchus were called jingkini Manjusa.
A Manchu Bannerman in Guangzhou called Hequan illegally adopted 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.][
This policy of artificially isolating the Manchus of the northeast from the rest of China could not last forever. In the 1850s, large numbers of Manchu bannermen were sent to central China to fight the Taiping rebels. (For example, just the ]Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost province ...
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
Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...
addiction.[ In 1860, in the aftermath of the ]loss
Loss may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* ''Loss'' (Bass Communion album) (2006)
* ''Loss'' (Mull Historical Society album) (2001)
*"Loss", a song by God Is an Astronaut from their self-titled album (2008)
* Losses "(Lil Tjay son ...
of "Outer Manchuria
Outer Manchuria (russian: Приаму́рье, translit=Priamurye; zh, s=外满洲, t=外滿洲, p=Wài Mǎnzhōu), or Outer Northeast China ( zh, s=外东北, t=外東北, p=Wài Dōngběi), refers to a territory in Northeast Asia that is now ...
", 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.
Dulimbai Gurun is the Manchu name for China (). After conquering the Ming dynasty, the Qing rulers typically referred to their state as the "Great Qing" (), or ''Daicing gurun'' in Manchu. In some documents, the state, or parts of it, is called "China" (Zhongguo), or "Dulimbai Gurun" in the Manchu tongue. Debate continues over whether the Qing equated the lands of the Qing state, including present-day Manchuria, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Tibet and other areas, with "China" in both the Chinese and Manchu languages. Some scholars claim that the Qing rulers defined China as a multiethnic state, rejecting the idea that China only meant Han areas, proclaiming that both Han and non-Han peoples were part of "China", using "China" to refer to the Qing dynasty's empire in official documents, international treaties, and foreign affairs, and the term "Chinese people" (; Manchu: ''Dulimbai gurun-i niyalma'') referred to all the Han, Manchu, and Mongol subjects of the Qing Empire.
When the Qing Empire conquered Dzungaria in 1759, it proclaimed that the new land was absorbed into "China" (Dulimbai Gurun) in a Manchu-language memorial.] The Qing government expounded in its ideology that it was bringing the "outer" non-Han Chinese like the Inner Mongols, Eastern Mongols, Oirat Mongols, and Tibetans together with the "inner" Han Chinese into "one family" united in the Qing state. The Qing government used the phrase "Zhongwai yijia" or "neiwai yijia" ("interior and exterior as one family") to convey this idea of unification of the different peoples of their empire.[ A Manchu-language version of a treaty with the Russian Empire concerning criminal jurisdiction over bandits called people from the Qing Empire as "people of the Central Kingdom (Dulimbai Gurun)". In the Manchu official Tulisen's Manchu language account of his meeting with the Torghut leader ]Ayuka Khan
Ayuka or Ayuki Khan (1669–1724) was a Kalmyk leader under whose rule the Kalmyk Khanate reached its zenith in terms of economic, military, and politic power. On behalf of Russia, Ayuka Khan protected the southern borders of Russia, engaging in ...
, it was mentioned that while the Torghuts were unlike the Russians, the "people of the Central Kingdom" (dulimba-i gurun , Zhongguo) were like the Torghuts; "people of the Central Kingdom" meant Manchus.[
It was possible for Han Bannermen and Han bondservants (booi) to become Manchu by being transferred into the upper three Manchu Banners and having their surname "Manchufied" with the addition of a "giya" () as a suffix. The process was called ''taiqi'' () in Chinese. It typically occurred in cases of intermarriage with the ]Aisin-Gioro
The House of Aisin-Gioro was a Manchu clan that ruled the Later Jin dynasty (1616–1636), the Qing dynasty (1636–1912), and Manchukuo (1932–1945) in the history of China. Under the Ming dynasty, members of the Aisin Gioro clan served as chi ...
clan (the imperial clan); close relatives (fathers and brothers) of the concubine or Empress would get promoted from the Han Banner to the Manchu Banner and become Manchu.
Modern times
The majority of the hundreds of thousands of people living in inner Beijing during the Qing were Manchus and Mongol bannermen from the Eight Banners
The Eight Banners (in Manchu language, Manchu: ''jakūn gūsa'', ) were administrative and military divisions under the Later Jin (1616–1636), Later Jin and Qing dynasty, Qing dynasties of China into which all Manchu people, Manchu households ...
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
The Hundred Days' Reform or Wuxu Reform () was a failed 103-day national, cultural, political, and educational reform movement that occurred from 11 June to 22 September 1898 during the late Qing dynasty. It was undertaken by the young Guangxu E ...
", during the reign of emperor Guangxu
The Guangxu Emperor (14 August 1871 – 14 November 1908), personal name Zaitian, was the tenth Emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign lasted from 1875 to 1908, but in practice he ruled, wi ...
, were Han were allowed to re-enter inner Beijing.
Many Manchu Bannermen in Beijing supported the Boxers in the Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by ...
and shared their anti-foreign sentiment.[ The Manchu Bannermen were devastated by the fighting during the ]First Sino-Japanese War
The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between China and Japan primarily over influence in Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the po ...
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
Clemens August Freiherr von Ketteler (22 November 1853 – 20 June 1900) was a German career diplomat. He was killed during the Boxer Rebellion.
Early life and career
Ketteler was born at Münster in western Germany on 22 November 1853 into a ...
was assassinated by a Manchu. Thousands of Manchus fled south from Aigun
Aigun (; Manchu: ''aihūn hoton''; ) was a historic Chinese town in northern Manchuria, situated on the right bank of the Amur River, some south (downstream) from the central urban area of Heihe (which is across the Amur from the mouth of the Z ...
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.
Manchu banner garrisons were annihilated on 5 roads by Russians as they suffered most of the casualties. Manchu Shoufu killed himself during the battle of Peking and the Manchu Lao She
Shu Qingchun (3 February 189924 August 1966), known by his pen name Lao She, was a Chinese novelist and dramatist. He was one of the most significant figures of 20th-century Chinese literature, and is best known for his novel ''Rickshaw Boy'' a ...
's father was killed by western soldiers in the battle as the Manchu banner armies of the Center Division of the Guards Army, Tiger Spirit Division and Peking Field Force
The Peking Field Force was a modern-armed military unit that defended the Chinese imperial capital Beijing in the last decades of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912).
The Force was founded in 1862, two years after the humiliating capture of Beijing and ...
in the Metropolitan banners were slaughtered by the western soldiers. Baron von Ketteler, the German diplomat was murdered by Captain Enhai, a Manchu from the Tiger Spirit Division of Aisin Gioro Zaiyi, Prince Duan and the Inner city Legation Quarters and Catholic cathedral (Church of the Saviour, Beijing
The Church of the Saviour ( zh, t=救世主堂, s=救世主堂), also known as the Xishiku Church ( zh, t=西什庫天主堂, s=西什库天主堂) or Beitang ( zh, t=北堂, s=北堂, l=the North Church, links=no), is a historic Roman Catholic c ...
) were both attacked by Manchu bannermen. Manchu bannermen were slaughtered by the Eight Nation Alliance all over Manchuria and Beijing because most of the Manchu bannermen supported the Boxers in the Boxer rebellion. There were 1,266 households including 900 Daurs
The Daur people (Khalkha Mongolian: Дагуур, ''Daguur''; ) are a Mongolic people in Northeast China. The Daur form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognised in the People's Republic of China. They numbered 131,992 according to the la ...
and 4,500 Manchus in Sixty-Four Villages East of the River
The Sixty-Four Villages East of the River were a group of Manchu, Daur and Han-inhabited villages located on the left (north) bank of the Amur River (Heilong Jiang) opposite of Heihe, and on the east bank of Zeya River opposite of Blagoveshchen ...
and Blagoveshchensk
Blagoveshchensk ( rus, Благове́щенск, p=bləgɐˈvʲeɕːɪnsk, meaning ''City of the Annunciation'') is a city and the administrative center of Amur Oblast, Russia. It is located at the confluence of the Amur and the Zeya Rivers, opp ...
until the committed by Russian Cossack
The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...
soldiers. Many Manchu villages were burned by Cossacks in the massacre according to Victor Zatsepine. Western and Japanese soldiers mass raped Manchu women and Mongol banner women in the Tartar Banner inner city of Beijing in siheyuan
A ''siheyuan'' (; IPA: ɹ̩̂.xɤ̌.ɥɛ̂n is a historical type of residence that was commonly found throughout China, most famously in Beijing and rural Shanxi. Throughout Chinese history, the siheyuan composition was the basic pattern used ...
hutong
''Hutong'' () are a type of narrow street or alley commonly associated with northern Chinese cities, especially Beijing.
In Beijing, hutongs are alleys formed by lines of ''siheyuan'', traditional courtyard residences. Many neighbourhoods wer ...
s in the city. Sawara Tokusuke, a Japanese journalist wrote in "Miscellaneous Notes about the Boxers,"[ about the rapes of Manchu and Mongol banner girls like when Manchu bannerman Yulu 裕禄 of the ]Hitara Hitara (, pinyin: Xitala), earlier known as Hitan (溪滩氏, pinyin: xitanshi), was a clan of Manchu nobility belonging to the Manchu Plain White Banner. Due to the marriage of Empress Xuan to the Jurchen chieftain Taksi, the clan was called "Old ...
clan was killed in Yangcun and his seven daughters gang raped in the Heavenly palace. A daughter and wife of Mongol banner noble Chongqi 崇绮 of the Alute clan were gang raped.[ Multiple relatives including his son Baochu killed themselves after he killed himself on 26 August 1900. (Fang 75).
Manchu royals, officials and officers like Yuxian, Qixiu 啟秀, ]Zaixun, Prince Zhuang
Zaixun (24 January 1853 – 21 February 1901), formally known as Prince Zhuang, was a Manchu prince of the Qing dynasty. He is best known for his involvement in the Boxer Rebellion.
Life
Zaixun was born in the Aisin Gioro clan as the second son ...
and Captain Enhai (En Hai) were executed or forced to commit suicide by the Eight Nation Alliance. Manchu official Gangyi's 剛毅 execution was demanded but he already died. Japanese soldiers arrested Qixiu before he was executed. Zaixun, Prince Zhuang was forced to commit suicide on 21 February 1901. They executed Yuxian on 22 February 1901.
On 31 December 1900 German soldiers beheaded the Manchu captain Enhai for killing Clemens von Ketteler
Clemens August Freiherr von Ketteler (22 November 1853 – 20 June 1900) was a German career diplomat. He was killed during the Boxer Rebellion.
Early life and career
Ketteler was born at Münster in western Germany on 22 November 1853 into a ...
. Posthumous dishonour was conferred upon Gangyi.
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 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
Jingzhou () is a prefecture-level city in southern Hubei province, China, located on the banks of the Yangtze River. Its total residential population was 5,231,180 based on the 2020 census, 1,068,291 of whom resided in the built-up (''or metro' ...
and Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...
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 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 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.
The Han Chinese Li Guojie, the grandson of ]Li Hongzhang
Li Hongzhang, Marquess Suyi ( zh, t=李鴻章; also Li Hung-chang; 15 February 1823 – 7 November 1901) was a Chinese politician, general and diplomat of the late Qing dynasty. He quelled several major rebellions and served in important ...
, married the Manchu daughter of Natong (), the Grand Secretary ().[ Most intermarriage consisted of Han Bannermen marrying Manchus in areas like Aihun.][ Han Chinese Bannermen wedded Manchus and there was no law against this.] Two of the Han Chinese General Yuan Shikai
Yuan Shikai (; 16 September 1859 – 6 June 1916) was a Chinese military and government official who rose to power during the late Qing dynasty and eventually ended the Qing dynasty rule of China in 1912, later becoming the Emperor of China. H ...
's sons married Manchu women, his sons Yuan Kequan 克權 marrying one of Manchu official Duanfang
Duanfang (; 20 April 1861 – 27 November 1911), courtesy name Wuqiao (), was a Manchu politician, educator and collector who lived in the late Qing dynasty. He was a member of the Tohoro () clan and the Plain White Banner of the Eight Banners.
...
's daughters and Yuan Kexiang 克相 marrying one of Manchu official Natong's daughters, and one his daughters married a Manchu man, Yuan Fuzhen 複禎 marrying one of Manchu official Yinchang
Yin Chang or In-ch'ang (; 1859 –1928 or 1934) was a military official, ambassador to Germany, and educational reformer in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. He was appointed the nation's first Minister of War in the late Qing Dynasty ...
's sons.
As the end of the Qing dynasty approached, Manchus were portrayed as outside colonizers by Chinese nationalists
The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Taiw ...
such as Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen (; also known by several other names; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925)Singtao daily. Saturday edition. 23 October 2010. section A18. Sun Yat-sen Xinhai revolution 100th anniversary edition . was a Chinese politician who serve ...
, 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
National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or to one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...
.[ In order to blend in, some Manchus switched to speaking the local dialect instead of Standard Chinese.][
By the early years of the ]Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
, 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
Aigun (; Manchu: ''aihūn hoton''; ) was a historic Chinese town in northern Manchuria, situated on the right bank of the Amur River, some south (downstream) from the central urban area of Heihe (which is across the Amur from the mouth of the Z ...
() District and the Qiqihar
Qiqihar () is the second-largest city in the Heilongjiang province of China, in the west central part of the province. The built-up (or metro) area made up of Longsha, Tiefeng and Jianhua districts had 959,787 inhabitants, while the total populat ...
() District of Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost province ...
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 the other hand, in warlord ]Zhang Zuolin
Zhang Zuolin (; March 19, 1875 June 4, 1928), courtesy name Yuting (雨亭), nicknamed Zhang Laogang (張老疙瘩), was an influential Chinese bandit, soldier, and warlord during the Warlord Era in China. The warlord of Manchuria from 1916 to ...
'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
The Fengtian clique () was one of several opposing military factions that constituted the early Republic of China during its Warlord Era. It was named after Fengtian Province (now Liaoning), and operated from a territorial base comprising the thr ...
, such as Xi Qia
Aisin-Gioro Xiqia (Aisin-Gioro Hsi-hsia; ; 1883–1950), commonly known as Xi Qia or Xi Xia (Hsi Hsia; ; Hepburn: ''Ki Kō''), was a general in command of the Kirin Provincial Army of the Republic of China, who defected to the Japanese during t ...
, a member of the Qing dynasty's imperial clan.
As a follow-up to the Mukden Incident
The Mukden Incident, or Manchurian Incident, known in Chinese as the 9.18 Incident (九・一八), was a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
On September 18, 1931, L ...
, Manchukuo
Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China, Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 afte ...
, a puppet state in Manchuria, was created by the Empire of Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...
which was nominally ruled by the deposed Last Emperor, Puyi
Aisin-Gioro Puyi (; 7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967), courtesy name Yaozhi (曜之), was the last emperor of China as the eleventh and final Qing dynasty monarch. He became emperor at the age of two in 1908, but was forced to abdicate on 1 ...
, 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
Han may refer to:
Ethnic groups
* Han Chinese, or Han People (): the name for the largest ethnic group in China, which also constitutes the world's largest ethnic group.
** Han Taiwanese (): the name for the ethnic group of the Taiwanese p ...
population and was opposed by many Manchus as well as people of other ethnicities who fought against Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...
.[ 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 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.[
In 1952, after the failure of both Manchukuo and the Nationalist Government (KMT), the newborn People's Republic of China officially recognized the Manchu as one of the ethnic minorities as ]Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
had criticized the Han chauvinism
Han Chinese chauvinism is a political ideology that speaks out for the ethnic Han Chinese people and its uniqueness throughout history. Technically, it is slightly different from Chinese chauvinism, as it refers only to Han Chinese ethnicity wh ...
that dominated the KMT.[ In the 1953 census, 2.5 million people identified themselves as Manchu.][ The Communist government also attempted to improve the treatment of Manchu people; some Manchu people who had hidden their ancestry during the period of KMT rule became willing to reveal their ancestry, such as the writer ]Lao She
Shu Qingchun (3 February 189924 August 1966), known by his pen name Lao She, was a Chinese novelist and dramatist. He was one of the most significant figures of 20th-century Chinese literature, and is best known for his novel ''Rickshaw Boy'' a ...
, who began to include Manchu characters in his fictional works in the 1950s.[ Between 1982 and 1990, the official count of Manchu people more than doubled from 4,299,159 to 9,821,180, making them China's fastest-growing ethnic minority,][ but this growth was only on paper, as this was due to people formerly registered as Han applying for official recognition as Manchu.][ Since the 1980s, thirteen Manchu autonomous counties have been created in Liaoning, Jilin, Hebei, and Heilongjiang.
The ]Eight Banners
The Eight Banners (in Manchu language, Manchu: ''jakūn gūsa'', ) were administrative and military divisions under the Later Jin (1616–1636), Later Jin and Qing dynasty, Qing dynasties of China into which all Manchu people, Manchu households ...
system is one of the most important ethnic identity of today's Manchu people.[ So nowadays, Manchus are more like an ethnic coalition which not only contains the descendants of Manchu bannermen, also has a large number of Manchu-assimilated Chinese and Mongol bannermen.][ However, ]Solon
Solon ( grc-gre, Σόλων; BC) was an Athenian statesman, constitutional lawmaker and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in Archaic Athens.Aristotle ''Politics'' ...
and Sibe Bannermen who were considered as part of Eight Banner system under the Qing dynasty were registered as independent ethnic groups by the PRC government as Daur, Evenk, Nanai, Oroqen, and Sibe.[
Since the 1980s, the ]reform
Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill#The Yorkshire Associati ...
after Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...
, there has been a renaissance of Manchu culture and language among the government, scholars and social activities with remarkable achievements.[ It was also reported that the resurgence of interest also spread among ]Han Chinese
The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive va ...
. In modern China, Manchu culture and language preservation is promoted by the Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...
, and Manchus once again form one of the most socioeconomically advanced minorities within China. Manchus generally face little to no discrimination in their daily lives, there is however, a remaining anti-Manchu sentiment amongst Han nationalists conspiracy theorists. It is particularly common with participants of the Hanfu movement who subscribe to conspiracy theories about Manchu people, such as the Chinese Communist Party being occupied by Manchu elites hence the better treatment Manchus receive under the People's Republic of China in contrast to their persecution under the KMT's Republic of China rule.
Population
Mainland China
Most Manchu people now live in Mainland China
"Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
with a population of 10,410,585,[ which is 9.28% of ethnic minorities and 0.77% of China's total population.][ Among the provincial regions, there are two provinces, ]Liaoning
Liaoning () is a coastal province in Northeast China that is the smallest, southernmost, and most populous province in the region. With its capital at Shenyang, it is located on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea, and is the northernmost ...
and Hebei
Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, an ...
, which have over 1,000,000 Manchu residents.[ Liaoning has 5,336,895 Manchu residents which is 51.26% of Manchu population and 12.20% provincial population; Hebei has 2,118,711 which is 20.35% of Manchu people and 70.80% of provincial ethnic minorites.][ Manchus are the largest ethnic minority in Liaoning, Hebei, ]Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost province ...
and Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
; 2nd largest in Jilin
Jilin (; alternately romanized as Kirin or Chilin) is one of the three provinces of Northeast China. Its capital and largest city is Changchun. Jilin borders North Korea (Rasŏn, North Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Chagang) and Russia (Prim ...
, Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...
, Tianjin
Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...
, Ningxia
Ningxia (,; , ; alternately romanized as Ninghsia), officially the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (NHAR), is an autonomous region in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. Formerly a province, Ningxia was incorporated into Gansu in ...
, Shaanxi
Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see #Name, § Name) is a landlocked Provinces of China, province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichu ...
and Shanxi
Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...
and 3rd largest in Henan
Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...
, Shandong
Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region.
Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizati ...
and Anhui
Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...
.[
]
Distribution
Manchu autonomous regions
File:Manchu autonomous regions in Liaoning.png, Manchu autonomous area in Liaoning.
File:Manchu autonomous regions in Jilin.png, Manchu autonomous area in Jilin.
File:Manchu autonomous regions in Hebei.png, Manchu autonomous area in Hebei.
Other areas
Manchu people can be found living outside mainland China
"Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
. There are approximately 12,000 Manchus now in Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
. Most of them moved to Taiwan with the ROC government
The Government of the Republic of China, is the national government of the Republic of China whose ''de facto'' territory currently consists of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other island groups in the "free area". Governed by the Dem ...
in 1949. One notable example was Puru Puru refer to:
*Puru (Vedic tribe), a tribe, or a confederation of tribes, mentioned many times in the Rigveda
*King Puru, a Hindu king in the Rigveda and Mahabharata
*King Porus, a king of northwest India in the time of Alexander the Great
*Puru ( ...
, a famous painter, calligrapher and also the founder of the Manchu Association of Republic of China.
Culture
Influence on other Tungusic peoples
The Manchus implemented measures to "Manchufy" the other Tungusic peoples living around the Amur River
The Amur (russian: река́ Аму́р, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's List of longest rivers, tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China, Northeastern China (Inne ...
basin.[ The southern Tungusic Manchus influenced the northern Tungusic peoples linguistically, culturally, and religiously.][
]
Language and alphabet
Language
The Manchu language
Manchu (Manchu:, ) is a critically endangered East Asian Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China.
As the traditional native language of the Manchus, it was one of the official languages of the Qing dyn ...
is a Tungusic language
The Tungusic languages (also known as Manchu-Tungus and Tungus) form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered. There are approximately 75,000 native speakers of the doz ...
and has many dialects. Its standard form is called "Standard Manchu". It originates from the accent of Jianzhou Jurchens and was officially standardized during the Qianlong Emperor
The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, born Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1735 t ...
's reign.[ During the Qing dynasty, Manchus at the imperial court were required to speak Standard Manchu or face the emperor's reprimand.][ This applied equally to the palace presbyter for shamanic rites when performing sacrifice.][
After the 19th century, most Manchus had perfected Standard Chinese and the number of Manchu speakers was dwindling.][ Although the Qing emperors emphasized the importance of the Manchu language again and again, the tide could not be turned. After the Qing dynasty collapsed, the Manchu language lost its status as a national language and its official use in education ended. Manchus today generally speak Standard Chinese. The remaining skilled native Manchu speakers number less than 100, most of whom are to be found in ]Sanjiazi
Sanjiazi (; (Manchu:, Möllendorff: ilan boo) is a village or Ilanbotokso in Youyi Daur, Manchu, and Kirghiz Ethnic Township (), Fuyu County, Heilongjiang, China.} The village is about 22 km southwest of the administrative center of Fuyu, a ...
(), Heilongjiang Province. Since the 1980s, there has been a resurgence of the Manchu language among the government, scholars and social activities.[ In recent years, with the help of the governments in Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, many schools started to have Manchu classes. There are also Manchu volunteers in many places of China who freely teach Manchu in the desire to rescue the language. Thousands of non-Manchus have learned the language through these platforms.]
Today, in an effort to save Manchu culture from extinction, the older generation of Manchus are spending their own money and time to teach young people. In an effort to encourage learners, these classes were oftentimes free. They teach through the Internet and even mail Manchu textbooks for free, all for the purpose of protecting the national cultural traditions.
Alphabet
The Jurchens, ancestors of the Manchus, had created Jurchen script in the Jin dynasty. After the Jin dynasty collapsed, the Jurchen script was gradually lost. In the Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
, 60%–70% of Jurchens used Mongolian script to write letters and 30%–40% of Jurchens used Chinese characters.[ This persisted until Nurhaci revolted against the Ming Empire. Nurhaci considered it a major impediment that his people lacked a script of their own, so he commanded his scholars, Gagai and Eldeni, to create Manchu characters by reference to Mongolian scripts.] They dutifully complied with the Khan's order and created Manchu script, which is called "script without dots and circles" (; ) or "old Manchu script" ().[ Due to its hurried creation, the script has its defects. Some vowels and consonants were difficult to distinguish.][ Shortly afterwards, their successor Dahai used dots and circles to distinguish vowels, aspirated and non-aspirated consonants and thus completed the script. His achievement is called "script with dots and circles" or "new Manchu script".
]
Traditional lifestyle
The Manchu are often mistakenly labelled a nomadic people,[ but they were sedentary agricultural people who lived in fixed villages, farmed crops and practiced hunting and mounted archery.][
The southern Tungusic Manchu farming sedentary lifestyle was very different from the nomadic hunter gatherer forager lifestyle of their more northern Tungusic relatives like the Warka, which caused the Qing state to attempt to sedentarize them and adopt the farming lifestyle of the Manchus.][
]
Women
In their traditional culture before the Qing, Manchu women originally had sex autonomy being able to have premarital sex, being able to talk and mingle with men after being married without coming under suspicion of infidelity and to remarry after becoming widows, but Manchu men later adopted Han Chinese Confucian values and started killing their wives and daughters during the Qing for perceived infidelity due to talking to unrelated men while married or premarital sex, and prizing virginity and widow chastity like Han Chinese. Compared to Han Chinese women, upper class Manchu women in the early Qing were at ease when talking to men.
Names and naming practices
Family names
The history of Manchu family names is quite long. Fundamentally, it succeeds the Jurchen family name of the Jin dynasty.[ However, after the Mongols extinguished the Jin dynasty, the Manchus started to adopt Mongol culture, including their custom of using only their given name until the end of the Qing dynasty,][ a practice confounding non-Manchus, leading them to conclude, erroneously, that they simply do not have family names.][
A Manchu family name usually has two portions: the first is "Mukūn" (, Abkai: Mukvn) which literally means "branch name"; the second, "Hala" (), represents the name of a person's clan.][ According to the ''Book of the Eight Manchu Banners' Surname-Clans'' (), there are 1,114 Manchu family names. ]Gūwalgiya
Gūwalgiya (Manchu Chinese: ; ) was one of the most powerful Manchu clans. It is often listed by historians as the first of the eight prominent Manchu clans of the Qing dynasty. After the demise of the dynasty, some of its descendants sinicized ...
, Niohuru
The Niohuru (Manchu: ; in Manchu) were a prominent Manchu clan during the Qing dynasty. The clan had inhabited the Changbai Mountains since as early as the Liao dynasty. The clan was well known during the Qing dynasty for producing a variety of ...
, Hešeri
Hešeri (Chinese: 赫舍里; Pinyin: Hesheli; Manchu: ''Hešeri''), is a clan of Manchu nobility with Jianzhou Jurchens roots, originally hailing from the area which is now the modern Chinese provinces of Jilin and Liaoning. It was once one of t ...
, Šumulu, Tatara, Gioro, Nara
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...
are considered as "famous clans" () among Manchus.
There were stories of Han migrating to the Jurchens and assimilating into Manchu Jurchen society and Nikan Wailan
Nikan Wailan (; , ? - 1587) was a Jurchen leader affiliated with the Ming dynasty and a rival of Nurhaci.
Name
In the Jurchen language, Nikan Wailan means "secretary of Han Chinese", thus his existence is suspected by some historians.
Life
In 1 ...
may have been an example of this. The Manchu Cuigiya () clan claimed that a Han Chinese founded their clan. The Tohoro () clan (Duanfang
Duanfang (; 20 April 1861 – 27 November 1911), courtesy name Wuqiao (), was a Manchu politician, educator and collector who lived in the late Qing dynasty. He was a member of the Tohoro () clan and the Plain White Banner of the Eight Banners.
...
's clan) claimed Han Chinese origin.[
]
Given names
Manchus given names are distinctive. Generally, there are several forms, such as bearing suffixes "-ngga", "-ngge" or "-nggo", meaning "having the quality of";[ bearing Mongol style suffixes "-tai" or "-tu", meaning "having";][ bearing the suffix, "-ju", "-boo";][ numerals][ or animal names.][
Some ethnic names can also be a given name of the Manchus. One of the common first name for the Manchus is ''Nikan'', which is also a ]Manchu
The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) and ...
exonym for the Han Chinese
The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive va ...
.[ For example, Nikan Wailan was a Jurchen leader who was an enemy of Nurhaci.] Nikan was also the name of one of the Aisin-Gioro princes and grandsons of Nurhaci who supported Prince Dorgon. Nurhaci's first son was Cuyen, one of whose sons was Nikan.
Current status
Nowadays, Manchus primarily use Chinese family and given names, but some still use a Manchu family name and Chinese given name, a Chinese family name and Manchu given name or both Manchu family and given names.
Burial customs
The Jurchens and their Manchu descendants originally practiced cremation
Cremation is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a Cadaver, dead body through Combustion, burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India ...
as part of their culture. They adopted the practice of burial from the Han Chinese, but many Manchus continued to cremate their dead.[ Princes were cremated on pyres.]
Traditional hairstyle
The traditional hairstyle for Manchu men is shaving the front of their heads while growing the hair on the back of their heads into a single braid called a queue __NOTOC__
Queue () may refer to:
* Queue area, or queue, a line or area where people wait for goods or services
Arts, entertainment, and media
*''ACM Queue'', a computer magazine
* The Queue (Sorokin novel), ''The Queue'' (Sorokin novel), a 198 ...
(), which was known as ''soncoho'' in Manchu. During the Qing Dynasty, the queue was legally mandated for male Han Chinese subjects in the Qing Empire, on the pain of death.
Manchu women wore their hair in a distinctive hairstyle called ''liangbatou
Liangbatou is a hairstyle/headdress worn by Manchu women. It is a tall headdress that features two handfuls of hair, parted to each side of the head, sometimes with the addition of wire frames, extensions and ornamentation.
Liangbatou was made f ...
'' ().
Traditional garments
A common misconception among Han Chinese was that Manchu clothing was entirely separate from Hanfu. In fact, Manchu clothes were simply modified Ming Hanfu but the Manchus promoted the misconception that their clothing was of different origin. Manchus originally did not have their own cloth or textiles and the Manchus had to obtain Ming dragon robes and cloth when they paid tribute to the Ming dynasty or traded with the Ming. These Ming robes were modified, cut and tailored to be narrow at the sleeves and waist with slits in the skirt to make it suitable for falconry, horse riding and archery. The Ming robes were simply modified and changed by Manchus by cutting it at the sleeves and waist to make them narrow around the arms and waist instead of wide and added a new narrow cuff to the sleeves.[ The new cuff was made out of fur. The robe's jacket waist had a new strip of scrap cloth put on the waist while the waist was made snug by pleating the top of the skirt on the robe.][ The Manchus added sable fur skirts, cuffs and collars to Ming dragon robes and trimming sable fur all over them before wearing them. Han Chinese court costume was modified by Manchus by adding a ceremonial big collar (da-ling) or shawl collar (pijian-ling). It was mistakenly thought that the hunting ancestors of the Manchus skin clothes became Qing dynasty clothing, due to the contrast between Ming dynasty clothes unshaped cloth's straight length contrasting to the odd-shaped pieces of Qing dynasty long pao and chao fu. Scholars from the west wrongly thought they were purely Manchu. Chao fu robes from Ming dynasty tombs like the Wanli emperor's tomb were excavated and it was found that Qing chao fu was similar and derived from it. They had embroidered or woven dragons on them but are different from long pao dragon robes which are a separate clothing. Flaired skirt with right side fastenings and fitted bodices dragon robes have been found] in Beijing, Shanxi, Jiangxi, Jiangsu and Shandong tombs of Ming officials and Ming imperial family members. Integral upper sleeves of Ming chao fu had two pieces of cloth attached on Qing chao fu just like earlier Ming chao fu that had sleeve extensions with another piece of cloth attached to the bodice's integral upper sleeve. Another type of separate Qing clothing, the long pao resembles Yuan dynasty clothing like robes found in the Shandong tomb of Li Youan during the Yuan dynasty. The Qing dynasty chao fu appear in official formal portraits while Ming dynasty Chao fu that they derive from do not, perhaps indicating the Ming officials and imperial family wore chao fu under their formal robes since they appear in Ming tombs but not portraits. Qing long pao were similar unofficial clothing during the Qing dynasty.[ The Yuan robes had hems flared and around the arms and torso they were tight. Qing unofficial clothes, long pao, derived from Yuan dynasty clothing while Qing official clothing, chao fu, derived from unofficial Ming dynasty clothing, dragon robes. The Ming consciously modeled their clothing after that of earlier Han Chinese dynasties like the Song dynasty, Tang dynasty and Han dynasty. In Japan's Nara city, the Todaiji temple's Shosoin repository has 30 short coats (hanpi) from Tang dynasty China. Ming dragon robes derive from these Tang dynasty hanpi in construction. The hanpi skirt and bodice are made of different cloth with different patterns on them and this is where the Qing chao fu originated.][ Cross-over closures are present in both the hanpi and Ming garments. The eighth century Shosoin hanpi's variety show it was in vogue at the tine and most likely derived from much more ancient clothing. ]Han dynasty
The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...
and Jin dynasty (266–420)
The Jin dynasty (; ) or the Jin Empire, sometimes distinguished as the (司馬晉) or the (兩晉), was an imperial dynasty of China that existed from 266 to 420. It was founded by Sima Yan (Emperor Wu), eldest son of Sima Zhao, who had pr ...
era tombs in Yingban, to the Tianshan
The Tian Shan,, , otk, 𐰴𐰣 𐱅𐰭𐰼𐰃, , tr, Tanrı Dağı, mn, Тэнгэр уул, , ug, تەڭرىتاغ, , , kk, Тәңіртауы / Алатау, , , ky, Теңир-Тоо / Ала-Тоо, , , uz, Tyan-Shan / Tangritog‘ ...
mountains south in Xinjiang
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
have clothes resembling the Qing long pao and Tang dynasty hanpi. The evidence from excavated tombs indicates that China had a long tradition of garments that led to the Qing chao fu and it was not invented or introduced by Manchus in the Qing dynasty or Mongols in the Yuan dynasty. The Ming robes that the Qing chao fu derived from were just not used in portraits and official paintings but were deemed as high status to be buried in tombs. In some cases the Qing went further than the Ming dynasty in imitating ancient China to display legitimacy with resurrecting ancient Chinese rituals to claim the Mandate of Heaven after studying Chinese classics. Qing sacrificial ritual vessels deliberately resemble ancient Chinese ones even more than Ming vessels.[ Tungusic people on the ]Amur river
The Amur (russian: река́ Аму́р, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's List of longest rivers, tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China, Northeastern China (Inne ...
like Udeghe, Ulchi
Ulchsky District (russian: У́льчский райо́н) is an administrativeResolution #143-pr and municipalLaw #194 district (raion), one of the seventeen in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. It is located in the east of the krai and named after th ...
and Nanai adopted Chinese influences in their religion and clothing with Chinese dragons on ceremonial robes, scroll and spiral bird and monster mask designs, Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a New Year, new year on the traditional lunisolar calendar, lunisolar and solar Chinese calendar. In Sinophone, Chinese and other East Asian cultures, the festival is commonly r ...
, using silk and cotton, iron cooking pots, and heated house from China during the Ming dynasty.
The Spencer Museum of Art
The Spencer Museum of Art is an art museum operated by the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Spencer Museum seeks to "...present its collection as a living archive that motivates object-c ...
has six long pao robes that belonged to Han Chinese nobility of the Qing dynasty (Chinese nobility
The nobility of China was an important feature of the traditional social structure of Ancient China and Imperial China.
While the concepts of hereditary sovereign and peerage titles and noble families were featured as early as the semi-mythi ...
).[ Ranked officials and Han Chinese nobles had two slits in the skirts while Manchu nobles and the Imperial family had 4 slits in skirts. All first, second and third rank officials as well as Han Chinese and Manchu nobles were entitled to wear 9 dragons by the Qing Illustrated Precedents. Qing sumptuary laws only allowed four clawed dragons for officials, Han Chinese nobles and Manchu nobles while the Qing Imperial family, emperor and princes up to the second degree and their female family members were entitled to wear five clawed dragons. However officials violated these laws all the time and wore 5 clawed dragons and the Spencer Museum's 6 long pao worn by Han Chinese nobles have 5 clawed dragons on them.][
]
The early phase of Manchu clothing succeeded from Jurchen tradition. White was the dominating color.To facilitate convenience during archery, the robe is the most common article of clothing for the Manchu people. Over the robe, a surcoat is usually worn, derived from the military uniform of Eight Banners army.[ During the Kangxi period, the surcoat gained popularity among commoners.][ The modern Chinese suits, the ]Cheongsam
''Cheongsam'' (, ), also known as the ''qipao'' () and sometimes referred to as the mandarin gown, is a Chinese dress worn by women which takes inspiration from the , the ethnic clothing of the Manchu people. The cheongsam is most often see ...
and Tangzhuang
Tangzhuang (), sometimes called Tang suit, is a kind of Chinese jacket with Manchu origins and Han influences, characterized with a mandarin collar closing at the front with frog buttons. It is an updated form of the Qing magua, itself a more fas ...
, are derived from the Manchu robe and surcoat[ which are commonly considered as "Chinese elements".
Wearing hats is also a part of traditional Manchu culture,][ and Manchu people wear hats in all ages and seasons in contrast to the ]Han Chinese
The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive va ...
culture of "Starting to wear hats at 20-year-old" ().[ Manchu hats are either formal or casual, formal hats being made in two different styles, straw for spring and summer, and fur for fall and winter.][ Casual hats are more commonly known as "Mandarin hats" in English.
Manchus have many distinctive traditional accessories. Women traditionally wear three earrings on each ear, a tradition that is maintained by many older Manchu women. Males also traditionally wear piercings, but they tend to only have one earring in their youth and do not continue to wear it as adults.][ The Manchu people also have traditional jewelry which evokes their past as hunters. The fergetun (), a thumb ring traditionally made out of reindeer bone, was worn to protect the thumbs of archers. After the establishment of the Qing dynasty in 1644, the fergetun gradually became simply a form of jewelry, with the most valuable ones made in jade and ivory. High-heeled shoes were worn by Manchu women.
]
Traditional activities
Riding and archery
Riding and archery () are significant to the Manchus. They were well-trained horsemen from their teenage years. Huangtaiji said, "Riding and archery are the most important martial arts of our country".[ Every generation of the Qing dynasty treasured riding and archery the most.] Every spring and fall, from ordinary Manchus to aristocrats, all had to take riding and archery tests. Their test results could even affect their rank in the nobility
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy (class), aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below Royal family, royalty. Nobility has often been an Estates of the realm, estate of the realm with many e ...
.[ The Manchus of the early Qing dynasty had excellent shooting skills and their arrows were reputed to be capable of penetrating two persons.][
From the middle period of the Qing dynasty, archery became more a form of entertainment in the form of games such as hunting swans, shooting fabric or silk target. The most difficult is shooting a candle hanging in the air at night.][ Gambling was banned in the Qing dynasty but there was no limitation on Manchus engaging in archery contests. It was common to see Manchus putting signs in front of their houses to invite challenges.][ After the ]Qianlong period
The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, born Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1735 t ...
, Manchus gradually neglected the practices of riding and archery, even though their rulers tried their best to encourage Manchus to continue their riding and archery traditions,[ but the traditions are still kept among some Manchus even nowadays.
File:Hunting party1.jpg, Manchu Hunting party
File:Hunting party2.jpg, Manchu Hunting party
File:Hunting party3.jpg, Manchu Hunting party
File:Hunting party4.jpg, Manchu Hunting party
File:Hunting party5.jpg, Manchu Hunting party
File:Hunting party6.jpg, Manchu Hunting party
File:Hunting party7.jpg, Manchu Hunting party
File:Hunting party8.jpg, Manchu Hunting party
File:Hunting party9.jpg, Manchu Hunting party
File:Hunting party10.jpg, Manchu Hunting party
File:Hunting party11.jpg, Manchu Hunting party
File:Hunting party12.jpg, Manchu Hunting party
]
Manchu wrestling
Manchu wrestling ()[ is also an important martial art of the Manchu people.][ Buku, meaning "wrestling" or "man of unusual strength" in Manchu, was originally from a Mongolian word, "]bökh
Mongolian wrestling, known as Bökh (Mongolian script: ; Mongolian Cyrillic: Бөх or Үндэсний бөх), is the folk wrestling style of Mongols in Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and other regions where touching the ground with anything other th ...
".[ The history of Manchu wrestling can be traced back to Jurchen wrestling in the Jin dynasty which was originally from Khitan wrestling; it was very similar to Mongolian wrestling.][ In the ]Yuan dynasty
The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fifth ...
, the Jurchens who lived in northeast China adopted Mongol culture including wrestling, bökh.[ In the latter Jin and early Qing period, rulers encouraged the populace, including aristocrats, to practise buku as a feature of military training.][ At the time, Mongol wrestlers were the most famous and powerful. By the Chongde period, Manchus had developed their own well-trained wrestlers][ and, a century later, in the Qianlong period, they surpassed Mongol wrestlers.][ The Qing court established the "Shan Pu Battalion" and chose 200 fine wrestlers divided into three levels. Manchu wrestling moves can be found in today's Chinese wrestling, '']shuai jiao
Shuai Jiao () is the term pertaining to the ancient jacket wrestling wushu style of Beijing, Tianjin and Baoding of Hebei Province in the North China Plain which was codified by Shan Pu Ying (善撲营 The Battalion of Excellency in Catching) o ...
'', which is its most important part.[ Among many branches, Beijing wrestling adopted most Manchu wrestling moves.
]
Falconry
As a result of their hunting ancestry, Manchus are traditionally interested in falconry.[ ]Gyrfalcon
The gyrfalcon ( or ) (), the largest of the falcon species, is a bird of prey. The abbreviation gyr is also used. It breeds on Arctic coasts and tundra, and the islands of northern North America and the Eurosiberian region. It is mainly a reside ...
() is the most highly valued discipline in the Manchu falconry social circle.[ In the Qing period, giving a gyrfalcon to the royal court in tribute could be met with a considerable reward.][ There were professional falconers in Ningguta area (today's Heilongjiang province and the northern part of Jilin province). It was a big base of falconry.][ Beijing's Manchus also like falconry. Compared to the falconry of Manchuria, it is more like an entertainment.][ Imperial Household Department of Beijing had professional falconers, too. They provided outstanding falcons to the emperor when he went to hunt every fall.][ Even today, Manchu traditional falconry is well practised in some regions.
]
Ice skating
Ice skating () is another Manchu pastime. The Qianlong Emperor
The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, born Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1735 t ...
called it a "national custom". It was one of the most important winter events of the Qing royal household, performed by the "Eight Banner Ice Skating Battalion" ()[ which was a special force trained to do battle on icy terrain.][ The battalion consisted of 1600 soldiers. In the Jiaqing period, it was reduced to 500 soldiers and transferred to the Jing Jie Battalion () originally, literally meaning "chosen agile battalion".][
In the 1930s–1940s, there was a famous Manchu skater in Beijing whose name was Wu Tongxuan, from the Uya clan and one of the royal household skaters in ]Empress Dowager Cixi
Empress Dowager Cixi ( ; mnc, Tsysi taiheo; formerly Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Empress Dowager T'zu-hsi; 29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908), of the Manchu people, Manchu Nara (clan)#Yehe Nara, Yehe Nara clan, was a Chinese nob ...
's regency. He frequently appeared in many of Beijing's skating rinks.[ Nowadays, there are still Manchu figure skaters; world champions ]Zhao Hongbo
Zhao Hongbo (; born 22 September 1973) is a Chinese retired pair skater. With his wife Shen Xue, Zhao is the 2010 Olympic champion, the 2002 & 2006 Olympic bronze medalist, a three-time World champion (2002, 2003 & 2007), a three-time Four Co ...
and Tong Jian
Tong Jian (; born August 15, 1979 in Harbin, Heilongjiang) is a Chinese retired pair skater. With his wife Pang Qing, he is the 2010 Olympic silver medalist, 2006 and 2010 World Champion, a five-time Four Continents champion (2002, 2004, 2008, ...
are the pre-eminent examples.
Literature
The ''Tale of the Nisan Shaman ''The Tale of the Nisan Shaman'' (also spelled "Nishan"; ) is a Manchu folk tale about a female shaman who resurrects the son of a rich landowner.
Versions
Variants of the tale are also found among the Evenk, Daur, and Nanai peoples. The tale ...
'' (; ) is the most important piece of Manchu literature. It primarily recounts how Nisan Shaman helps revive a young hunter.[ The story also spread to Xibe, Nanai, Daur, Oroqen, Evenk and other Tungusic peoples.][ It has four versions: the handwriting version from Qiqihar; two different handwriting versions from Aigun; and the one by the Manchu writer Dekdengge in ]Vladivostok
Vladivostok ( rus, Владивосто́к, a=Владивосток.ogg, p=vɫədʲɪvɐˈstok) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, Russia. The city is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea ...
([). The four versions are similar, but Haišenwei's is the most complete.][ It has been translated into Russian, Chinese, English and other languages.][
There is also literature written in Chinese by Manchu writers, such as '']The Tale of Heroic Sons and Daughters
''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...
'' (), ' () and ' ().
Folk art
Octagonal drum
Octagonal drum is a type of Manchu folk art that was very popular among bannermen, especially in Beijing.[ It is said that octagonal drum originated with the snare drum of the Eight-banner military and the melody was made by the banner soldiers who were on the way back home from victory in the battle of Jinchuan.][ The drum is composed of wood surrounded by bells. The drumhead is made by wyrmhide with tassels at the bottom.][ The colors of the tassels are yellow, white, red, and blue, which represent the four colors of the ]Eight Banners
The Eight Banners (in Manchu language, Manchu: ''jakūn gūsa'', ) were administrative and military divisions under the Later Jin (1616–1636), Later Jin and Qing dynasty, Qing dynasties of China into which all Manchu people, Manchu households ...
.[ When artists perform, they use their fingers to hit the drumhead and shake the drum to ring the bells.][ Traditionally, octagonal drum is performed by three people. One is the harpist; one is the clown who is responsible for harlequinade; and the third is the singer.][
]
"Zidishu
Zidishu (), translated as Bannerman Song or Scion Book, was a popular Chinese folk ballad song during the Qing dynasty (1644–1912), mostly composed and performed by Manchu people. It flourished between 1736 and 1850 and began to decline at the ...
" is the main libretto of octagonal drum and can be traced back to a type of traditional folk music called the "Manchu Rhythm".[ Although Zidishu was not created by ]Han Chinese
The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive va ...
, it still contains many themes from Chinese stories,[ such as '']Romance of the Three Kingdoms
''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'' () is a 14th-century historical novel attributed to Luo Guanzhong. It is set in the turbulent years towards the end of the Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history, starting in 184 AD and ...
'', ''Dream of the Red Chamber
''Dream of the Red Chamber'' (''Honglou Meng'') or ''The Story of the Stone'' (''Shitou Ji'') is a novel composed by Cao Xueqin in the middle of the 18th century. One of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, it is known for ...
'', ''Romance of the Western Chamber
''Romance of the Western Chamber'' (), also translated as ''The Story of the Western Wing'', ''The West Chamber'', ''Romance of the Western Bower'' and similar titles, is one of the most famous Chinese dramatic works. It was written by the Yuan d ...
'', ''Legend of the White Snake
The Legend of the White Snake is a Chinese legend. It has since been presented in a number of major Chinese operas, films, and television series.
The earliest attempt to fictionalize the story in printed form appears to be ''The White Maiden L ...
'' and ''Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio
''Liaozhai zhiyi'', sometimes shortened to ''Liaozhai'', known in English as ''Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio'' or ''Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio'', is a collection of Classical Chinese stories by Qing dynasty writer Pu Songling, ...
''.[ Additionally, there are many works that depict the lives of Bannermen. Aisin-Gioro Yigeng, who was pen named "Helü" and wrote ''the sigh of old imperial bodyguard'', as the representative author.][ Zidishu involves two acts of singing, which are called ''dongcheng'' and ''xicheng''.][
After the fall of the Qing dynasty, the influence of the octagonal drum gradually reduced. However, the ][ and ]crosstalk
In electronics, crosstalk is any phenomenon by which a signal transmitted on one circuit or channel of a transmission system creates an undesired effect in another circuit or channel. Crosstalk is usually caused by undesired capacitive, induc ...
which incorporates octagonal drum are still popular in Chinese society and the new generations. Many famous Chinese monochord performers and crosstalkers were the artists of octagonal drum, such as De Shoushan and Zhang Sanlu.[
]
Ulabun
Ulabun () is a form of Manchu storytelling entertainment which is performed in the Manchu language. Different from octagonal drum, ulabun is popular among the Manchu people living in Manchuria. It has two main categories; one is popular folk literature such as the ''Tale of the Nisan Shaman'', the other is from folk music with an informative and independent plot, and complete structure.[ Song Xidong aka. Akšan/Akxan () is a famous artist in performing ulabun.
]
Religion
Originally, Manchus, and their predecessors, were principally Buddhists with Shamanist influences. Every Manchu King started his royal title with Buddha. After the conquest of China in the 17th century, Manchus came into contact with Chinese culture. They adopted Confucianism along with Buddhism and discouraged shamanism.
Manchu shamanism
Shamanism
Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a Spirit world (Spiritualism), spirit world through Altered state of consciousness, altered states of consciousness, such as tranc ...
has a long history in Manchu civilization and influenced them tremendously over thousands of years. John Keay
John Stanley Melville Keay FRGS is a British historian, journalist, radio presenter and lecturer specialising in popular histories of India, the Far East and China, often with a particular focus on their colonisation and exploration by Europe ...
states in ''A History of China'', shaman is the single loan-word from Manchurian into the English language. After the conquest of China in the 17th century, although Manchus officially adopted Buddhism and widely adopted Chinese folk religion, Shamanic traditions can still be found in the aspects of soul worship, totem worship, belief in nightmares and apotheosis of philanthropists.[ Apart from the Shamanic shrines in the Qing palace, no temples erected for worship of Manchu gods could be found in Beijing.][ Thus, the story of competition between Shamanists and Lamaists was often heard in Manchuria but the Manchu emperors helped Lamaists or Tibetan Buddhists officially.][
]
Buddhism
Jurchens, the predecessors of the Manchus adopted the Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
of Balhae
Balhae ( ko, 발해, zh, c=渤海, p=Bóhǎi, russian: Бохай, translit=Bokhay, ), also rendered as Bohai, was a multi-ethnic kingdom whose land extends to what is today Northeast China, the Korean Peninsula and the Russian Far East. It wa ...
, Goryeo
Goryeo (; ) was a Korean kingdom founded in 918, during a time of national division called the Later Three Kingdoms period, that unified and ruled the Korean Peninsula until 1392. Goryeo achieved what has been called a "true national unificati ...
, Liao and Song
A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetitio ...
in the 10–13th centuries, so it was not something new to the rising Manchus in the 16–17th centuries. Qing emperors were always entitled "Buddha". They were regarded as Mañjuśrī
Mañjuśrī (Sanskrit: मञ्जुश्री) is a ''bodhisattva'' associated with '' prajñā'' (wisdom) in Mahāyāna Buddhism. His name means "Gentle Glory" in Sanskrit. Mañjuśrī is also known by the fuller name of Mañjuśrīkumārab ...
in Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
[ and had high attainments.][
]Hong Taiji
Hong Taiji (28 November 1592 – 21 September 1643), also rendered as Huang Taiji and sometimes referred to as Abahai in Western literature, also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizong of Qing, was the second khan of the Later Jin ...
who was of Mongolian descent started leaning towards Chan Buddhism, which became Zen Buddhism. Still, Huangtaiji patronized Tibetan Buddhism extensively and publicly. Huangtaiji patronized Buddhism but sometimes felt Tibetan Buddhism to be inferior to Chan Buddhism.[
The ]Qianlong Emperor
The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, born Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1735 t ...
's faith in Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
has been questioned in recent times because the emperor indicated that he supported the Yellow Church (the Tibetan Buddhist Gelukpa
240px, The 14th Dalai Lama (center), the most influential figure of the contemporary Gelug tradition, at the 2003 Bodhgaya (India).
The Gelug (, also Geluk; "virtuous")Kay, David N. (2007). ''Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain: Transplantati ...
sect)[
This explanation of only supporting the "Yellow Hats" Tibetan Buddhists for practical reasons was used to deflect Han criticism of this policy by the Qianlong Emperor, who had the "Lama Shuo" stele engraved in Tibetan, Mongol, Manchu and Chinese, which said: "By patronizing the Yellow Church we maintain peace among the Mongols." It seems he was wary of the rising power of the Tibetan Kingdom and its influence over the Mongolians and Manchu public, princes and generals.
]
Chinese folk religion
Manchus were affected by Chinese folk religion
Chinese folk religion, also known as Chinese popular religion comprehends a range of traditional religious practices of Han Chinese, including the Chinese diaspora. Vivienne Wee described it as "an empty bowl, which can variously be filled ...
s for most of the Qing dynasty.[ Save for ancestor worship, the gods they consecrated were virtually identical to those of the Han Chinese.][ ]Guan Yu
Guan Yu (; ), courtesy name Yunchang, was a Chinese military general serving under the warlord Liu Bei during the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. Along with Zhang Fei, he shared a brotherly relationship with Liu Bei and accompanied him on ...
worship is a typical example. He was considered as the God Protector of the Nation and was sincerely worshipped by Manchus. They called him "Lord Guan" (). Uttering his name was taboo.[ In addition, Manchus worshipped ]Cai Shen
Caishen () is the mythological figure worshipped in the Chinese folk religion and Taoism. He has been identified with many historical figures, viewed as his embodied forms, among whom Zhao Gongming (, Wade–Giles: ''Chao Kung-ming''; also known ...
and the Kitchen God
The Kitchen deity – also known as the Stove God, named Zao Jun, Zao Shen, Zao kimjah, Cokimjah or Zhang Lang – is the most important of a plethora of Chinese domestic gods that protect the hearth and family. The Kitchen God is recognized in C ...
just as the Han Chinese did. The worship of Mongolian and Tibetan gods has also been reported.[
]
Roman Catholic
Influenced by the Jesuit missionaries
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
in China, there were also a considerable number of Manchu Catholics during the Qing dynasty.[ The earliest Manchu Catholics appeared in the 1650s.][ In the Yongzheng eras, Depei, the Hošo Jiyan Prince, was a ]Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
whose baptismal name was "Joseph". His wife was also baptised and named "Maria".[ At the same time, the sons of Doro Beile Sunu were devout Catholics, too.][ In the Jiaqing period, Tong Hengšan and Tong Lan were Catholic Manchu Bannermen.][ These Manchu Catholics were proselytized and persecuted by Qing emperors but they steadfastly refused to renounce their faith.][ There were Manchu Catholics in modern times, too, such as ]Ying Lianzhi
Ying Lianzhi (; November 23, 1867 – January 10, 1926), also known as Ying Hua (), was a Manchu Bannerman, a prominent Catholic layman who agitated for church reform, founder of the prominent newspaper ''Ta Kung Pao'', and instrumental in foundi ...
, the founder of Fu Jen Catholic University
Fu Jen Catholic University (FJU, FJCU or Fu Jen; or ) is a private Catholic university in Xinzhuang, New Taipei City, Taiwan. The university was founded in 1925 in Beijing at the request of Pope Pius XI and re-established in Taiwan in 1961 at ...
.
Traditional holidays
Manchus have many traditional holidays. Some are derived from Chinese culture, such as the " Spring Festival" and Duanwu Festival
The Dragon Boat Festival ( zh, s=端午节, t=端午節) is a traditional Chinese holiday which occurs on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar, which corresponds to late May or June in the Gregorian calendar.
Names
The Engl ...
. Some are of Manchu origin. Food Exhaustion Day (), on every 26th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, is another example which was inspired by a story that once Nurhaci
Nurhaci (14 May 1559 – 30 September 1626), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Qing (), was a Jurchen chieftain who rose to prominence in the late 16th century in Manchuria. A member of the House of Aisin-Gioro, he reigned ...
and his troops were in a battle with enemies and almost running out of food. The villagers who lived near the battlefield heard the emergency and came to help. There was no tableware on the battlefield. They had to use perilla
''Perilla'' is a genus consisting of one major Asiatic crop species ''Perilla frutescens'' and a few wild species in nature belonging to the mint family, Lamiaceae. The genus encompasses several distinct varieties of Asian herb, seed, and vegeta ...
leaves to wrap the rice. Afterwards, they won the battle. So later generations could remember this hardship, Nurhaci made this day the "Food Exhaustion Day". Traditionally on this day, Manchu people eat perilla or cabbage
Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.&nb ...
wraps with rice, scrambled eggs, beef or pork. Banjin Inenggi (), on the 13th day of the tenth month of the lunar calendar, which started to be celebrated in late 20th century, is the anniversary of the name creation of Manchu.[ This day in 1635, ]Hong Taiji
Hong Taiji (28 November 1592 – 21 September 1643), also rendered as Huang Taiji and sometimes referred to as Abahai in Western literature, also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizong of Qing, was the second khan of the Later Jin ...
changed the ethnic name from Jurchen to Manchu.[
]
See also
* Manchu language
Manchu (Manchu:, ) is a critically endangered East Asian Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China.
As the traditional native language of the Manchus, it was one of the official languages of the Qing dyn ...
and alphabet
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...
* Manchu name
Manchu names are the names of the Manchu people in their own language. In addition to such names, most modern Manchus live in China and possess Chinese names.
Traditionally, Manchus were called only by their given names in daily life although eac ...
and clans
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship
and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, meaning ...
* Manchuria
Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...
* Manchukuo
Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China, Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 afte ...
* Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
and emperors
An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...
* Eight Banners
The Eight Banners (in Manchu language, Manchu: ''jakūn gūsa'', ) were administrative and military divisions under the Later Jin (1616–1636), Later Jin and Qing dynasty, Qing dynasties of China into which all Manchu people, Manchu households ...
and their identity
* Tungusic peoples
Tungusic peoples are an ethno-linguistic group formed by the speakers of Tungusic languages (or Manchu–Tungus languages). They are native to Siberia and Northeast Asia.
The Tungusic phylum is divided into two main branches, northern (Evenic or ...
* Sushen
Sushen is the modern Chinese name for an ancient ethnic group of people who lived in the northeastern part of China (in the area of modern Jilin and Heilongjiang) and what is in modern times the Russian Maritime Province and some other Siberi ...
* Mohe
* Jurchen
* Sinicization of the Manchus
The Sinicization of the Manchus is the process in which the Manchu people became assimilated into the Han-dominated Chinese society. It had occurred most prominently during the Qing dynasty when attempts were made by the new Manchu rulers of Chi ...
* Military of the Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty (1636–1912) was established by conquest and maintained by armed force. The founding emperors personally organized and led the armies, and the continued cultural and political legitimacy of the dynasty depended on the ability to ...
Notes
:1. Also known as ''Man'', ''Bannermen'', or ''Banner people''.[ They are sometimes called red-tasseled Manchus''" (), a reference to the ornamentation on traditional Manchu hats.]
:2.Fengcheng an d Beizhen are cities but treated as Manchu autonomous counties.
:3. Möngke Temür
Möngke Temür ( or ) or Dudu Mengtemu (Manchu: ;遼寧省檔案館 『滿州實錄 上函』 ) (1370–1433) was a Jurchen chieftain of the Odoli tribe, one of the three tribes of the lower Sunggari river valley in Manchuria. In the 1380s the tr ...
, Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
emperors' ancestor
:4. Cungšan was considered as Nurhaci's direct ancestor by some viewpoints,[ but disagreements also exist.][
:5. Aka. Manchu State ()]
:6. The meaning of "daicing" (daiqing) is debatable. It has been reported that the word was imported from Mongolian means "fighting country"
:7. e.g. Nadanju (70 in Manchu), Susai (5 in Manchu), Liošici(67, a Mandarin homophone) and Bašinu(85, a Mandarin homophone)[
:8. e.g. ]Dorgon
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, predecessor of the Qing dynasty) ...
(badger) and Arsalan (lion)[
:9. e.g. , a famous Chinese calligrapher.
:10. e.g. Ying Batu, Ying Bayan, the sons of a famous Manchu director, ]Ying Da
Ying Da (; born July 7, 1960) is a Chinese actor and director, best known in film for portraying Louie Wang in ''Big Shot's Funeral'' (2001), Ni Zhengyu in '' The Tokyo Trial'' (2006) and Jin Shenghuo in '' The Message'' (2009), and has received c ...
.
:11. e.g. Aisin-Gioro Ulhicun
Aisin-Gioro Ulhicun (born 1958) is a Chinese linguistics, linguist of Manchu ethnicity who is known for her studies of the Manchu language, Manchu, Jurchen language, Jurchen and Khitan language, Khitan languages and scripts. She is also known a ...
, a famous scholar of Khitan and Manchu linguistic studies.
:12. less than 100 native speakers. Several thousands can speak Manchu as second language through primary education or free classes for adults in China.
:13. Autonomous counties are shown in bright green. Counties with autonomous townships are in dark green, with the number of Manchu townshipin each county shown in red (or yellow). So are another 2 pictures.
References
Sources
In Chinese
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
In English
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
External links
Manchu Association of Republic of China
Shenyang Manchu Federation (SYMZF)
{{Authority control
Tungusic peoples
Manchuria
Ethnic groups officially recognized by China