Topic summary
Jurchen people
Зүрчид, Зөрчид, Жүрчид
Zürchid, Zörchid, Jürchid
Jurchen (Manchu: ᠵᡠᡧᡝᠨ, romanized: Jušen, ; Chinese: 女真, romanized: Nǚzhēn, ) were a number of East AsianTungusic-speaking people. They lived in northeastern China, also known as Manchuria, before the 18th century. The Jurchens were renamed Manchus in 1635 by Hong Taiji. The Jurchens were culturally diverse, with different groups living as hunter-gatherers, pastoralist semi-nomads, or sedentary agriculturists. Generally lacking a central authority, and having little communication with each other, many Jurchen groups fell under the influence of neighbouring dynasties, their chiefs paying tribute and holding nominal posts as effectively hereditary commanders of border guards.
The Jurchens are chiefly known for producing the Jin (1115–1234) and Qing (1636–1912) conquest dynasties on the Chinese territory. The latter dynasty, originally calling itself the Later Jin, was founded by a Jianzhou commander, Nurhaci (r. 1616–26), who unified most Jurchen tribes, incorporated their entire population into hereditary military regiments known as the Eight Banners, and patronized the creation of an alphabet for their language based on the Mongolian script. The term Manchu, already in official use by the Later Jin at that time, was in 1635 decreed to be the sole acceptable name for that people.