Founder of Qing

Nurgaci and Hong Taiji, Founders of Qing Dynasty

Part1. Nurgaci's Early Times 

There are always many controversial debates on the founder of Qing dynasty, Nurgaci.  Was he a propellant of the history or a barbarous exogenous dictator?  Was he a pioneer of changing the corrupted Chinese society at the end of Ming dynasty and bringing benefits to his people. Or, was he simply an invader killing people who would not cut their hair? 

From our perspectives, Nurgaci was not a simple character who can be concluded with only a few words. Considering his complicated journey from rags to royalty, we need to analyze different periods of his life because Nurgaci’s personality had always been changing with time and his army was offensive. 

At his early age, Nurgaci was just a little boy who lost his family and hardly survived a massacre of the whole city he lived in.  How could he end the division of the northeastern land of China and unify the whole Nvzhen nationality?  What perspectives of Nurgaci made him different from other Manchu boys who also survived the wars?  According to historical records, Nurgaci learned Chinese and Mongolian from the bazaars by himself, so he was able to read Chinese traditional classic novels such as “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”(三国演义) and “Water Margin”(水浒传). After reading this kind of novels about officialdom and leading troops, Nurgaci believed he was more capable of leading people than anyone else, and this was the beginning of Nurgaci’s ambition and predatory invasion. 

A.D. 1583, after Nurgaci lost his family and almost everybody he knew in the city, he took up the bows left by his family and swore to himself of the revenge.  With only 13 bows, his family left to him, Nurgaci and his brother began their destiny of unifying Nvzhen nationality. 

During the miserable times of his early life, Nurgaci had already showed us his ambition, extraordinary courage, and steadfast volition. 

                                                   Portrait of Nurgaci in his early times 

To be more specific, Nurgaci, unlike other “barbarous” Manchu boys, he knew what he need – to learn Chinese and Mongolian, to read, and to recognize the world.  In other words, this knowledge was the foundation of his success.  Nurgaci would be washed away by the river of history like all other unknown Manchu civilians if he followed his boys’ nature – playing around and spending their lives with animals in their childhood – instead of learning on purpose.  This part of Nurgaci’s life told us that to be a person who will be remembered and written essays about, he or she must be intelligent enough to know what to do to pursue their lifelong goals at their early ages.  Exactly the same as Nurgaci, the founder of Ming dynasty, Hongwu Emperor also grew from rags to royalty, and Hongwu Emperor also knew what he needed so he showed his leadership since he was a little cowherd. 

On the other hand, courage is essential for a change of dynasties.  With only 13 bows and armors, Nurgaci dared to challenge the traditional governors of many armies in Jianzhou, the Nvzhen area.  Such courage gave Nurgaci a destiny of being an Emperor.  Moreover, Nurgaci had great leadership to win his people’s support and loyalties.  It is hard to determine it was due to his personal charm or his effective administration, or even both, but people did follow Nurgaci’s steps to fight the obviously more powerful army steadfastly. This shows that leadership is one of the most important qualities that help achieve imperial accomplishments. In contrast, Ching Ko, the hero of almost every Chinese person, failed his mission mostly because he was led by Prince Tan of Yen who often made unwise or wrong orders. 

In fact, having courage and leadership does not mean Nurgaci is a judicious emperor.  On the contrary, Nurgaci could not walk out the narrow mind of nationality, although he had already put his focus, on the whole, Chinese land.  For instance, Nurgaci’s invasion of Chinese central plain resulted in many massacres of Han nationality because many soldiers were Nvzhen nationality.  The difference between nationalities are almost the same as the difference between races in the U.S. People just forgot we are all human beings, so they caused many tragedies. The murders were Nurgaci’s fault, or to be more specific, were caused by  Nurgaci’s narrow-minded national value.

It is not accurate to judge a person only by his advantages or bad influences, so we need to evaluate a person in every aspect before we judge him or her. At Nurgaci’s early age, he contained many qualities that an emperor needed.  And we can learn a lots from his courage, intelligence and behavior which helped him gain supports from his people.  

Part2. Hong Taiji's Steps in Improving Qing Empire

After Nurhaci conquered Ming dynasty with blood and sweat, he created “Later Jin” dynasty. Later, his son and successor Hong Taiji renamed the empire as “Qing” and set Beijing as its capital. From that moment, the “Great Qing” dynasty started, and as the last dynasty in China, Qing dynasty had a significant impact on the development of the later China- During his seventeen years of reign, Qing dynasty developed in power and expanded in area. To make the development happen, Hong Taiji reformed multiple fields including politic, military, and agriculture. Those changes laid and improved the foundation of Qing dynasty's expansion, prosperity, and duration.

In the agricultural aspect, Hong Taiji proclaimed a series of new policies such as giving land to commoners, forbidding Manchu nobles from forcibly occupying commoners’ lands, prohibiting people from killing sow (female pig), horse and cow, and banning individuals from stealing or damaging the crop. These policies increased the yield of agricultural crops, protected land and livestock, and more importantly, restricted the power of local nobles.

In the political field, Hong Taiji constantly improved his ability to make right decision and kept limiting nobles’ power. On the one hand, he learned Chinese so that he could read Chinese classics about how to govern a country; on the other hand, he canceled the old political system which allowed his three brothers to control the country share the authority with him. Instead, he imitated Ming dynasty's system and set up three departments of politic and history, and six departments of law, culture, agriculture, military, and economy. These actions concentrated his power further and made him control the country more easily.

To make his military army more powerful, Hong Taiji established two different kinds of troops- eight flags of “Han” and eight flags of “Man” which were constituted by Hanchu and Manchu. Today in Beijing, we can still see many streets that are named after those troops. With the new and powerful army, Hong Taiji defeated the army of Mongol and North Korea. More significantly, the new army eradicated the former army of Ming dynasty thoroughly.

However, there was a severe problem in Qing dynasty: an ethnic problem that might isolate its country's citizens. Qing dynasty was mainly composed of Hanchu, Manchu and Mongolian. Those three ethnic groups had different languages and cultures.The war made the situation worse; especially after Manchu defeated Hanchu, their relationship became even worse. Hong Taiji realized that to establish a stable, peaceful and prosperous empire, the citizens must be harmonious. Different form his father Nurhaci who slaughtered Hanchu people, Hong Taiji emphasized the equality and unity between Hanchu and Manchu. Therefore, he released the Hanchu slaves, gave them land and houses and enacted law that forbade Manchu from violating Hanchu individuals’ rights or stealing their proprieties.  

With all changes Hong Taiji made, Qing dynasty became stronger and more prosperous. Those policies also reflected Hong Taiji was a true hero- his wisdom, strength and broad mind made many historians evaluate him as a combination of many great heroes.

Part3. Politic Measures: Eight Banners

To strength his unification of the fragmented Jurchen people, Nurhaci created the eight banner armies which played an instrumental role in Qing dynasty in the early 17th century. The Eight Banners was used to divide living places of household and armies in war.

Establishment

Initially, Nurhaci only needed to organize small hunting parties of about a dozen men related by blood, marriage, clan, or place of residence, as was the typical Jurchen custom. However, with the number of men under his command growing, Nurhaci reorganized his troops into companies of 300 households. Four banners(initial system of the Eight Banners)were originally created: Yellow, White, Red, and Blue, each named after the color of its flag.The population of the households increased over time. Therefore, in 1615, the number of banners was doubled through the creation of "bordered" banners. The troops of each of the original four banners would be split between a plain and a bordered banner.The bordered variant of each flag had a red border, except for the Bordered Red Banner, which had a white border instead.(Pictures of Eight Banners are attached according to the degrees after the paragraph)

As a string of military victories under Nurhaci and his successors, the banner armies expanded rapidly. Beginning in the late 1620s, the Jurchens incorporated allied and conquered Mongol tribes into the Eight Banner system. In 1635, Hong Taiji, son of Nurhaci, renamed his people from Jurchen to Manchu. That same year as the Mongols was separated into the Mongol Eight Banners.

Influence

The Eight Banners system was in the form of social organization Manchu Qing Dynasty of China. After the approval stage, the Manchu Banner system was adapted gradually. During the adapting time, people overcame their fear of strict rules and tight organizations. They began to combine their understanding of the Banner system with existing ideas to form a unified situation. Once internalized attitudes formed, even if the external influence was withdrawn, inner influence would continue. This situation realized the real value and essence of the Eight Banners system.

Plain Yellow Banner:                                                          Bordered Yellow Banner：

                                              

Plain White Banner:                                                           Bordered White Banner:

                                           

Plain Red Banner:                                                           Bordered Red Banner:

                                          

Plain Blue Banner:                                                           Bordered Blue Banner:

                                 

Part4. Personal Commentaries of our Group Members

1. There are lots of debates about whether Aisin Gioro Nurgaci accomplished great tasks in Chinese’s history or slaughtered people with no reasons. Nurgaci is known as the founder of Qing dynasty. In this way, many people appreciate his bravery and wisdom. Chongnian Yan, who is a famous researcher that study the Qing dynasty, admired the successes of Nurgaci. He states that Nurgaci is one of the superstars in Chinese history, who promoted China became a unified country. However, others refused this idea. Shi Yue, who wrote the book “Something about the Ming Dynasty,” criticized Nurgaci as a machine that kill people everywhere. He claims that Nurgaci did not improve the development of China but seized properties from civilian people and kill civilian people of Han nationality who did not listen to him. From my perspective, whatever some people said that Nurgaci was a cruel person, I should admit that he made a big improvement in China. People can learn much from him, such as how to fight efficiently in battlefields by using great strategies, how to lead civilians in the political field, and how to manage chancellors who followed him. There are a bunch of lessons people can learn from his history. Although, he did something not appropriately that he killed lots of normal people after he stepped in Liaodong. In short, people cannot deny his accomplishments that he did in China’s history, no matter they admit or not. Nurgaci was a great politician, and strategist. 

2. I think Hong Taiji is a person people should admire. There was a big evolution between Nuerhachi and Hong Taiji’s policy: From "the Help of Heaven" to "the Capriciousness of Fate”. After Hong Taiji had succeeded in establishing a unified rule in northeast China, he held a grand ceremony in 1636 at which he proclaimed himself emperor. Later, Huangtaiji had a big Cultural Contribution, which is consolidating the Manchu Culture and Assimilating the Han Culture. The HongTaiji Period was the important stage for the Qing Dynasty, which result in political power turned from armed administration to literary administration. According to Jing Yong, a novel good writer, who said that Hong Taiji was a great dominator, who even did a better job in political field than his father, Nurgaci.