Jurchens
Encyclopedia
The Jurchens were a Tungusic people
who inhabited the region of Manchuria
(present-day Northeast China
) until the 17th century, when they adopted the name Manchu
. They established the Jin Dynasty (1115–1234) (Ancun gurun in ancient Jurchen
and Aisin gurun in Standard Manchu) between 1115 and 1122, which lasted until 1234 with the arrival of the Mongols
.
kingdom was destroyed by the Khitans
. However, cognate ethnonyms like Sushen
or Jichen (稷真) have been recorded in pre-Christian Era geographical works like the Shan Hai Jing
and Book of Wei
. It comes from the Jurchen word jušen, the original meaning of which is unclear. The standard English version of the name, "Jurchen," is an Anglicized transliteration of the Mongolian
equivalent of the Jurchen term jušen (Mongolian: Jürchin, plural is Jürchid), and may arrived in the West
via Mongolian texts. A less common English transliteration is "Jurched".
It is thought by a number of Russian linguists and historians that the Ducher people encountered by Russian explorers on the middle Amur and lower Sungari in the early 1650s (who were evacuated by the Qing
authorities further south a few years later) were the descendants of the Amur Jurchens, and that the word "Ducher" itself is simply a variation of jušen.
The 11th century Jurchen tribes of northern Manchuria descended from the Tungusic
Mohe, or Malgal tribes who were subjects of the ethnic-Goguryeo
state of Balhae
. By the 11th century, the Jurchens had become vassals of the Khitan
s (see also Liao Dynasty
).
They rose to power after their leader Wanyan Aguda
unified them in 1115, declared himself Emperor, and in 1120 seized Shangjing (上京), also known as Huanglongfu (Traditional Chinese: 黃龍府), the Northern Capital of Liao. The Jurchens then invaded territories under the Han Chinese
Northern Song Dynasty and overran most of northern China, first setting up puppet regimes like Qi
and Chu
, later directly ruling as a dynastic state in Northern China named Jin ("Gold", not to be confused with the several Jin Dynasties named after the region around Shanxi
and Henan
). Jin captured the Song
capital of Kaifeng
in 1127. Their armies pushed all the way south to the Yangtze
but through continued warfare and treaties of diplomacy this boundary with the Han Chinese Southern Song Dynasty was eventually stabilised along the Huai River
.
The Jurchen named their Dynasty the Jin ("Golden") after the Anchuhu River (anchuhu is the Jurchen equivalent of Manchu
aisin "gold, golden") in their homeland. At first, the Jurchen tribesmen were kept in readiness for warfare but decades of urban and settled life in China eroded their original hunting-gathering
lifestyle in Manchurian tundra and marshes. Eventually intermarriage with other ethnicities in China was permitted and peace with the Southern Song confirmed. The Jin rulers themselves came to follow Confucian
norms.
After 1189, the Jin became involved in exhausting wars on two fronts: against the Mongols
and the Southern Song dynasty. By 1215, under Mongol pressure, they were forced to move their capital south from Zhongdu (modern day Beijing
) to Kaifeng
, where the Mongol hordes extinguished the Jin Dynasty in 1234.
Among the ancestor tribes of the Jurchens were the Heishui Mohe
tribes, which were among the various Mohe tribes living along the Amur River (Black Water). The Wanyan
tribe itself was a Heishui Mohe tribe that claimed descent from Hanpu
, who, according to "History of the Jin" (Jinshi 金史), came from the kingdom of Goryeo at the age of sixty. The Jurchens generally lived by traditions that reflected the hunting-gathering culture of Siberian-Manchurian tundra and coastal peoples. Like the Khitans and Mongols, they took pride in feats of strength, horsemanship, archery, and hunting. They engaged in shamanic rituals and believed in a supreme sky goddess (abka hehe, literally sky woman). In the Qing dynasty, bowing the Confucian pressure, this reverence for a female sky deity was switched to a male, sky father, Abka Enduri. (abka-i enduri, abka-i han). (Source: Encyclopedia of Spirits: The Ultimate Guide to the Magic of Fairies, Genies, Demons, Ghosts, Gods & Goddesses by Judika Illes) After conquering China, during the Jin Dynasty, Buddhism
became the prevalent religion and Daoism was assimilated as well.
The Jurchen made the male Han
, within the conquered territories, shave the tops of their heads and adopt Jurchen dress. This "bald-head" fashion was known as 禿髮 tūfǎ (“Bald-Hair or Stripped-Hair”) to the Chinese.http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Song/xixia-arts.html. The later Manchus (who were also Jurchens) similarly made the Han men shave their heads and adopt the queue
(ponytail), or soncoho , which was the traditional Manchurian hairstyle.
Jurchen society was in some ways similar to that of the Mongols. Both Mongols and Jurchens used the title Khan
for the leaders of a political entity, whether "emperor" or "chief". A particularly powerful chief was called beile ("prince, nobleman"), corresponding with the Mongolian beki and Turkish
beg
or bey
. Also like the Mongols and the Turks, the Jurchens did not observe a law of primogeniture
. According to tradition, any capable son or nephew could be chosen to become leader.
During Ming
times, the Jurchen people lived in social units that were sub-clans (mukun or hala mukun) of ancient clans (hala
). Members of Jurchen clans shared a consciousness of a common ancestor and were led by a head man (mukunda). Not all clan members were blood related and division and integration of different clans was common. Jurchen households (boo
) lived as families (booigon), consisting of five to seven blood-related family members and a number of slaves. Households formed squads (tatan) to engage in tasks related to hunting and food gathering; and formed companies (niru) for larger activities, such as war.
was invented in 1120 by Wanyan Xiyin
, acting on the orders of Wanyan Aguda
. It was based on the Khitan script
, that was inspired in turn by Chinese character
s. However, because Chinese is an isolating language
and the Jurchen and Khitan languages are agglutinative
, the script proved to be cumbersome. The written Jurchen language died out soon after the fall of the Jin Dynasty, though its spoken form survived. Until the end of the sixteenth century, when Manchu
became the new literary language, the Jurchens used a combination of Mongolian and Chinese. The pioneering work on studies of the Jurchen script was done by Wilhelm Grube
at the end of the 19th century.
distinguished three groups of Jurchens: the Wild Jurchens
(Chinese:野人女真) of northernmost Manchuria, the Haixi Jurchens
(Chinese:海西女真) of modern Heilongjiang
(Chinese:黑龍江) and the Jianzhou Jurchens
of modern Jilin
province. They led a pastoral-agrarian lifestyle, hunting, fishing, and engaging in limited agriculture. In 1388, the Hongwu Emperor dispatched a mission to establish contact with the tribes of Odoli, Huligai and T'owen, beginning the sinicisation of the Jurchen people.
Yongle Emperor
(1360 - 1424, r. 1402 - 1424) found allies among the various Jurchen tribes against the Mongols. He bestowed titles and surnames to various Jurchen chiefs and expected them to send periodic tribute. One of Yongle's consorts was a Tungusic Jurchen (Nu chen) princess, which resulted in some of the eunuchs serving him being of Jurchen origin. Chinese commanderies were established over tribal military units under their own hereditary tribal leaders. In the Yongle period alone 178 commanderies were set up in Manchuria, an index of the Chinese divide-and-rule tactics. Later on, horse markets were also established in the northern border towns of Liaodong for trade. The increasing sinification of the Jurchens ultimately gave them the organisation structures to extend their power beyond the steppe. Later, a Korean army led by Yi-Il,and Yi Sun-sin
would expel them from Korea.
The Jurchen tribe was the predecessor of the Manchu nationality. For a long period of time, it inhabited the areas north and south of the Songhua River(Chinese:松花江) and around the Heilong River. During the late Ming and early Qing eras, the Jurchen tribe in the northeast was divided into 3 parts called Haixi (海西, "west of the sea"), Jianzhou (建洲, "establishing a state") and Yeren (野人, "wild people").
The Yeren tribe lacked a fixed dwelling place. The Haixi and Jianzhou tribes were engaged in fishing, hunting, animal husbandry, and farming, and had relatively fixed abodes. A gap between the rich and the poor and the division of classes emerged. According to standardized nomenclature of socialist historiography, the three tribes were in the patriarchal-slavery stage of the late slavery clan system.
The Ming dynasty had set up a horse market at a Jurchen dwelling-place to carry out trade with the Haixi and Jianzhou tribes, whose main commodities were horse, fur, ginseng, and other special local products. Commodities from the Han regions included iron farming tools, farm cattle, seeds, rice, salt, textiles, etc.
From 1411 to 1433, the Ming eunuch Yishiha
亦失哈 (who himself was a Haixi Jurchen
by origin) led ten large missions to win over the allegiance of the Jurchen tribes along the Sunggari
and Amur rivers. His fleet sailed down the Sunggari into the Amur, and set up the nominal Nurkal (Nu'ergan) Command (奴兒干都司) at Telin 特林 (now, the village of Tyr
about 100 km upstream from Nikolayevsk-na-Amure in the Russian Far East
) near the mouth of the Amur.
These missions are not well recorded in the Ming dynastic history, but an important source on them is two stone steles erected by Yishiha at the site of the Yongning Temple (Chinese:永宁寺), a Guanyin temple commissioned by him at Telin. The inscriptions on the steles are in four languages: Chinese, Jurchen, Mongol, and Tibetan. There is probably quite a lot of propaganda in the inscriptions, but they give a detailed record of the Ming court's efforts to assert suzerainty over the Jurchen.
After the setting up of the NCP, Yishiha and other Ming dynasty eunuchs, under orders from the Emperor, came several times to promote Ming influences. When Yishiha visited Nuergan for the 3rd time in 1413, he built a temple called Yongning Temple at Telin and erected a stele
in front of it. The stele bore an inscription written in 4 languages - Han, Jurchen, Mongolian, and Tibetan.
Yishiha paid his 10th visit to Nuergan in 1432, during which he re-built the titled Yongning Temple and re-erected a stele in front of it. The stele bore the heading "Record of Re-building Yongning Temple". The setting up of the NCP and the repeated declarations to offer blessings to this region by Yishiha and others were all recorded in this and the first steles.
Over a period of thirty years from 1586, Nurhaci
, a chieftain of the Jianzhou Jurchens
, united the Jurchen tribes, which was later renamed Manchu
by his son Hung Taiji. He created a formidable synthesis of nomadic institutions, providing the basis of the Manchu state and later the conquest of China by the Qing dynasty
.
A caste of "degraded" outcasts existed in Ningbo
city during the Qing dynasty
, around 3,000 people in a class called "min". These "min" people were said to be Jin Dynasty (1115–1234) (aka Kin dynasty) Jurchen descendants. Normal people refused to fraternize with them, the min were forced to enter professions such as play-acting, music, sedan-bearing, matchmaking, barbery, they were identified by a unique dress and always had with them a checkered handkerchief bundle. They were barred from taking the Imperial Exams and having normal professions.
Tungusic peoples
Tungusic peoples are the peoples who speak Tungusic languages. The word originated in Tunguska, an ill-defined region of Siberia.-Peoples:Tungusic peoples are:*Evenks*Evens*Jurchens *Manchu*Negidals...
who inhabited the region of Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
(present-day Northeast China
Northeast China
Northeast China, historically known in English as Manchuria, is a geographical region of China, consisting of the three provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. The region is sometimes called the Three Northeast Provinces...
) until the 17th century, when they adopted the name Manchu
Manchu
The Manchu people or Man are an ethnic minority of China who originated in Manchuria . During their rise in the 17th century, with the help of the Ming dynasty rebels , they came to power in China and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which...
. They established the Jin Dynasty (1115–1234) (Ancun gurun in ancient Jurchen
Jurchen language
Jurchen language is an extinct language. It was spoken by Jurchen people of eastern Manchuria, the creators of the Jin Empire in the northeastern China of the 12th–13th centuries. It is classified as a Southwestern Tungusic language.-Writing:...
and Aisin gurun in Standard Manchu) between 1115 and 1122, which lasted until 1234 with the arrival of the Mongols
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
.
Etymology
The form Jurchen dates back to at least the beginning of the tenth century AD, when the BalhaeBalhae
Balhae was a Manchurian kingdom established after the fall of Goguryeo. After Goguryeo's capital and southern territories fell to Unified Silla, Dae Jo-yeong, a Mohe general, whose father was Dae Jung-sang, established Jin , later called Balhae.Balhae occupied southern parts of Manchuria and...
kingdom was destroyed by the Khitans
Khitan people
thumb|250px|Khitans [[Eagle hunting|using eagles to hunt]], painted during the Chinese [[Song Dynasty]].The Khitan people , or Khitai, Kitan, or Kidan, were a nomadic Mongolic people, originally located at Mongolia and Manchuria from the 4th century...
. However, cognate ethnonyms like Sushen
Sushen
Sushen was an ancient ethnic group or people who dwelt in the northeastern part of China and the Russian Maritime Province, in the area of modern Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces. They were active during the Zhou Dynasty period...
or Jichen (稷真) have been recorded in pre-Christian Era geographical works like the Shan Hai Jing
Shan Hai Jing
Shan Hai Jing is a Chinese classic text, and a compilation of early geography and myth. Versions of the text have existed since the 4th century BC, and by the early Han Dynasty it had reached its final form. It is largely a fabled geographical and cultural account of pre-Qin China as well as a...
and Book of Wei
Book of Wei
The Book of Wei is a classic Chinese historical writing compiled by Wei Shou from 551 to 554, and serves as an important historical text describing the Northern Wei and Eastern Wei from 386 to 550....
. It comes from the Jurchen word jušen, the original meaning of which is unclear. The standard English version of the name, "Jurchen," is an Anglicized transliteration of the Mongolian
Mongolian language
The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...
equivalent of the Jurchen term jušen (Mongolian: Jürchin, plural is Jürchid), and may arrived in the West
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
via Mongolian texts. A less common English transliteration is "Jurched".
It is thought by a number of Russian linguists and historians that the Ducher people encountered by Russian explorers on the middle Amur and lower Sungari in the early 1650s (who were evacuated by the Qing
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
authorities further south a few years later) were the descendants of the Amur Jurchens, and that the word "Ducher" itself is simply a variation of jušen.
Jin Dynasty
Tungusic peoples
Tungusic peoples are the peoples who speak Tungusic languages. The word originated in Tunguska, an ill-defined region of Siberia.-Peoples:Tungusic peoples are:*Evenks*Evens*Jurchens *Manchu*Negidals...
Mohe, or Malgal tribes who were subjects of the ethnic-Goguryeo
Goguryeo
Goguryeo or Koguryŏ was an ancient Korean kingdom located in present day northern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula, southern Manchuria, and southern Russian Maritime province....
state of Balhae
Balhae
Balhae was a Manchurian kingdom established after the fall of Goguryeo. After Goguryeo's capital and southern territories fell to Unified Silla, Dae Jo-yeong, a Mohe general, whose father was Dae Jung-sang, established Jin , later called Balhae.Balhae occupied southern parts of Manchuria and...
. By the 11th century, the Jurchens had become vassals of the Khitan
Khitan people
thumb|250px|Khitans [[Eagle hunting|using eagles to hunt]], painted during the Chinese [[Song Dynasty]].The Khitan people , or Khitai, Kitan, or Kidan, were a nomadic Mongolic people, originally located at Mongolia and Manchuria from the 4th century...
s (see also Liao Dynasty
Liao Dynasty
The Liao Dynasty , also known as the Khitan Empire was an empire in East Asia that ruled over the regions of Manchuria, Mongolia, and parts of northern China proper between 9071125...
).
They rose to power after their leader Wanyan Aguda
Wanyan Aguda
Emperor Taizu of Jin was Emperor of Jin from January 28, 1115 to September 19, 1123.He was the chieftain of the Jurchen Wanyan tribe, founder and first emperor of the Jin Dynasty . He was the younger brother of Wanyan Wuyashu...
unified them in 1115, declared himself Emperor, and in 1120 seized Shangjing (上京), also known as Huanglongfu (Traditional Chinese: 黃龍府), the Northern Capital of Liao. The Jurchens then invaded territories under the Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
Northern Song Dynasty and overran most of northern China, first setting up puppet regimes like Qi
Qi
In traditional Chinese culture, qì is an active principle forming part of any living thing. Qi is frequently translated as life energy, lifeforce, or energy flow. Qi is the central underlying principle in traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts...
and Chu
Chu
Chu or CHU may refer to:Surname:* Chu , a common Chinese surname for 朱 , but it can also refer to any Chinese surname whose pinyin is "chu", such as 楚, 储, 褚, 初, 除 and other possible surnames....
, later directly ruling as a dynastic state in Northern China named Jin ("Gold", not to be confused with the several Jin Dynasties named after the region around Shanxi
Shanxi
' is a province in Northern China. Its one-character abbreviation is "晋" , after the state of Jin that existed here during the Spring and Autumn Period....
and Henan
Henan
Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "豫" , named after Yuzhou , a Han Dynasty state that included parts of Henan...
). Jin captured the Song
Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
capital of Kaifeng
Kaifeng
Kaifeng , known previously by several names , is a prefecture-level city in east-central Henan province, Central China. Nearly 5 million people live in the metropolitan area...
in 1127. Their armies pushed all the way south to the Yangtze
Yangtze River
The Yangtze, Yangzi or Cháng Jiāng is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest, central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai. It is also one of the...
but through continued warfare and treaties of diplomacy this boundary with the Han Chinese Southern Song Dynasty was eventually stabilised along the Huai River
Huai River
The Huai River is a major river in China. The Huai River is located about mid-way between the Yellow River and Yangtze River, the two largest rivers in China, and like them runs from west to east...
.
The Jurchen named their Dynasty the Jin ("Golden") after the Anchuhu River (anchuhu is the Jurchen equivalent of Manchu
Manchu language
Manchu is a Tungusic endangered language spoken in Northeast China; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 70 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus...
aisin "gold, golden") in their homeland. At first, the Jurchen tribesmen were kept in readiness for warfare but decades of urban and settled life in China eroded their original hunting-gathering
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
lifestyle in Manchurian tundra and marshes. Eventually intermarriage with other ethnicities in China was permitted and peace with the Southern Song confirmed. The Jin rulers themselves came to follow Confucian
Confucianism
Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...
norms.
After 1189, the Jin became involved in exhausting wars on two fronts: against the Mongols
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
and the Southern Song dynasty. By 1215, under Mongol pressure, they were forced to move their capital south from Zhongdu (modern day Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
) to Kaifeng
Kaifeng
Kaifeng , known previously by several names , is a prefecture-level city in east-central Henan province, Central China. Nearly 5 million people live in the metropolitan area...
, where the Mongol hordes extinguished the Jin Dynasty in 1234.
Culture and society
Heishui Mohe
The Heishui Mohe or Heuksu Malgal also called Black-River Mohe , were the most feared among the Mohe tribes...
tribes, which were among the various Mohe tribes living along the Amur River (Black Water). The Wanyan
Wanyan
Wanyan was a Heishui Mohe tribe living in the drainage region of the Heilong River during the Khitan Liao Dynasty time. The Wanyan clan was founded by Hanpu, who, according to the "History of the Jin" , came from the kingdom of Goryeo at the age of sixty...
tribe itself was a Heishui Mohe tribe that claimed descent from Hanpu
Hanpu
Hanpu , later Wanyan Hanpu, was a Jurchen leader of the early tenth century. According to the ancestral story of the Wanyan clan, Hanpu came from Goryeo when he was sixty-years old, reformed Jurchen customary law, and then married a sixty-year-old local woman who bore him three children...
, who, according to "History of the Jin" (Jinshi 金史), came from the kingdom of Goryeo at the age of sixty. The Jurchens generally lived by traditions that reflected the hunting-gathering culture of Siberian-Manchurian tundra and coastal peoples. Like the Khitans and Mongols, they took pride in feats of strength, horsemanship, archery, and hunting. They engaged in shamanic rituals and believed in a supreme sky goddess (abka hehe, literally sky woman). In the Qing dynasty, bowing the Confucian pressure, this reverence for a female sky deity was switched to a male, sky father, Abka Enduri. (abka-i enduri, abka-i han). (Source: Encyclopedia of Spirits: The Ultimate Guide to the Magic of Fairies, Genies, Demons, Ghosts, Gods & Goddesses by Judika Illes) After conquering China, during the Jin Dynasty, Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
became the prevalent religion and Daoism was assimilated as well.
The Jurchen made the male Han
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
, within the conquered territories, shave the tops of their heads and adopt Jurchen dress. This "bald-head" fashion was known as 禿髮 tūfǎ (“Bald-Hair or Stripped-Hair”) to the Chinese.http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Song/xixia-arts.html. The later Manchus (who were also Jurchens) similarly made the Han men shave their heads and adopt the queue
Queue (hairstyle)
The queue or cue is a hairstyle in which the hair is worn long and gathered up into a ponytail. It was worn traditionally by certain Native American groups and the Manchu of Manchuria.-Manchu Queue:...
(ponytail), or soncoho , which was the traditional Manchurian hairstyle.
Jurchen society was in some ways similar to that of the Mongols. Both Mongols and Jurchens used the title Khan
Khan (title)
Khan is an originally Altaic and subsequently Central Asian title for a sovereign or military ruler, widely used by medieval nomadic Turko-Mongol tribes living to the north of China. 'Khan' is also seen as a title in the Xianbei confederation for their chief between 283 and 289...
for the leaders of a political entity, whether "emperor" or "chief". A particularly powerful chief was called beile ("prince, nobleman"), corresponding with the Mongolian beki and Turkish
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
beg
Beg
Beg refers to:* Begging* Beg or Baig an alternative form of the Turkic title Bey . It is also used by Indian, Iranian, Afghan and Pakistani people....
or bey
Bey
Bey is a title for chieftain, traditionally applied to the leaders of small tribal groups. Accoding to some sources, the word "Bey" is of Turkish language In historical accounts, many Turkish, other Turkic and Persian leaders are titled Bey, Beg, Bek, Bay, Baig or Beigh. They are all the same word...
. Also like the Mongols and the Turks, the Jurchens did not observe a law of primogeniture
Primogeniture
Primogeniture is the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn to inherit the entire estate, to the exclusion of younger siblings . Historically, the term implied male primogeniture, to the exclusion of females...
. According to tradition, any capable son or nephew could be chosen to become leader.
During Ming
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
times, the Jurchen people lived in social units that were sub-clans (mukun or hala mukun) of ancient clans (hala
Hala
Hala can refer to:* Hala , an Arabic given name meaning "sweetness"* An informal salutation or greeting in the Arabic language* Hāla, an Indian king of the Satavahana dynasty* Hala , a clan of India and Pakistan...
). Members of Jurchen clans shared a consciousness of a common ancestor and were led by a head man (mukunda). Not all clan members were blood related and division and integration of different clans was common. Jurchen households (boo
Boo
Boo may refer to:Fictional characters* Boo , a ghost character in the Mario series* Boo, a hamster in Megatokyo* Boo, a human girl in Monsters, Inc....
) lived as families (booigon), consisting of five to seven blood-related family members and a number of slaves. Households formed squads (tatan) to engage in tasks related to hunting and food gathering; and formed companies (niru) for larger activities, such as war.
Language
The early Jurchen scriptJurchen script
Jurchen script was the writing system used to write Jurchen language, the language of the Jurchen people who created the Jin Empire in the northeastern China of the 12th–13th centuries. It was derived from the Khitan script, which in turn was derived from Chinese...
was invented in 1120 by Wanyan Xiyin
Wanyan Xiyin
Wanyan Xiyin was a trusted advisor of the Jurchen chieftain, Wanyan Aguda . Described by modern writers as the "Chief Shaman" of the pre-Jin Jurchen state, he became deeply interested in Chinese culture, and isparticularly known as the creator of the first writing system for the Jurchen...
, acting on the orders of Wanyan Aguda
Wanyan Aguda
Emperor Taizu of Jin was Emperor of Jin from January 28, 1115 to September 19, 1123.He was the chieftain of the Jurchen Wanyan tribe, founder and first emperor of the Jin Dynasty . He was the younger brother of Wanyan Wuyashu...
. It was based on the Khitan script
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...
, that was inspired in turn by Chinese character
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
s. However, because Chinese is an isolating language
Isolating language
An isolating language is a type of language with a low morpheme-per-word ratio — in the extreme case of an isolating language words are composed of a single morpheme...
and the Jurchen and Khitan languages are agglutinative
Agglutinative language
An agglutinative language is a language that uses agglutination extensively: most words are formed by joining morphemes together. This term was introduced by Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1836 to classify languages from a morphological point of view...
, the script proved to be cumbersome. The written Jurchen language died out soon after the fall of the Jin Dynasty, though its spoken form survived. Until the end of the sixteenth century, when Manchu
Manchu language
Manchu is a Tungusic endangered language spoken in Northeast China; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 70 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus...
became the new literary language, the Jurchens used a combination of Mongolian and Chinese. The pioneering work on studies of the Jurchen script was done by Wilhelm Grube
Wilhelm Grube
Wilhelm Grube was a German sinologist and ethnographer. He is particularly known for his work on Tungusic languages and the Jurchen language.-Biography:Grube was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia in 1855...
at the end of the 19th century.
Ming Dynasty
Chinese chroniclers of the Ming DynastyMing Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
distinguished three groups of Jurchens: the Wild Jurchens
Wild Jurchens
The Wild Jurchens were a grouping of the Jurchens as identified by the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty. They were the nouthernmost group of the Jurchen people in the fourteenth century, inhabiting the northernmost part of Manchuria from the western side of the Greater Khingan mountains to the Ussuri...
(Chinese:野人女真) of northernmost Manchuria, the Haixi Jurchens
Haixi Jurchens
The Haixi Jurchens were a grouping of the Jurchens as identified by the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty. They were inhabiting an area that consists of parts of modern day Jilin, Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia in China.- External links :*...
(Chinese:海西女真) of modern Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang
For the river known in Mandarin as Heilong Jiang, see Amur River' is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. "Heilongjiang" literally means Black Dragon River, which is the Chinese name for the Amur. The one-character abbreviation is 黑...
(Chinese:黑龍江) and the Jianzhou Jurchens
Jianzhou Jurchens
The Jianzhou Jurchens were a grouping of the Jurchens as identified by the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty. They were the southernmost group of the Jurchen people The Jianzhou Jurchens (Chinese:建州女真) were a grouping of the Jurchens as identified by the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty. They were the...
of modern Jilin
Jilin
Jilin , is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. Jilin borders North Korea and Russia to the east, Heilongjiang to the north, Liaoning to the south, and Inner Mongolia to the west...
province. They led a pastoral-agrarian lifestyle, hunting, fishing, and engaging in limited agriculture. In 1388, the Hongwu Emperor dispatched a mission to establish contact with the tribes of Odoli, Huligai and T'owen, beginning the sinicisation of the Jurchen people.
Yongle Emperor
Yongle Emperor
The Yongle Emperor , born Zhu Di , was the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty of China from 1402 to 1424. His Chinese era name Yongle means "Perpetual Happiness".He was the Prince of Yan , possessing a heavy military base in Beiping...
(1360 - 1424, r. 1402 - 1424) found allies among the various Jurchen tribes against the Mongols. He bestowed titles and surnames to various Jurchen chiefs and expected them to send periodic tribute. One of Yongle's consorts was a Tungusic Jurchen (Nu chen) princess, which resulted in some of the eunuchs serving him being of Jurchen origin. Chinese commanderies were established over tribal military units under their own hereditary tribal leaders. In the Yongle period alone 178 commanderies were set up in Manchuria, an index of the Chinese divide-and-rule tactics. Later on, horse markets were also established in the northern border towns of Liaodong for trade. The increasing sinification of the Jurchens ultimately gave them the organisation structures to extend their power beyond the steppe. Later, a Korean army led by Yi-Il,and Yi Sun-sin
Yi Sun-sin
Yi Sun-shin was a Korean naval commander, famed for his victories against the Japanese navy during the Imjin war in the Joseon Dynasty, and is well-respected for his exemplary conduct on and off the battlefield not only by Koreans, but by Japanese Admirals as well...
would expel them from Korea.
The Jurchen tribe was the predecessor of the Manchu nationality. For a long period of time, it inhabited the areas north and south of the Songhua River(Chinese:松花江) and around the Heilong River. During the late Ming and early Qing eras, the Jurchen tribe in the northeast was divided into 3 parts called Haixi (海西, "west of the sea"), Jianzhou (建洲, "establishing a state") and Yeren (野人, "wild people").
The Yeren tribe lacked a fixed dwelling place. The Haixi and Jianzhou tribes were engaged in fishing, hunting, animal husbandry, and farming, and had relatively fixed abodes. A gap between the rich and the poor and the division of classes emerged. According to standardized nomenclature of socialist historiography, the three tribes were in the patriarchal-slavery stage of the late slavery clan system.
The Ming dynasty had set up a horse market at a Jurchen dwelling-place to carry out trade with the Haixi and Jianzhou tribes, whose main commodities were horse, fur, ginseng, and other special local products. Commodities from the Han regions included iron farming tools, farm cattle, seeds, rice, salt, textiles, etc.
History of the Nurkal Command Post and the achievements of Yishisha
In 1409, the Ming government set up a post called Nurkal Command Post (NCP) at Telin in the vicinity of Heilong River. The three parts of the Jurchen tribe came under the nominal administration of the NCP,which lasted only 25 years and was abolished in 1434. Leaders of the Haixi and Jianzhou tribes had accepted the Ming government's honorable titles.From 1411 to 1433, the Ming eunuch Yishiha
Yishiha
Yishiha was a eunuch in the service of the Ming Dynasty emperors of China who carried out several expeditions down the Sungari and Amur Rivers, and is credited with the construction of the only two Ming Dynasty Buddhist temples ever built on the territory of today's Russia.- Early life:It is...
亦失哈 (who himself was a Haixi Jurchen
Haixi Jurchens
The Haixi Jurchens were a grouping of the Jurchens as identified by the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty. They were inhabiting an area that consists of parts of modern day Jilin, Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia in China.- External links :*...
by origin) led ten large missions to win over the allegiance of the Jurchen tribes along the Sunggari
Songhua River
The Songhua or Sunggari River is a river in Northeast China, and is the largest tributary of the Heilong River , flowing about from Changbai Mountains through Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces. The river drains of land, and has an annual discharge of .As the Second Songhua River, it joins the...
and Amur rivers. His fleet sailed down the Sunggari into the Amur, and set up the nominal Nurkal (Nu'ergan) Command (奴兒干都司) at Telin 特林 (now, the village of Tyr
Tyr, Russia
Tyr is a settlement in Ulchsky District of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, located on the right bank of the Amur River, near the mouth of the Amgun River, about upstream from Nikolayevsk-on-Amur....
about 100 km upstream from Nikolayevsk-na-Amure in the Russian Far East
Russian Far East
Russian Far East is a term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i.e., extreme east parts of Russia, between Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean...
) near the mouth of the Amur.
These missions are not well recorded in the Ming dynastic history, but an important source on them is two stone steles erected by Yishiha at the site of the Yongning Temple (Chinese:永宁寺), a Guanyin temple commissioned by him at Telin. The inscriptions on the steles are in four languages: Chinese, Jurchen, Mongol, and Tibetan. There is probably quite a lot of propaganda in the inscriptions, but they give a detailed record of the Ming court's efforts to assert suzerainty over the Jurchen.
After the setting up of the NCP, Yishiha and other Ming dynasty eunuchs, under orders from the Emperor, came several times to promote Ming influences. When Yishiha visited Nuergan for the 3rd time in 1413, he built a temple called Yongning Temple at Telin and erected a stele
Yongning Temple Stele
The Yongning Temple Stele is a Ming Dynasty stele with a trilingual inscription that was erected in 1413 to commemorate the founding of the Yongning Temple in the Nurgan outpost, near the mouth of the Amur River, by the eunuch Yishiha. The location of the temple is the village of Tyr near...
in front of it. The stele bore an inscription written in 4 languages - Han, Jurchen, Mongolian, and Tibetan.
Yishiha paid his 10th visit to Nuergan in 1432, during which he re-built the titled Yongning Temple and re-erected a stele in front of it. The stele bore the heading "Record of Re-building Yongning Temple". The setting up of the NCP and the repeated declarations to offer blessings to this region by Yishiha and others were all recorded in this and the first steles.
Transition from Jurchens to Manchu
Nurhaci
Nurhaci was an important Jurchen chieftain who rose to prominence in the late sixteenth century in what is today Northeastern China...
, a chieftain of the Jianzhou Jurchens
Jianzhou Jurchens
The Jianzhou Jurchens were a grouping of the Jurchens as identified by the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty. They were the southernmost group of the Jurchen people The Jianzhou Jurchens (Chinese:建州女真) were a grouping of the Jurchens as identified by the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty. They were the...
, united the Jurchen tribes, which was later renamed Manchu
Manchu
The Manchu people or Man are an ethnic minority of China who originated in Manchuria . During their rise in the 17th century, with the help of the Ming dynasty rebels , they came to power in China and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which...
by his son Hung Taiji. He created a formidable synthesis of nomadic institutions, providing the basis of the Manchu state and later the conquest of China by the Qing dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
.
A caste of "degraded" outcasts existed in Ningbo
Ningbo
Ningbo is a seaport city of northeastern Zhejiang province, Eastern China. Holding sub-provincial administrative status, the municipality has a population of 7,605,700 inhabitants at the 2010 census whom 3,089,180 in the built up area made of 6 urban districts. It lies south of the Hangzhou Bay,...
city during the Qing dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
, around 3,000 people in a class called "min". These "min" people were said to be Jin Dynasty (1115–1234) (aka Kin dynasty) Jurchen descendants. Normal people refused to fraternize with them, the min were forced to enter professions such as play-acting, music, sedan-bearing, matchmaking, barbery, they were identified by a unique dress and always had with them a checkered handkerchief bundle. They were barred from taking the Imperial Exams and having normal professions.
See also
- Ethnic groups in Chinese historyEthnic groups in Chinese historyEthnic groups in Chinese history refer to various or presumed ethnicities of significance to the history of China, gathered through the study of Classical Chinese literature, Chinese and non-Chinese literary sources and inscriptions, historical linguistics, and archaeological research.Among the...
- List of Chieftains of the Jurchens
- Toi invasionToi invasionThe Toi invasion was the invasion of northern Kyūshū by Jurchen pirates in 1019. Toi meant barbarian in the Korean language at the time....
- Korean-Jurchen warsKorean-Jurchen wars- Under Goryeo period :* In 984 Goryeo began to build a fortress on the banks of the Yalu river but were hindered by the Jurchen, who caused the work to be suspended....
- Nani people
External links
- Jurchen script The Jurchen language and Script Website(Chinese Traditional Big5 code page) via Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...