Jurchen

The Jurchens were the Tungusic-speaking tribes of Manchuria, formed partly from Mohe groups left after Balhae fell in 926. They lived by hunting, fishing and scattered agriculture. In the eleventh century the Wanyan clan built a tribal federation, and in 1115 its chieftain Wanyan Aguda rebelled against the Khitan Liao and proclaimed the Jin dynasty; the chancellor Wanyan Xiyin devised a Jurchen script in 1119 or 1120 on Khitan and Chinese models.

The Jin destroyed the Liao in 1125, seized northern China from the Song and ruled until the Mongols overran it in 1234. Those remaining in Manchuria passed under Mongol and, from 1368, Ming rule; the Ming classified them as Jianzhou, Haixi and Yeren groups and ran the Nurgan Command Post from 1409 to 1434, the eunuch Yishiha sailing the Amur and erecting bilingual steles.

From the 1580s the Jianzhou leader Nurhaci united the tribes into the Eight Banners, and in 1635 his son Hong Taiji renamed the people Manchus.