Later Jin (1616-1636)

The Later Jin, the Great Jin of the Manchus, was the Jurchen khanate that became the Qing dynasty, a Jurchen-led royal dynasty and khanate of the Aisin-Gioro house founded in 1616 by the Jianzhou chieftain Nurhaci upon reuniting the Jurchen tribes. Proclaimed Khan at Hetu Ala, Nurhaci named his state for the Wanyan Jin that ruled north China in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, whether its proper name was Jin, Later Jin or both historians still debate. From Hetu Ala and then Mukden the khans built their banners, openly declared war on the Ming, took Fushun and Qinghe, and in 1635 received the submission of Ejei Khan, last of the Northern Yuan. The next year Hong Taiji renamed the realm Great Qing, and the twenty-year khanate flowed into the empire that took Li Zicheng's Shun, the Southern Ming, Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan, ruling all China to 1911. Whether its official Chinese name was Jin, Later Jin or both, historians still debate.