Hong Taiji

Hong Taiji (1592–1643), also written Huang Taiji, was the second ruler of the Later Jin state founded by his father, Nurhaci, and the first emperor of the Qing dynasty. He became khan in 1626, proclaimed the Qing in 1636 and ruled until his death in 1643. His temple name is Taizong.

It was Hong Taiji who renamed his people Manchu in place of Jurchen and changed the name of the state from Later Jin to Qing. He died before the conquest of Ming China, but his reforms, his armies and his use of Chinese officials prepared the way for it. Older Western books sometimes call him Abahai, a name now regarded as a mistake.

Early Life and Rise to Power

Hong Taiji was born in 1592, the eighth son of Nurhaci, the Jurchen chieftain who united the Jurchen tribes, founded the Later Jin state in 1616 and went to war with the Ming.

Nurhaci organised his people into the Eight Banners, military and administrative units each led by one of his sons or nephews. Hong Taiji commanded one of the banners and was one of the four senior princes, or beile, who shared power under their father.

Nurhaci did not name an heir. After his death in 1626 the princes chose Hong Taiji as khan, at first to rule jointly with the other senior beile. Over the following years he sidelined his rivals and gathered authority into his own hands.

Reign of Hong Taiji

Hong Taiji continued to expand the state in the region later known as Manchuria. He extended its power into Mongolia and raided both Korea and Ming China.

He also enlarged the Eight Banners, which became the means of integrating the peoples who joined the Manchus, above all Mongols and Han Chinese, whether after defeat or by agreement.

Mongolia and Korea

In the late 1620s and early 1630s Hong Taiji's armies and their Mongol allies defeated Ligdan Khan of the Chahar, the last Mongol ruler to claim the title of Great Khan. In 1635 Ligdan's son surrendered, reportedly handing over the imperial seal of the Yuan emperors, and Inner Mongolia came under Manchu control. Mongol Eight Banners were formed in the same year.

Korea was invaded twice. After the first invasion, in 1627, the Joseon court accepted terms but remained loyal to the Ming. When Joseon refused to acknowledge Hong Taiji as emperor, he invaded again in 1636. Early in 1637 the Korean king surrendered, broke off relations with the Ming and became a tributary of the Qing.

A New Name and a Chinese-Style State

In 1635 Hong Taiji decreed that his people should be called Manchu rather than Jurchen, and in 1636 he proclaimed himself emperor of the Great Qing. The new names helped to distance the state from the earlier Jurchen Jin dynasty, which the Han Chinese remembered as conquerors of the north.

Hong Taiji understood that a Manchu state ruling a large Han Chinese population would need Chinese officials. In 1631 he set up Six Boards on the Ming model, and he relied increasingly on Chinese advisers such as Fan Wencheng. Han Chinese banners were created alongside the Manchu and Mongol ones, growing to a full eight by 1642.

His armies kept up the pressure on the Ming. In 1641 and 1642 they won a decisive victory at Songshan and Jinzhou and captured the Ming commander Hong Chengchou, who went over to the Qing.

Death and Legacy

Hong Taiji died suddenly in September 1643 without naming an heir. Less than a year later, in 1644, Qing forces entered Beijing.

After a tense dispute among the princes, his five-year-old son Fulin was chosen to succeed him, with Dorgon and Jirgalang as regents. Fulin reigned as the Shunzhi Emperor, the first Qing emperor to rule China from Beijing.

The Qing conquest of China, and the effective government that followed, owed much to the institutions Hong Taiji built. He was buried at Zhaoling, north of Shenyang.

In these decades imperial orders to Jingdezhen dwindled and its potters turned to private and export markets. Porcelain of this era, roughly 1620 to 1683, is known as Transitional ware. Its painting, shapes and markets are covered in our guide to Transitional porcelain.