The Manchus
The people who later called themselves the Manchus were known throughout the Ming period as the Jurchens and could claim descent from a dynasty that had ruled part of China in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Thus, they had an imperial pedigree of sorts and, judging from the subsequent actions of the early Qing dynasties, a sense of their history and how it fitted in with the broader scheme of the East Asian world order and the succession of legitimate dynasties. They dwelt in north-east Asia and were military threats to both the Ming and the Korean Choson (1392-1910) dynasties. Administratively, the Jurchens were treated in the same way as both the Mongols and the aboriginal tribes of the south-west. Tribal leaders were invested with seals of authority and conferred hereditary titles of nobility in exchange for recognising Ming sovereignty. Favoured Jurchen commanders could even be taken under the wing of Ming military officials, as seen in the fateful case of Nurhaci (1559-1626), founder of the Latter Jin state which would become the Qing dynasty.When dealing with the Jurchens the Ming tended to adopt the same types of approaches they had used against the Mongols: in other words, divide and conquer. They would launch quick strikes into Jurchen territory and offer Jurchen leaders Ming official rank and trading privileges in exchange for loyalty. They were also not above double-crossing erstwhile allies if the opportunity presented itself. Livestock would be captured and settlements burned in an effort to keep potential threats scattered and disorganised.[214] It was during one such raid that Nurhaci's father was ‘accidentally' killed by Ming forces, who demolished an enemy fortification while he was still inside. Nonetheless, Ming policy worked quite well until the early seventeenth century, and is another example of how state-encouraged violence could be used in the interests of maintaining order. But the Ming decision to afford Nurhaci considerable latitude eventually backfired, as he was able to amass an army of around 60,000 for his initial campaign against the Ming in 1619.