View source for Jurchens

*''Chinese'': 女真 ''(Nǚzhēn)''

The Jurchens were a nomadic steppes group which formed the [[Jin Dynasty]] ([[1122]]-[[1234]]), invading the [[Northern Song Dynasty]] and controlling all of northern [[China proper|China]] for over one hundred years, from [[1127]] to [[1234]]. The [[Manchus]], who emerged as a new group around the turn of the 17th century, claimed descent from the Jin Dynasty Jurchens. The term "Jurchen" (C: ''Nǚzhēn'') appears in Chinese documents from around 800 CE until [[1636]], with the term "Manchu" (C: ''Mǎnzú'') first appearing in [[1635]].<ref>Pamela Kyle Crossley, ''A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology'', University of California Press (1999), 3.</ref>

The Jurchens claimed portions of northeastern [[Manchuria]] (today, the [[provinces of China|Chinese provinces]] of [[Jilin province|Jilin]] and [[Heilongjiang province|Heilongjiang]])<ref name=spence26>Jonathan Spence, ''The Search for Modern China'', Second Edition, W.W. Norton & Co. (1999), 26.</ref> as their ancestral homelands. As early as [[1019]], the Jurchens launched pirate raids on [[Kyushu]] known as the [[Toi Invasion]].

The Jin Dynasty was founded in 1122. Three years later, with aid from the Northern Song, they conquered the [[Liao Dynasty]] of the [[Khitans]], another steppe nomad group. Jurchen forces then continued to push into Chinese territory, seizing the Northern Song capital of [[Kaifeng]] in [[1127]]; they captured [[Emperor Huizong]] and [[Emperor Qinzong of Song|his successor]], but another son of Huizong escaped, hiding out for about a decade before returning to found the [[Southern Song Dynasty]] in [[1138]]. The Jin signed a peace agreement with the Southern Song in [[1142]], requiring the Song to pay regular [[tribute]] in exchange for peace.

The peace was broken on several occasions, however, as conflict erupted between the Jin and the Song in [[1161]]-[[1165]], and again in [[1206]]-[[1208]]; on both occasions, however, the superior Song navy managed to prevent the Jurchens from crossing the [[Yangzi River]].<ref>Conrad Schirokauer, et al, ''A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations'', Fourth Edition, Cengage Learning (2012), 190-223.</ref>

The Jin fell to [[Mongol]] forces in 1234.

In the late 16th century, on the verge of the emergence of the Manchus, some Jurchen groups were based around the Sungari River in Jilin province, while others were based in the Long White Mountains (''Changbaishan'') on the Korean border. A third group, somewhat more Sinicized, lived in the cities of [[Shenyang]] (Mukden) and Fushun in [[Liaoning province]], around the Liao River. While the former groups were largely agriculturalists and hunters, and maintained traditional nomadic lifestyles to a considerable extent, this latter group was somewhat more urban, intermingling with [[Han Chinese]] merchants and settlers, and engaging in the trading of furs, horses, and other local goods. [[Nurhachi]], founder of the Manchus, would come from the Long White Mountains Jurchens.<ref name=spence26/>

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