House of Aisin-Gioro in the context of "Qing dynasty"

The Later Jin, officially known as Jin or the Great Jin, was a Jurchen-led royal dynasty of China and a khanate ruled by the House of Aisin-Gioro in Manchuria, as the precursor to the Qing dynasty. Established in 1616 by the Jianzhou Jurchen chieftain Nurhaci upon his reunification of the Jurchen tribes, its name was derived from the earlier Jin dynasty founded by the Wanyan clan which had ruled northern China in the 12th and 13th centuries.

In 1635, the lingering Northern Yuan dynasty under Ejei Khan formally submitted to the Later Jin. The following year, Hong Taiji officially renamed the realm to "Great Qing", thus marking the start of the Qing dynasty. During the Ming–Qing transition, the Qing conquered Li Zicheng's Shun dynasty and various Southern Ming claimants and loyalists, going on to rule an empire comprising all of China, stretching as far as Tibet, Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Taiwan until the 1911 Revolution established the Republic of China.

Nurhaci (14 May 1559 – 30 September 1626), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Qing, was the founding khan of the Jurchen-led Later Jin dynasty.

As leader of the Aisin-Gioro clan, Nurhaci reorganized and united various Jurchen tribes (the later "Manchu"), consolidated the Eight Banners military system, and eventually launched attacks on both the Ming and Joseon dynasties. His conquest of Ming dynasty's northeastern Liaodong region laid the groundwork for the Qing conquest of the Ming by his descendants, who proclaimed the Qing dynasty in 1636. He is also generally credited with ordering the creation of a new written script for the Manchu language based on the Mongolian vertical script.

The Qing dynasty (1644–1912) was a Manchu-led imperial Chinese dynasty and the last imperial dynasty of China. It was officially proclaimed in 1636 in Shenyang in what is now Northeast China, but only captured Beijing and succeeded the Ming dynasty in China proper in 1644. The Qing dynasty collapsed when the imperial clan (surnamed Aisin Gioro) abdicated in February 1912, a few months after a military uprising had started the Xinhai Revolution that led to the foundation of the Republic of China.

Nurhaci (1559–1626), khan of the Jurchens, founded the Later Jin dynasty in 1616 in reference to the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty (1115–1234) that had once ruled over northern China. His son and successor Hong Taiji (1592–1643) renamed his people "Manchu" in 1635 and changed the name of Nurhaci's state from "Great Jin" to "Great Qing" in 1636. Hong Taiji was the real founder of Qing imperial institutions. He was the first to adopt the title of "emperor" (huangdi) and founded an Imperial Ancestral Temple in the Qing capital Mukden in 1636. After the Qing captured Beijing in 1644 and appropriated the Ming Ancestral Temple, from 1648 on, Nurhaci was worshiped there as "Taizu" (太祖), a temple name usually accorded to dynastic founders. Qing emperors since Hong Taiji were also referred to as Bogda Khan by the Mongol subjects, and as "Chinese khagan" by their Turkic Muslim subjects when Qing rule extended to Xinjiang in the 18th century.

Dorgon (17 November 1612 – 31 December 1650) was a Manchu prince and regent of the early Qing dynasty. Born in the House of Aisin-Gioro as the 14th son of Nurhaci (the founder of the Later Jin dynasty, which was the predecessor of the Qing), Dorgon started his career in military campaigns against the Mongols, the Koreans, and the Ming dynasty during the reign of Hong Taiji (his eighth brother) who succeeded their father.

After Hong Taiji's death in 1643, he was involved in a power struggle against Hong Taiji's eldest son, Hooge, over the succession to the throne. Both of them eventually came to a compromise by backing out and letting Hong Taiji's ninth son, Fulin, become the emperor; Fulin was installed on the throne as the Shunzhi Emperor. Dorgon served as Prince-Regent from 1643 to 1650, throughout the Shunzhi Emperor's early reign. In 1645, he was given the honorary title "Emperor's Uncle and Prince-Regent" (皇叔父攝政王); the title was changed to "Emperor's Father and Prince-Regent" (皇父攝政王) in 1649.

The Qing dynasty (/tʃɪŋ/ CHING), officially the Great Qing, also known as the Qing Empire or Qing China, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. At its height of power, the empire stretched from the Sea of Japan in the east to the Pamir Mountains in the west, and from the Mongolian Plateau in the north to the South China Sea in the south. Originally emerging from the Later Jin dynasty founded in 1616 and proclaimed in Shenyang in 1636, the dynasty seized control of the Ming capital Beijing and North China in 1644, traditionally considered the start of the dynasty's rule. The dynasty lasted until the Xinhai Revolution of October 1911 led to the abdication of the last emperor in February 1912. The multi-ethnic Qing dynasty assembled the territorial base for modern China. The Qing controlled the most territory of any dynasty in Chinese history, and in 1790 represented the fourth-largest empire in world history to that point. With over 426 million citizens in 1907, it was the most populous country at the time.

Nurhaci, leader of the Jianzhou Jurchens and House of Aisin-Gioro who was also a vassal of the Ming dynasty, unified Jurchen clans (known later as Manchus) and founded the Later Jin dynasty in 1616, renouncing the Ming overlordship. As the founding Khan of the Manchu state he established the Eight Banners military system, and his son Hong Taiji was declared Emperor of the Great Qing in 1636. As Ming control disintegrated, peasant rebels captured Beijing as the short-lived Shun dynasty, but the Ming general Wu Sangui opened the Shanhai Pass to the Qing army, which defeated the rebels, seized the capital, and took over the government in 1644 under the Shunzhi Emperor and his prince regent. While the Qing became the new rulers of China, resistance from Ming rump regimes and the Revolt of the Three Feudatories delayed the complete conquest until 1683, which marked the beginning of the High Qing era. As an emperor of Manchu ethnic origin, the Kangxi Emperor (1661–1722) consolidated control, relished the role of a Confucian ruler, patronised Buddhism, encouraged scholarship, population and economic growth.