Establishment Initially, Nurhaci's forces were organized into small hunting parties of about a dozen men related by blood, marriage, clan, or place of residence, as was the typical Jurchen custom. In 1601, with the number of men under his command growing, Nurhaci reorganized his troops into companies of 300 households. Five companies made up a battalion, and ten battalions a banner. Four banners were originally created:
Yellow,
White,
Red, and
Blue, each named after the color of its flag. By 1614, the number of companies had grown to around 400. In 1615, the number of banners was doubled through the creation of "bordered" banners. The troops of each of the original four banners would be split between a plain and a bordered banner. The bordered variant of each flag was to have a red border, except for the
Bordered Red Banner, which had a white border instead. The banner armies expanded rapidly after a string of military victories under Nurhaci and his successors. Beginning in the late 1620s, the Jurchens incorporated allied and conquered Mongol tribes into the Eight Banner system. In 1635, Hong Taiji, son of Nurhaci, renamed his people from Jurchen to Manchu. That same year the Mongols were separated into the
Mongol Eight Banners (
Manchu: ,
monggo gūsa; ; ).
Rewards and Privileges The Eight Banners (in
Manchu:
jakūn gūsa, , ) provided very important material, legal, and social privileges during the
Qing Dynasty in
China. Bannermen received state stipends, land allocations, grain rations, and housing in selected
garrison quarters that were mostly in
Beijing. Rather than relying on the damages of war after the
early conquest period, the Qing state developed a salaried system that allowed bannermen and their households to have a regular income. Banner status also created an important legal separation and bannermen were governed by banner courts and internal disciplinary systems that were in place. These were separate from the regular civilian administration at that time which also reinforced their identity as a distinct military administrative estate within the
Qing Dynasty. If someone was affiliated with the banners then they were provided access to employment, officeholding, and imperial favor especially for those in the Upper Three Banners under direct imperial control. Over time people with banner membership became a key marker of
Manchu identity and preserved cultural practices while integrating different ethnic groups into the Qing imperial system. Although the bannermen were important for the Manchus, by the nineteenth century the cost of maintaining stipends for the hereditary banner population strained the imperial treasury. With that the banner status still held onto the symbolic prestige that is held earlier but many bannermen experienced economic decline.
Invasions of Korea Under
Hong Taiji, the banner armies participated in two invasions of
Joseon in the Korean Peninsula first in 1627 and again in 1636. As a consequence, Joseon was forced to end its relationship with the Ming and become a Qing tributary instead.
Conquest of the Ming dynasty Initially, Han troops were incorporated into the existing Manchu Banners. When Hong Taiji captured Yongping in 1629, a contingent of artillerymen surrendered to him. In 1631, these troops were organized into the so-called Old Han Army under the Han commander Tong Yangxing. These artillery units were used decisively to defeat Ming general
Zu Dashou's forces at the
siege of Dalinghe that same year. In 1636, Hong Taiji proclaimed the creation of the Qing dynasty. Between 1637 and 1642, the Old Han Army, mostly made up of
Liaodong natives who had surrendered at Yongping, Fushun, Dalinghe, etc., were organized into the Han Eight Banners (
Manchu:
nikan cooha or
ujen cooha; ; ). The original Eight Banners were thereafter referred to as the Manchu Eight Banners (
Manchu: ,
manju gūsa; ; ). Although still called the "Eight Banners" in name, there were now effectively twenty-four banner armies, eight for each of the three main ethnic groups (Manchu, Mongol, and Han). Among the Banners gunpowder weapons, such as muskets and artillery, were specifically wielded by the Han Banners. After Hong Taiji's death,
Dorgon, commander of the Solid White Banner, became regent. He quickly purged his rivals and took control over Hong Taiji's Solid Blue Banner. By 1644, an estimated two million people were living in the Eight Banners system. That year, rebels led by
Li Zicheng captured
Beijing, and the last emperor of the Ming dynasty,
Chongzhen, committed suicide. Dorgon and his bannermen joined forces with Ming defector
Wu Sangui to defeat Li at the
Battle of Shanhai Pass and secure Beijing for the Qing. The young
Shunzhi Emperor was then enthroned in the
Forbidden City. Ming defectors played a major role in the Qing conquest of the
Central Plain. Ethnic Han generals who defected to the Qing were often
given women from the imperial Aisin Gioro family in marriage while the ordinary soldiers who defected were given non-royal Manchu women as wives. The Qing differentiated between Han bannermen and ordinary Han civilians. Han bannermen were made out of ethnic Han who defected to the Qing up to 1644 and joined the Eight Banners, giving them social and legal privileges in addition to being acculturated to Manchu culture. So many Han defected to the Qing and swelled up the ranks of the Eight Banners that ethnic Manchus became a minority within the Banners, making up only 16% in 1648, with Han bannermen dominating with 75% and Mongol bannermen making up the rest. It was this multi-ethnic force, in which Manchus were only a minority, which conquered the Central Plain for the Qing. Hong Taiji recognized that Han defectors were needed by the Qing in order to assist in the conquest of the Ming, explaining to other Manchus why he needed to treat the Ming defector General Hung Ch'eng-ch'ou leniently. The Qing showed in propaganda targeted towards the Ming military that the Qing valued military skills to get them to defect to the Qing, since the Ming civilian political system discriminated against the military. The three Liaodong Han Bannermen officers who played a massive role in the conquest of southern China from the Ming were Shang Kexi, Geng Zhongming, and Kong Youde and they governed southern China autonomously as viceroys for the Qing after their conquests. Normally the Manchu Bannermen acted as reserve forces while the Qing foremost used defected Han troops to fight as the vanguard during their conquest of the Central Plain. The Liaodong Han military frontiersmen were prone to mixing and acculturating with (non-Han) tribesmen. The Mongol officer Mangui served in the Ming military and fought the Manchus, dying in battle against a Manchu raid. The Manchus accepted and assimilated Han soldiers who defected. Liaodong Han transfrontiersmen soldiers acculturated to Manchu culture and used Manchu names. Manchus lived in cities with walls surrounded by villages and adopted Han-style agriculture before the Qing conquest of the Ming. The Han transfrontismen abandoned their Han names and identities and Nurhaci's secretary Dahai might have been one of them. When Dorgon ordered Han civilians to vacate Beijing's inner city and move to the outskirts, he resettled the inner city with the Bannermen, including Han bannermen, later, some exceptions were made to allowing to reside in the inner city Han civilians who held government or commercial jobs. The Qing relied on the Green Standard soldiers, made out of defected Ming military forces who joined the Qing, in order to help rule northern China. It was Green Standard Han troops who actively military governed China locally while Han Bannermen, Mongol Bannermen, and Manchu Bannermen who were only brought into emergency situations where there was sustained military resistance. Manchu Aisin Gioro princesses were also married to Han official's sons. The Manchu Prince Regent Dorgon gave a Manchu woman as a wife to the Han official Feng Quan, who had defected from the Ming to the Qing. The Manchu queue hairstyle was willingly adopted by Feng Quan before it was enforced on the Han population and Feng learned the Manchu language. To promote ethnic harmony, a 1648 decree from the
Shunzhi Emperor allowed Han civilian men to marry Manchu women from the Banners with the permission of the Board of Revenue if they were registered daughters of officials or commoners or the permission of their banner company captain if they were unregistered commoners. It was only later in the dynasty that these policies allowing intermarriage were done away with. The decree was formulated by Dorgon. The Guangzhou massacre of Ming loyalist Han forces and civilians in 1650 by Qing forces, was entirely carried out by Han Bannermen led by Han generals
Shang Kexi and
Geng Jimao. The Qing sent Han Bannermen to fight against
Koxinga's Ming loyalists in Fujian. The Qing carried out massive depopulation policy
clearances forcing people to evacuated the coast in order to deprive Koxinga's Ming loyalists of resources, this has led to a myth that it was because Manchus were "afraid of water". In Fujian, it was Han Bannermen who were the ones carrying out the fighting and killing for the Qing and this disproved the entirely irrelevant claim that alleged fear of the water on part of the Manchus had to do with the coastal evacuation and clearances. Even though a poem refers to the soldiers carrying out massacres in Fujian as "barbarian", both Han Green Standard Army and Han Bannermen were involved in the fighting for the Qing side and carried out the worst slaughter. 400,000 Green Standard Army soldiers were used against the Three Feudatories besides 200,000 Bannermen.
Revolt of the Three Feudatories . In the
Revolt of the Three Feudatories Manchu Generals and Bannermen were initially put to shame by the better performance of the Han
Green Standard Army, who fought better than them against the rebels and this was noted by the Kangxi Emperor, leading him to task Generals Sun Sike, Wang Jinbao, and Zhao Liangdong to lead Green Standard soldiers to crush the rebels. The Qing thought that Han were superior at battling other Han people and so used the Green Standard Army as the dominant and majority army in crushing the rebels instead of Bannermen, and as such, In northwestern China against Wang Fuchen, the Qing put Bannermen in the rear as reserves while they used Han Green Standard Army soldiers and Han Generals like Zhang Liangdong, Wang Jinbao, and Zhang Yong as the primary military forces, and these Han generals achieved victory over the rebels. Sichuan and southern Shaanxi were retaken by the Han Green Standard Army under Wang Jinbao and Zhao Liangdong in 1680, with Manchus only participating in dealing with logistics and provisions. 400,000 Green Standard Army soldiers and 150,000 Bannermen served on the Qing side during the war.
John Ross, a Scots missionary who served in Manchuria in the 19th century, wrote of the bannermen, "Their claim to be military men is based on their descent rather than on their skill in arms; and their pay is given them because of their fathers' prowess, and not at all from any hopes of their efficiency as soldiers. Their soldierly qualities are included in the accomplishments of idleness, riding, and the use of the bow and arrow, at which they practice on a few rare occasions each year." ; the left is a Bannerman During the
Boxer Rebellion, 1899–1901, the European powers recruited 10,000 Bannermen from the Metropolitan Banners into
Wuwei Corps and gave them modernized training and weapons. One of these was the
Hushenying. However, many Manchu Bannermen in Beijing supported the Boxers and shared their anti-foreign sentiment. The pro-Boxer Bannermen sustained heavy casualties and subsequently were driven into desperate poverty.
Zhao Erfeng and
Zhao Erxun were two important Han Bannermen in the late Qing. By the late 19th century, the Qing Dynasty began training and creating
New Army units based on Western training, equipment and organization. Nevertheless, the banner system remained in existence until the fall of the Qing in 1912, and even beyond, with a rump organization continuing to function until 1924. At the end of the Qing dynasty, all members of the Eight Banners, regardless of their original ethnicity, were considered by the
Republic of China to be Manchu. Han Bannermen became an elite political class in
Fengtian province in the late Qing period and into the Republican era. In addition to sending Han exiles convicted of crimes to Xinjiang to be slaves of Banner garrisons there, the Qing also practiced reverse exile, exiling Inner Asian (Mongol, Russian and Muslim criminals from Mongolia and Inner Asia) to
China proper where they would serve as slaves in Han Banner garrisons in Guangzhou.
Russians,
Oirats and
Muslims (Oros. Ulet. Hoise jergi weilengge niyalma) such as Yakov and Dmitri were exiled to the Han banner garrison in Guangzhou. In the 1780s, after the
Jahriyya revolt in Gansu started by Zhang Wenqing (張文慶) was defeated, Muslims like Ma Jinlu (馬進祿) were exiled to the Han Banner garrison in Guangzhou to become slaves to Han Banner officers. The Qing code regulating Mongols in Mongolia sentenced Mongol criminals to exile and to become slaves to Han bannermen in Han Banner garrisons in China proper. ==Organization==