Nurhaci defeated a four-pronged Chinese offensive intended to capture his capital of Hetu Ala by concentrating his forces in one column at a time. In 1618, Nurhaci commissioned a document titled the
Seven Grievances in which he enumerated seven problems with Ming rule and began to rebel against the domination of the
Ming dynasty. A majority of the grievances dealt with conflicts against Yehe, and Ming favouritism of Yehe. Nurhaci battled against the Ming dynasty. During the
battle of Fushun, the army of Nurhaci assailed the city walls with siege ladders and the unprepared garrison gave their lives in a hasty defense. Li Yongfang and his lieutenant, Zhao Yipeng, decided to surrender on the condition that no one was to be harmed. Nurhaci agreed to the terms and entered the city. Li was made a commander in the Nurhaci's army and granted a granddaughter of Nurhaci as his concubine for his role in minimizing losses for Nurhaci. Nurhaci left 4,000 men to hold Fushun while he took the remaining army to capture two nearby fortresses, which fell in quick succession. Meanwhile, news of the loss of Fushun had reached Ming on the 12th and a relief contingent of 10,000 under Zhang Chengyin was dispatched to retake the city. The Ming army arrived on the 15th and immediately set up three camps, dug trenches, and began bombarding the city with cannon fire. However Nurhaci's sons
Hong Taiji and
Daišan sallied forth and routed the Ming forces, dealing heavy casualties. Defectors from the Ming side played a massive role in the
Qing conquest of the Ming. Ming generals who defected to the Manchus were often married to women from the Aisin Gioro clan while lower-ranked defectors were given non-imperial Manchu women as wives. Nurhaci arranged for a marriage between one of his granddaughters and the Ming general
Li Yongfang (
李永芳) after Li surrendered
Fushun in
Liaoning to the Manchus in 1618 as the result of the
Battle of Fushun. His son
Abatai's daughter was married to Li Yongfang. The offspring of Li received the "Third Class Viscount" () title. Li Yongfang was the great-great-great-grandfather of Li Shiyao (
李侍堯). In the
battle of Qinghe, Three army of Nurhaci completely annihilates the 6,400 Ming army. During the
battle of Sarhū, Nurhaci had 50–60,000 soldiers at his disposal, but unlike the Chinese, he did not divide them. Instead, he used his knowledge of the terrain, weather, and mobility to his advantage and crushed the individual Ming corps one by one. First, he defeated Du Song's corps on 14 April, followed by Ma Lin's the next day. Yang Hao, in response, ordered a retreat, and while Li Rubai attempted to retreat as well, the order did not reach Liu Ting and his corps, resulting in their defeat on 20 April. Du and Liu both fell in battle. After defeating the Ming, Nurhaci joined forces with the remaining Jurchens and occupied
Kaiyuan, where he killed Ma Lin, and
Tieling in northern Liaodong. As a result of the defeat, Li Rubai was accused of cowardice and committed suicide under the weight of criticism, while Yang Hao was imprisoned and executed in 1629. At the
battle of Kaiyuan, Nurhaci breached the wall of the city and fought the Ming defenders for three days. Meanwhile, another relief contingent had been dispatched from
Tieling, but was also intercepted by a detachment of Nurhaci's army and repulsed. Nurhaci continues his campaign
subduing Tieling in the summer of 1619. In the fall season, Nurhaci
invaded Xicheng, the home of the Yehe Jurchens who allied with Ming. Nurhaci personally led the vanguard and took the east wall. After capturing the city the Yehe inhabitants were spared, but their Ming allies who had fought beside them were executed. After taking the city of Xicheng from his last Jurchen rivals, the Yihe clan,
Nurhaci and his advisers started planning the conquest of
Shenyang to make it the new capital of |Later Jin]. In early 1621 the Jin attacked the Liaodong region and took the fortress of Fengjibao near Shenyang. Nurhaci attacked with all
Eight Banners. For the first two days, The battle ended in complete defeat for Li and the Jin took Fengjibao. Meanwhile, a Ming army of 50,000 had been dispatched and was on its way to besiege Shenyang. News of this reached Nurhaci, who rushed his banners out to confront the Ming before they could entrench themselves around the city. The Jin cavalry caught them in a pincer attack. Next Nurhaci intercepted another army from
Liaoyang and defeated it in quick succession. Seeing that Ming defenses had disintegrated, Nurhaci proceeded to invade Liaoyang, where Yuan Yingtai was headquartered. The Ming army was able to repulse Jin advances until they ran out of ammunition, after which they were routed. The victorious Nurhaci's army were reportedly entered the city greeted with joy. In the fall of 1621 Ming general
Mao Wenlong manage to
capture Fort Zhenjiang on the border of the Jin-Joseon border and held it against multiple Jin assaults before retreating. Nurhaci burnt down the fort afterwards rather than risk having it captured again. Later, he also led many successful engagements against the
Northern Yuan dynasty, the
Joseon dynasty, and other Jurchen clans, greatly enlarging the territory under his control. The first capitals of the Later Jin dynasty established by Nurhaci were Fe Ala and Hetu Ala. The Han prisoner of war Gong Zhenglu (Onoi) was appointed to instruct Nurhaci's sons and received gifts of slaves, wives, and a domicile from Nurhaci after Nurhaci rejected offers of payment to release him back to his relatives. Nurhaci had treated Han in Liaodong differently according to how much grain they had, those with less than 5 to 7
jin were treated poorly while those with more than that amount were rewarded with property. Due to a revolt by Han in Liaodong in 1623, Nurhachi, who previously gave concessions to conquered Han subjects in Liaodong, turned against them and ordered that they no longer be trusted and enacted discriminatory policies and killings against them, while ordering that Han who assimilated to the Jurchen (in Jilin) before 1619 be treated equally as Jurchens were and not like the conquered Han in Liaodong. By May 1621, Nurhaci had conquered the cities of
Liaoyang and
Shenyang. In April 1625, he designated Shenyang the new capital city, which would hold that status until the Qing conquest of the Ming in 1644. In 1622, Nurhaci managed to defeat the Ming forces and killed 16,000 of their soldiers at the
battle of Guangning.
Death In 1626, Nurhaci was defeated by Ming general
Yuan Chonghuan at the
Battle of Ningyuan, in what was the first serious military defeat of his life. During this battle, Nurhaci was wounded by
Portuguese gunners using
Macau manufactured cannons placed in Yuan's army. Unable to recover either physically or mentally, Nurhaci died of his wounds two days later in Aijipu (靉雞堡; present-day Da'aijinpu Village, Dijia Township,
Yuhong District,
Shenyang) on 30 September 1626, at the age of 67. His tomb,
Fu Mausoleum (), is located east of Shenyang. == Relationship with Joseon Dynasty ==