(Pictured: Nurhachi at war with a Jurchin tribe, from the illustrated history of Nurhachi’s life found in the Qing archives, now at the National Palace Museum, Taipei)
Part 1 - Nurhachi Creates a New Kingdom (1583-1600)
Part 3 - Eight Banners (1615-1650)
Part 4 - The Final Form of the Banners (1651-1900)
The Banners as a Solution to Tribal Identity
In 1600 Nurhachi forced the Hada tribe to surrender to his army. At a stroke he added more than 10,000 men and women to his new kingdom. He could have declared they were all slaves and his tribe, the Jianzhou, were the only true Jurchins, but Nurhachi was much smarter than this. It is clear that in 1600 he dreamed of uniting all the Jurchin tribes together and then, with a united Jurchin army under his command, he would become the ruler of a large kingdom, like Balhae, like the Liao Empire, like the Jin.
To do this, he needed the willing cooperation of the other Jurchin tribes. But the five Jurchin tribes had fought with each other for centuries. There were deep seated animosities, old crimes, blood feuds, disputes over land, ginseng and pearls. The problem Nurhachi was trying to solve is easy to understand: up until 1600, all of Nurhachi’s soldiers were from the Jianzhou tribe, or they were volunteers like a few Mongol tribes from Songliao plain. Now, with the surrender of the Hada tribe, Nurhachi suddenly had thousands of warriors who were Jurchin but not Jianzhou.
Nurhachi came up with a plan to solve these issues: he would dissolve all the tribes into something new and remake their world. New tribes, new laws, past hatreds forgotten; everyone looking forward to a glorious future! Nurhachi called these new tribes Banners (or Flags in Chinese). Each tribe would have a Chief -a Beile - which was the Jurchin word for Chief/War leader. To help erase the past, the new tribes would be named after colors and their soldiers would wear colored armor to match the Banner they belonged to.
Under his plan, the people of his kingdom would not be Jianzhou or Hada or Mongol or Korean. Instead everyone would be part of one of the four banners: Yellow (meaning Gold to the Jurchin), White, Red, and Blue. The Yellow banner was the most prestigious banner and most of the members of Nurhachi’s Jianzhou tribe were members of the this banner.
Note: it is unclear who was in charge of each of the four banners. Likely, Nurhachi was in charge of the Yellow Banner and perhaps he was in charge of all four banners during these early years.
The Four Banners acted like tribes. The Banner leader - Beile - had the office of commander in war, and judge in peace. Each tribesman gave what he captured in war to the Banner Beile who then distributed the wealth to the various Banner members based on their deeds in battle. Each of the four banners was expected to be able to operate on its own, be self-sufficient, and be ready to send soldiers out to fight at a moments notice. Widows were supposed to be taken care of, but it is known that Jurchen widows often married a brother of their husband to solidify their claim to distributions from the Banner.
Very few people were outside of the banner system. Some of Nurhachi’s children were not members of any of the four banners and it seems that some Mongol chiefs remained independent of the Banners while still being in all other respects, part of Nurhachi’s kingdom. There are indications that marriages had to be approved by the Banner leader, as were member’s professions. For example, it seems a man could not switch from being a blacksmith to a fisherman without the Banner leader’s approval.
All family members (wives and children) were part of the Banner. A number of slaves (both Korean and Chinese) ended up officially joining a Banner after decades of loyal service to a Banner. Example: Ah Jin, an immensely wealthy salt-smuggler later in life, started out as a Korean slave. He was allowed to join the Yellow banner some 20 years after he was enslaved. Begining in 1620, a few Chinese generals who switched sides were added to the banners in a leadership position. For example, Geng Zhong-ming quit the Ming army and joined the Plain Yellow banner in 1630. Kong Yu-di switched sides around 1633, leaving China and joining the new Manchu Kingdom. He was added to the Plain Red banner.
People could transfer from one Banner to another Banner. There are cases where people asked for such a transfer. Some examples: Asitan transferred from the Bordered Blue to the Bordered Yellow Banner; Tung Guo-gang transferred from the Plain Blue to the Bordered Yellow; Tung Du-lai transferred from the Plain Blue to the Bordered White.
When Nurhaci said, “I order the White and Red banner to send 2,000 men each to fight the Mongols” it was up to the Banner leader to decide who to send and who would be in command of the detachment. The Banner leaders had to allocate supplies and make sure the men were ready to fight. Sometimes the entire Banner was mobilized for war, as when the Ming attacked Nurhaci’s new kingdom in 1619.
The initial strength of the banners was as follows: each banner was divided into 5 Jalens (i.e. regiments). Each Jalen was made up of 5 Niru (i.e. companies). Each Niru was 300 men strong. This gives us a theoretical initial strength of 7,500 men per Banner, and total fighting force for Nurhachi in 1600 of ~30,000 men, though it is likely that the real number of men in each banner was significantly less. Later, as Nurhachi added more tribes to his new state, the number Nirus in each Jalen was increased, and the number of Jalens in each Banner was increased.
(Pictured: Kangxi Huangdi, with members of Blue Banner, Yellow Banner, and Bordered Yellow, circa 1700 CE, part of a much larger silk scroll)
Each Banner was required to manage its own supplies of armor, weapons, food, and horses. This was in sharp contrast to the Ming and the Korean armies, though it was similar to the armies of the major Japanese Daimyos. It is not unreasonable to think that Nurhachi learned something about the Japanese military from Japanese prisoners. Some Japanese soldiers in Korea switched sides and joined with the Koreans, they were valued for their swordsmanship. Perhaps some made their way north and joined Nurhachi’s Jurchins?
Contrast with Ming China
In the Ming military system, providing war supplies was the responsibility of the Ministry of War. The Ministry of War used its massive budget to buy armor, weapons, arrows, artillery, food and to hire doctors and buy medical supplies. The Ming assigned individual military units to an army for specific campaigns, and when the campaign was over, the army was usually disbanded with the units returning to their home bases for garrison duty.
Contrast to the Roman Army
In European history, Roman legions were somewhat like Banners in that each legion had its own logistics unit of cooks, doctors, blacksmiths, and armor makers. There were apparently factories in Rome which mass produced weapons and armor which were sold or distributed to the various legions, but some legions had their own distinctive armor and weapons, see Roman Military Equipment and the late phase in the structure of the Roman army.
Nurhachi’s Banner looks somewhat like a Roman legion but his Banners differed in two important ways: first, the Banners included a very large number of women, children, and slaves; second: you never left the Banner system. There was no such thing as retirement from the Banner, you were in it for life. For the Roman legions, a man served for 20 years and then retired with enough money to marry and perhaps buy a farm.
Contrast to the Mongol Army
A clear antecedent for the Banner system was the Mongol Tumen. Nurhachi had very good relations with a number of the Mongol tribes living in Songliao plain (surrounding the modern city of Harbin) so he knew a great deal about how the Mongols fought. Three hundred years before he was born, in the days of Genghis Khan, each Mongol Tumen was supposed to be 10,000 men, with 50,000 horses, and some number of women to set up camp and cook food. There is very good evidence that the Mongol Tumens were never 10,000 men, instead they were closer to 7,000 warriors, with an unknown number of women and slaves to take care of the camp and the horses.
Contrast to the Napoleonic Division
For another European comparison: when Napoleon won his many victories in the early 1800s, his army was composed of semi-independent divisions, each one being 6,000 men or larger. Each Napoleonic division was like a miniature army with its own headquarters, cavalry, artillery, scouts, medical staff, and supply train, but again, like the Roman legion, civilians were supposed to be excluded, although camp followers were numerous in every Napoleonic army.
Contrast to the Ten Tribes of Ancient Athens
There is at least one direct European parallel to Nurhachi’s Banner system: in 510 BCE, the Athenian lawgiver/ruler Cleithenes reorganized the entire population of Athens into 10 Tribes. These tribes were artificial, though initially based on geography - if you lived in a certain area, you were part of a deme. Once you were registered in a deme, you never changed unless you were exiled from Athens. The demes of Cleisthenes may have been used as part of the organization of the Athenian military, at least initially. The parallel between Cleisthenes Demes and Nurhachi’s Banners is not exact but the motivation was the same. Both men wanted to rebuild their society and end old tribal loyalties. In both cases, the system worked, for 100 years.
See Part 3 - The Eight Banners - 1615 to 1650
Or return to Part 1 - Historical Background of Nurhachi.