Qing Eight Banners System

Timeline

1. c. 1601–1615Hetu Ala–Liaoyang area · LiaoningNurhaci organized the Jianzhou Jurchen tribes into four banners by color—yellow, white, red, and blue—with the niru as the basic unit, binding hunting, warfare, and household registration together and laying the foundation for Later Jin military-administrative mobilization.
2. 1635–1636Shengjing (Shenyang) · LiaoningHong Taiji split each of the original four banners into plain and bordered variants, forming the Manchu Eight Banners, and subsequently admitted Mongol and Han troops into the banners, extending the system from a purely Manchu military organization into a multi-ethnic military-administrative framework.
3. 1631–1640Liaodong–Mongol frontier · NortheastIn the 1630s the Eight Banners served as the main force in the Liaodong campaigns such as the Battle of Songjin; banner soldiers mobilized by jia and niru, and spoils and surrendered populations were distributed by banner, tightly coupling the system with Later Jin external expansion.