They were powerful due to their proximity to Ming trading towns such as Fushun, Kaiyuan, and Tieling in Liaodong, and to Manpojin camp near Korea.
Various Jurchen groups had migrated south and three tribes settled themselves around the Tumen River near the modern border of China, Russia, and North Korea.
According to the records of Ming Dynasty officials, the Jianzhou Jurchen was descended from Mohe people who established Balhae Kingdom.
[4] The Taowen, Huligai, and Wodolian Jurchen tribes lived in the area of Heilongjiang in Yilan during the Yuan dynasty when it was part of Liaoyang province and governed as a circuit.
[5][6][7] Bokujiang, Tuowulian, Woduolian, Huligai, Taowan separately made up 30,000 households and were the divisions used by the Yuan dynasty to govern the people along the Wusuli river and Songhua area.
Ahacu, chief of the Huligai, became commander of the Jianzhou Guard in 1403, named after a Yuan Dynasty political unit in the area.
Möngke Temür (猛哥帖木儿) of the Odoli became the leader of the Jianzhou Left Guard and accepted the Chinese surname of Tong[clarification needed] not long afterward.
The chieftain Nikan Wailan allied with the Ming general Li Chengliang against Wang Gao's son Atai.
But Giocangga later chose to oppose Nikan Wailan and took his fourth son Taksi to support Atai at his stronghold Fort Gure.
Nurhaci sought vengeance for the untimely deaths of his immediate family members and a vendetta against the Ming forces who took his father and grandfather's life was launched.
[17] The leadership of the Jianzhou confederacies found its lineage from the Odori Jurchens whose leader Mongke Temur was renown by both the Ming and by the Yi.
The unification of the Jianzhou Jurchens became a stepping stone for Nurhaci to expand his power throughout southern and central Manchuria, and to create a truly unified Manchu state.
According to the Qing imperial history, the Jianzhou leader Nurgaci sought to devise a suitable system that integrated the phonetic Mongolian and Jurchen language.
[20] However, the Yi order in Korea included intense military campaigns to drive Jurchens northward toward the Yalu River and ultimately beyond it, into present-day Manchuria.
He and a small party of Korean officials crossed the Yalu river at Mamp Ojin, and followed a tributaries northwest to the Suksu Valley where Nurhaci was based.
Sin stratified his findings and stated that the Jianzhou Jurchen divided their society into villages of about twenty households or less, which were clustered along forested riverbanks.
However, there was also simultaneously cohesion, which was reflected in the scheduled visits of Jurchen leaders to Peking to "make ritual obeisance" to the Ming emperor.
Conversely, it helped the Ming establish a list of Jurchen elites and military occupancies, but also deescalated tensions between the two groups.
Fushan was an "Tong ancestral town" and during the early 17th century, it was fortified by the Ming since it served as Liaodong's border that met with Nurgan - territories occupied by the Haixi, Jianzhou, and wild Jurchens.
Fushan was also a primary location for Jianzhou embassy members who were conducting tributary missions to stop for entertainment and refreshments.