The Manchus (Manchu: ᠮᠠᠨᠵᡠ, Möllendorff: manju; Chinese: 滿洲、滿族; pinyin: Mǎnzhōu, Mǎnzú; Wade–Giles: Man3-chou1, Man3-tsu2)[b] are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia.

[27] In the 10th century AD, the term Jurchen first appeared in documents of the late Tang dynasty in reference to the state of Balhae in present-day northeastern China.

Subjects of the Jin dynasty, Western Xia, and the kingdom of Dali in Yunnan in southern China were categorized as northerners, using the term Han.

During the transition between the Ming and Qing dynasties, Zhang Sunzhen, a civilian official in Nanjing, remarked that he had a portrait of his ancestors wearing Manchu clothes because his family were Tartars.

Soon after that, Möngke Temür[d], chieftain of the Odoli clan of the Jianzhou Jurchens, defected from paying tribute to Korea, becoming a tributary state to China instead.

They gathered ginseng root, pine nuts, hunted for game pelts in the uplands and forests, raised horses in their stables, and farmed millet and wheat in their fallow fields.

Nurhaci, who was hosting Sin Chung-il, was uniting all of them into his own army, having them adopt the Jurchen hairstyle of a long queue and a shaved fore-crown, and wearing leather tunics.

When Li Zicheng moved against the Ming general Wu Sangui, the latter made an alliance with the Manchus and opened the Shanhai Pass to the Manchu army.

[98]: 18  After a series of border conflicts with the Russians, the Qing emperors started to realize the strategic importance of Manchuria and gradually sent Manchus back where they originally came from.

[101]: 182–184  The Qing emperors tried to protect the traditional way of life of the Manchus (as well as various other tribal peoples) in central and northern Manchuria by a variety of means.

This had to be balanced with practical needs, such as maintaining the defense of northern China against the Russians and the Mongols, supplying government farms with a skilled work force, and conducting trade in the region's products, which resulted in a continuous trickle of Han convicts, workers, and merchants to the northeast.

Governor Yue Rui of Shandong was then ordered by the Yongzheng to report any bannerman misbehaving and warned him not to cover it up in 1730 after Manchu bannermen were put in a quarter in Qingzhou.

[122] In a book published in 1911 American sociologist Edward Alsworth Ross wrote of his visit to Xi'an just before the Xinhai revolution:"In Sianfu the Tartar quarter is a dismal picture of crumbling walls, decay, indolence and squalor.

Battening on their hereditary pensions they have given themselves up to sloth and vice, and their poor chest development, small weak muscles, and diminishing families foreshadow the early dying out of the stock.

"[123] Ross spoke highly of the Han and Hui population of Xi'an, Shaanxi and Gansu in general, saying: "After a fortnight of mule litter we sight ancient yellow Sianfu, "the Western capital," with its third of a million souls.

The majority of the hundreds of thousands of people living in inner Beijing during the Qing were Manchus and Mongol bannermen from the Eight Banners after they were moved there in 1644, since Han Chinese were expelled and not allowed to re-enter the inner part of the city.

[129]: 80  Much of the fighting in the Boxer Rebellion against the foreigners in defense of Beijing and Manchuria was done by Manchu Banner armies, which were destroyed while resisting the invasion.

[1]: 72  Thousands of Manchus fled south from Aigun during the fighting in the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, their cattle and horses then stolen by Russian Cossacks who razed their villages and homes.

[134] As the end of the Qing dynasty approached, Manchus were portrayed as outside colonizers by Chinese nationalists such as Sun Yat-sen, even though the Republican revolution he brought about was supported by many reform-minded Manchu officials and military officers.

[130]: i, 3–4 Until 1924, the Chinese government continued to pay stipends to Manchu bannermen, but many cut their links with their banners and took on Han-style names to avoid persecution.

As a follow-up to the Mukden Incident, Manchukuo, a puppet state in Manchuria, was created by the Empire of Japan which was nominally ruled by the deposed Last Emperor, Puyi, in 1932.

[1]: 278  Therefore, Han members who registered as Manchu could potentially be included into DNA studies of Manchus if researchers do not remove them from sample populations.

The Manchus modified the Ming robes to be narrow at the sleeves by adding a new fur cuff and by cutting slits in the skirt to make it more slender for falconry, horse riding and archery.

In Japan's Nara city, the Shosoin repository at the Todaiji temple houses 30 short coats (hanpi) from the Tang dynasty in China.

The hanpi consists of a skirt and bodice made of different fabrics with distinct patterns, which served as the basis for the Qing chao fu.

The Ming robes, from which the Qing chao fu drew inspiration, were not commonly depicted in portraits or official paintings but were considered prestigious enough to be included in burial attire.

[57]: 119  In the latter Jin and early Qing period, rulers encouraged the populace, including aristocrats, to practise buku as a feature of military training.

[198] It was one of the most important winter events of the Qing royal household,[199] performed by the "Eight Banner Ice Skating Battalion" (八旗冰鞋营)[199] which was a special force trained to do battle on icy terrain.

[135]: 147 "Zidishu" is the main libretto of octagonal drum and can be traced back to a type of traditional folk music called the "Manchu Rhythm".

[213] Banjin Inenggi (ᠪᠠᠨᠵᡳᠨᡳᠨᡝᠩᡤᡳ), on the 13th day of the tenth month of the lunar calendar, which started to be celebrated in late 20th century, is the anniversary of the name creation of Manchu.