The Qing Dynasty had been founded after…

The Qing Dynasty had been founded after the defeat of the Ming, the last Han Chinese dynasty, by the Manchus.

The Manchus were formerly known as the Jurchen.

When Beijing was captured by Li Zicheng's peasant rebels in 1644, the last Ming Emperor Chongzhen committed suicide.

The Manchu then allied with Ming Dynasty general Wu Sangui and seized control of Beijing, which has become the new capital of the Qing dynasty.

The Manchus have adopted the Confucian norms of traditional Chinese government in their rule of China proper.

The Manchus maintain the "Eight Banners" system in an attempt to avoid being assimilated into Chinese society.

The "Eight Banners" are military institutions set up to provide a structure with which the Manchu "bannermen" are meant to identify.

Banner membership is to be based on traditional Manchu skills such as archery, horsemanship, and frugality.

In addition, they are encouraged to use the Manchu language, rather than Chinese.

Bannermen are given economic and legal privileges in Chinese cities.

Once the Manchus took over governing, they could no longer satisfy the material needs of soldiers by garnishing and distributing booty; instead, a salary system is instituted and ranks standardized, causing the Eight Banners to become a sort of hereditary military caste, though with a strong ethnic inflection.

Banner soldiers take up permanent positions, either as defenders of the capital, Beijing, where roughly half of them live with their families, or in the provinces, where some eighteen garrisons are established.

On the civil front, Hung Taiji, the first Emperor of the Qing Dynasty in China, had on the advice of surrendered Ming officials set up a rudimentary bureaucratic system based on the Ming model of government.

Hung Taiji had staffed his bureaucracy is staffed with an unprecedented number of Han Chinese, many of them newly surrendered Ming officials.

However, the Jurchens' continued dominance in government had been ensured by an ethnic quota for top bureaucratic appointments.

Hung Taiji's reign had also seen a fundamental change of policy towards his Han Chinese subjects.

Whereas under Nurhaci all captured Han Chinese were seen as a potential fifth column for the Ming Dynasty and treated as chattel — including those who eventually held important government posts– Hung Taiji in contrast incorporates them into the Jurchen "nation" as full if not first class citizens, who are also obligated to provide military service; by 1648, less than one-sixth of the bannermen are of Manchu ancestry.

This change of policy had not only increased Hung Taiji's power base and reduced his military dependence on those banners not under his personal control, it had also greatly encouraged other Han Chinese subjects of the Ming Dynasty to surrender and accept Jurchen rule when they were defeated militarily.

Through these and other measures Hung Taiji had been able to centralize power unto the office of the Khan, which in the long run had prevented the Jurchen federation from fragmenting after his death in 1643.

His son had ascended to the throne at the age of five (six according to traditional Chinese age reckoning), but actual power during the early part of his reign lies in the hands of the appointed regents, Princes Dorgon and Jirgalang.

One of Dorgon's most controversial decisions is his 1646 imperial edict (the "Queue Order") which forced all Han Chinese men, on pain of death, to adopt the Manchu style of dress, including shaving the front of their heads and combing the remaining hair into a queue.

To the Manchus this policy might both be a symbolic act of submission and in practical terms an aid in identification of friend from foe; for the Han Chinese, however, it goes against their traditional Confucian values.

Unsurprisingly, it is deeply unpopular and, together with other policies unfavorable towards the Han Chinese, might account for the increasingly steep resistance met by Qing forces after 1646.

Hundreds of thousands of people will be killed before all of China is brought into compliance.