A century after the chaos started in the Jurchen lands, Nurhaci, a chieftain of the Jianzhou Left Guard, began a campaign against the Ming Empire in revenge for their manslaughter of his grandfather and father in 1583.

He reunifies the Jurchen tribes, establishes a military system called the "Eight Banners", which organizes Jurchen soldiers into groups of "Bannermen", and orders his scholar Erdeni and minister Gagai to create a new Jurchen script (later known as Manchu script) using the traditional Mongolian alphabet as a reference.In 1603, Nurhaci gains recognition from his Khalkha Mongol allies as the Sure Kundulen Khan ("wise and respected khan"), then in 1616 he publicly enthrones himself and issues a proclamation naming himself Genggiyen Khan ("bright khan") of the Later Jin dynasty.

Nurhaci then launches his attack on the Ming dynasty and moves the capital to Mukden after his conquest of Liaodong.

In 1635, his son and successor Hong Taiji changes the name of the Jurchen ethnic group to the Manchu.

A year later, Hong Taiji proclaims himself the emperor of the Qing dynasty.Factors for the change of name of these people from Jurchen to Manchu include the fact that the term "Jurchen" had negative connotations associated with it, since the Jurchens had been in a servile position to the Ming dynasty for several hundred years and it also referred to people of the "dependent class".