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From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

The Qing Dynasty (Chinese: 清朝; pinyin: Qīng cháo; Wade-Giles: Ch'ing ch'ao) ruled China from 1644 until 1912. The Qing, of Manchurian decent, succeeded the Chinese Ming Dynasty. They oversaw the progression of China from its Ancient period into the Modern period with greater international contact. The last Qing Emperor, and the last Emperor of China, Puyi, abdicated in 1912 with the country becoming a republic controled by President Yuan Shikai.

The Qing began in Manchuria. After his father, who had been a Ming Official, was murdered by the Ming army in 1582, Aisin Giorro Nurhachi was set on a path that would see him unite the disparate Manchu tribes and found the Late Jin Dynasty which controlled the north of China, Manchuria and also Mongolia. In 1626, Nurhachi's son Huangtaiji took on his late father's military success. As the second Khan of the Late Jin, he strengthened the Manchu rule of northern China. A ceremony in the style of central China was performed in 1636 in which Huangtaiji renamed the Late Jin as the Great Qing Empire and stated his ambition to conquer the whole of Ming China.