The First Chief Of The Manchu Clan Was A Mythical Personage Named Aisin Gioro, Who Flourished In The Middle Of The Fourteenth Century, While Hongwou, The Founder Of The Mings, Was Employed In The Task Of Driving Out The Mongols.

Aisin Gioro is said to mean Golden Family Stem, and thus the connection with the Kin dynasty finds recognition at an early stage.

His birth is described in mythical terms - it is said that a magpie dropped a red fruit into the lap of a maiden of the Niuche, who straightway ate it and conceived a son. The skeptical have interpreted this as meaning that Aisin Gioro was a runaway Mongol, who was granted shelter by the Niuche of Hootooala. At all events he became lord of the valley, and five generations later, in the reign of Wanleh, his descendant, Huen, was head of the Manchus. His grandson, the great Noorhachu, was born in the year 1559, and his birth was attended by several miraculous circumstances. He is said "to have been a thirteen-months' child, to have had the dragon face and the phenix eye, an enormous chest, large ears, and a voice like the tone of the largest bell."

A chief named Haida was the first to stir up the embers of internecine strife among the Niuche clans. To gratify his own ambition or to avenge some blood feuds, he obtained the assistance of one of the principal Chinese officers on the Leaoutung borders, and thus overran the territory of his neighbors. Encouraged by his first successes, Haida proceeded to attack the chief of Goolo, who was married to a cousin of Noorhachu, and who at once appealed to Hootooala for assistance. The whole Manchu clan marched to his rescue, and it was on this occasion that Noorhachu had his first experience of war on a large scale. The Manchus presented such a bold front that there is every reason to believe that Haida and his Chinese allies would have failed to conquer Goolo by force, but they resorted to fraud, which proved only too successful. Haida succeeded in enticing the old chief Huen and his son, the father of Noorhachu, into a conference, when he murdered them and many of their companions. The momentary success gained by this breach of faith was heavily paid for by the incentive it gave Noorhachu to exact revenge for the brutal and cowardly murder of his father and grandfather. Haida constructed a fortified camp at Toolun, but he did not feel secure there against the open attacks of Noorhachu or the private plots he formed to gain possession of his person. Several times Haida fled from Toolun to Chinese territory, where he hoped to enjoy greater safety, until at last the Chinese became tired of giving him shelter and protecting one who could not support his own pretensions. Then, with strange inconstancy, they delivered him over into the hands of Noorhachu, who straightway killed him, thus carrying out the first portion of his vow to avenge the massacre at Goolo.

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