When Nurhaci founded the country, was it named "Jin" or "Later Jin"?
Hello everyone, welcome to Chen's History. Recently, I made an episode about the origins of the names of ancient Chinese dynasties. Some people pointed out in the comments that the founding country name designated by Nurhaci, the founder of the Qing dynasty, was Houjin'er, not Jin as commonly known in history books. This is a unique case among the names of dynasties throughout history. Some people explained that this discrepancy may be due to the misunderstanding that the names of dynasties mentioned in books were chosen at the beginning of the establishment of the dynasty and were enclosed in brackets. They did not realize that in actuality, these names were later assigned by descendants to distinguish between different dynasties that shared similar names. Therefore, Nurhaci directly chose the name of his newly established kingdom as Houjin'er to differentiate it from the earlier Jin dynasty. This issue of whether the founding name of Nurhaci's kingdom was Jin or Houjin has caused some controversy in academia, with scholars finding records in historical documents supporting both claims. Nevertheless, most scholars agree that the founding name was Jin. Further evidence supporting the founding name as Jin is found in official records from the Korean kingdom at that time. Additionally, records from the Ming dynasty also mention Nurhaci's kingdom as Dai Jin Guo. In conclusion, while there is some debate regarding the founding name of Nurhaci's kingdom, historical records point towards it being Jin. The discrepancies in the naming may be attributed to translation issues or the need to differentiate between various kingdoms with similar names. Ultimately, the majority of scholars believe that the founding name of Nurhaci's kingdom was Jin.