Plain Yellow Banner

The Plain Yellow Banner (Chinese: 正黃旗) was one of the Eight Banners of Manchu military and society during the Later Jin and Qing dynasty of China. The Plain Yellow Banner was one of three "upper" banner armies under the direct command of the emperor himself, and one of the four "right wing" banners. The Plain Yellow Banner was the original banner commanded personally by Nurhaci. The Plain Yellow Banner and the Bordered Yellow Banner were split from each other in 1615, when the troops of the original four banner armies (Yellow, Blue, Red, and White) were divided into eight by adding a bordered variant to each banner's design. After Nurhaci's death, his son Hong Taiji became khan, and took control of both yellow banners. Later, the Shunzhi Emperor took over the Plain White Banner after the death of his regent, Dorgon, to whom it previously belonged. From that point forward, the emperor directly controlled three "upper" banners (Plain Yellow, Bordered Yellow, and Plain White), as opposed to the other five "lower" banners.

Plain Yellow Banner
Flag of the Plain Yellow Banner
Active	1601 – 1912
Country	Later Jin China
Allegiance	Qing dynasty
Type	Cavalry Musketeers
Part of	Eight Banners
Commander	the Emperor

Plain Yellow Banner
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	正黃旗
Simplified Chinese	正黄旗
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin zhènghuángqí
Mongolian name
Mongolian Cyrillic	Шулуун шар хошуу
Manchu name
Manchu script	ᡤᡠᠯᡠ ᠰᡠᠸᠠᠶᠠᠨ ᡤᡡᠰᠠ
Möllendorff	gulu suwayan gūsa

The flag of the Plain Yellow Banner eventually became the basis of the Flag of the Qing dynasty.

Notable people

• Hešeri
• Sonin (regent)
• Yunsi
• Qishan (official)
• Clan Nara
  • Consort Shu
• Tulišen
• Empress Xiaogongren, consort of the Kangxi Emperor
• Zu Dashou (Han)
• Geng Zhongming (Han)
• Tian Wenjing (Han)
• Imperial Noble Consort Shujia
• Noble Consort Jia
• Imperial Noble Consort Zhemin
• Empress Xiaojingcheng
• Consort Rong (Kangxi)
• Concubine Yi

Notable clans

• Hešeri
• Geng
• Zu
• Tian
• Clan Nara
• Ayan Gioro
• Uya
• Borjigin
• Šumuru
• Magiya
• Donggo
• Yanja
• Cheng
• Wumit
• Zheng
• Zhou
• Wang
• Li
• Ejo

Bibliography

• Elliott, Mark C. (2001), The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China, Stanford University Press, ISBN 9780804746847

• Wakeman, Frederic Jr. (1985), The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-century China, Berkeley: University of California Press, ISBN 0520048040

Further reading

• Dennerline, Jerry (2002), "The Shun-Chih Reign", in Peterson, Willard J.; Twitchett, Denis Crispin; Fairbank, John King (eds.), The Cambridge History of China: Volume 9, Part 1, The Ch'ing Empire to 1800, The Cambridge History of China, vol. 9, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521243346

• Rawski, Evelyn S. (1998), The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions, University of California Press, ISBN 9780520926790