The military success in 1644 and the subsequent expansion of the Ch'ing empire were rooted in two centuries of Jurchen multilateral relationships with Koreans, Mongols, and Chinese in the Northeast. During the Ming dynasty, Chinese distinguished three groups of Jurchens: the Wild Jurchens, the Hai-hsi Jurchens, and the Chien-chou Jurchens. By 1500, sable was a main item of trade between the Jurchens and China and Korea, and its volume continued to increase. Hung Taiji tried to establish Chinese equality with Manchus. International trade continued as a monopoly of the eight banners. Banner missions went to northern Manchuria in search of sable and to Ming borders to buy Chinese goods. The organizational and conceptual foundations laid during Nurhaci and Hung Taiji's reigns allowed the Manchus to make the successful transition and take advantage of events in north China.

The conquest elite of the earlier Ch'ing underwent marked changes as expansion transformed the geographical contours, cultural content, and political dynamics of the empire. Distributions of affiliation and status in the early decades of the Ch'ing conquest were based on the previous decades of state and imperial formation. The three khans of Khalkha, who had established close ties with the Ch'ingin the Hung Taiji reign, were willing in the early decades after the conquest of north China to have their territories incorporated into the empire. As with other groups who had been incorporated into the Ch'ing conquest elite and understood the opportunities, the leading lineages of the Three Feudatories, the Wu, Keng, and Shang families, attempted to exploit Ch'ing dependence. Many educated members of the conquest elite became in effect historians, translating the deeds of their predecessors and in many cases of themselves into chapters in the imperial narrative.

By the early 1870s, the Ch'ing forces undoubtedly had acquired the capacity to suppress rebellion in most areas of China proper. However, it remained questionable as to whether they could stand up to foreign invaders on the coast or even deal with rebels in the difficult terrain of the North-West or Central Asia. Before imperial China's forces could get to Sinkiang, they had first to overcome the Chinese Muslims in Shensi and Kansu. The Sino-French War of 1884-5 was the first external test of China's new military and naval programmes of the past two decades. From beginning to end, the Sino-Japanese War had been an unmitigated disaster. In the peace negotiations, China's most effective bargaining point was not the remaining strength of her military and naval forces, but rather Japanese guilt over the wounding of Li Hung-chang by a Japanese fanatic.