Qing invasion of Joseon
invasion of Joseon by the Qing Empire in 1636, ending with Joseon defeat and Joseon cutting ties with the Ming
The Qing invasion of Joseon (Korean: 병자호란; Hanja: 丙子胡亂) occurred in the winter of 1636 when the newly established Manchu-led Qing Empire invaded the Joseon Kingdom of what is now Korea, establishing the former's status as the hegemon in the Imperial Chinese tributary system and formally severing Joseon's relationship with the Han-led Ming dynasty. The invasion was preceded by the Later Jin invasion of Joseon in 1627.
The invasion resulted in a Qing victory. Joseon was forced to establish a tributary relationship with the Qing, as well as to cut ties with the declining Ming. The crown prince of Joseon and his younger brother were taken as hostages, but they came back to Joseon after a few years. One of the two later became King Hyojong of Joseon. He is best known for his plan for an expedition to the Qing.
Names
In Korean, the Qing invasion (1636–1637) is called 'Byeongja Horan' (병자호란), where 1636 is a 'Byeongja' year in the sexagenary cycle and 'Horan' means a disturbance caused by northern or western foreigners, from 胡 (ho; northern or western, often nomadic barbarians) + 亂 (ran; chaos, disorder, disturbance, turmoil, unrest, uprising, revolt, rebellion).
Background
The Kingdom of Joseon continued to show ambivalence toward the Qing Empire after the Jin invasion in 1627. The Later Jin accused Joseon of harboring fugitives and supplying the Ming army with grain.
“Qing invasion of Joseon” enters the record as invasion of Joseon by the Qing Empire in 1636, ending with Joseon defeat and Joseon cutting ties with the Ming. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Qing, invasion and Joseon can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q487757. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1636, 1627 and 1637.
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This entry incorporates text from “Qing invasion of Joseon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.