It is mainly the flag of the Han army in the Eight Banners, not the independent Han army in the Eight Banners.
Together with the Manchu Eight Banners and the Mongolian Eight Banners, it forms the whole Eight Banners Army, which is composed of military records. They belong to the eight flags of yellow, white, red, blue, yellow, white, red and blue respectively.
The main source of the Eight Banners Han Army is the Han Army that voluntarily joined in the late Ming Dynasty. The population is mainly Han Chinese who were plundered by the Qing Dynasty in the Battle of Three Successions, and a small number of them are Jurchen or Mongols of Ming officials.
Nurhachi began to build the Eight Banners. Most of the members were Manchu, and only a few were Mongolian and Han. After Huang taiji succeeded to the throne, he paid more attention to the expansion policy and the adjustment of ethnic contradictions. Therefore, it is easy to resettle the Han Chinese and Mongolian ancients who plundered or surrendered, and the number of Han Chinese troops and Mongolian ancients who came down by this means is increasing, and the Eight Banners can no longer accept so many troops.
Therefore, on the basis of the Eight Banners, Huang Taiji established the Eight Banners Mongolian Army and the Eight Banners Han Army respectively. Moreover, the Eight Banners were full, which made the Eight Banners Army very powerful. The Eight Banners of the Han Army made up for the shortcomings that the Qing Dynasty was only good at plain operations and was not good at attacking cities and plundering land during the anti-Ming period. The Eight Banners of the Han Army played a key role in adapting the Qing Dynasty to the situation in the Central Plains, thus adapting to local conditions and inheriting the Han system.
At the end of Kangxi, the number of Eight Banners was huge. The Qing dynasty forced the low-level Han army to leave the Eight Banners.
After seven years of Qianlong, Li Hong officially ordered these Han troops to fly flags. (except for the Han army in Liaodong, it is full and not in the flag. ) In fact, this move is to forcibly expel the Han army from the Eight Banners.
According to statistics, before the flag was hoisted, there were 440,000 Han troops and servants, accounting for 72% of the Eight Banners Army. After the flag was issued, the Han army accounted for 43% of the Eight Banners Army, which shows the scale of the flag issued by the Han army.
After the middle of Qing Dynasty, the Eight Banners of Han Army declined. Not only because of the policy of flag-raising by the Han army, but also because the flag-raising people of the Han army participated in the attack on the Forbidden City from within Anbaili Sect and after Chen De of the Han army assassinated Jiaqing. The Eight Banners of the Han Army gradually declined. Until the end of the Qing Dynasty, only about 4% of the Eight Banners were Han Banners.
At the same time, the Eight Banners of the Han Army almost completely lost its influence in the Qing Dynasty.