A committee of Manchu princes chose him to succeed his father, Hong Taiji β , in September , when he was six years old. The princes also appointed two co-regents: Dorgon β , the 14th son of the Qing dynasty's founder Nurhaci β , and Jirgalang β , one of Nurhaci's nephews, both of whom were members of the Qing imperial clan.
From to , political power lay mostly in the hands of Dorgon. Under his leadership, the Qing Empire conquered most of the territory of the fallen Ming dynasty β , chased Ming loyalist regimes deep into the southwestern provinces, and established the basis of Qing rule over China proper despite highly unpopular policies such as the "hair cutting command" of , which forced Qing subjects to shave their forehead and braid their remaining hair into a queue resembling that of the Manchus.
After Dorgon's death on the last day of , the young Shunzhi Emperor started to rule personally. He tried, with mixed success, to fight corruption and to reduce the political influence of the Manchu nobility. In the s, he faced a resurgence of Ming loyalist resistance, but by his armies had defeated the Qing Empire's last enemies, seafarer Koxinga β and the Prince of Gui β of the Southern Ming dynasty , both of whom would succumb the following year.
The Shunzhi Emperor died at the age of 22 of smallpox , a highly contagious disease that was endemic in China, but against which the Manchus had no immunity. He was succeeded by his third son Xuanye , who had already survived smallpox, and who reigned for sixty years under the era name "Kangxi" hence he was known as the Kangxi Emperor. Because fewer documents have survived from the Shunzhi era than from later eras of the Qing dynasty, the Shunzhi era is a relatively little-known period of Qing history.
This title had equivalents in Manchu and Mongolian because the Qing imperial family was Manchu and ruled over many Mongol tribes that helped the Qing to conquer the Ming dynasty. In the s, when China was ruled by the Ming dynasty β , a number of Jurchen tribes lived northeast of Ming territory in the region that is now known as China's Northeast , or " Manchuria ".
