Since ancient times, freshwater pearls have been the signature specialty of Manchuria. The Manchus used tana and nicuhe to distinguish pearls, so while tana was a name derived from the Mongolian language, nicuhe was an indigenous term in the Manchu language. In the process of being influenced by the Mongolian language, it is assumed that the name differentiation was made so that tana denotes a high-grade pearl and nicuhe denotes a less valuable pearl. On the other hand, in historical materials in Chinese classics, the name changed according to the location of the place of consumption and the place of production. Pearls produced in Manchuria were called 'beizhu' in the Song dynasty, but the name was changed to 'dongzhu' in the Ming dynasty due to the changing position of the Song and Ming dynasties to the manchuria. After that, in the Qing period, the Manchu word tana and the Chinese word dongzhu were established corresponding to each other.
Dongzhu gained prominence as a highly valued commodity at the end of the Ming dynasty. The huge profits that could be accumulated by trading dongzhu and other natural resources of Manchuria with the Ming dynasty, on the one hand, evoked the fierce competition of Jurchen's forces, but on the other hand, it also served as a detonator that promoted the amalgamation of forces. Nurhaci was able to establish the Manju Gurun by succeeding in the concession struggle over dongzhu. The unification of Manchuria by Nurhaci at the end of the 16th century and the subsequent establishment of the Manju Gurun, in other words, is the result of the politics of an aggressive trade in popular commodities such as dongzhu.
The imperial court of the Qing dynasty consumed pearls for a variety of uses. The most frequent examples are the gifts of the monarch. Nurhaci and Hongtaiji gave pearls to the military commander who submitted to them. At the same time, when the princes of the royal family got married, the princes and son-in-law were given pearls. Widely used as gifts to be sent abroad, pearls were also sent to warlords of hostile countries and the Mongol chieftaincy. Pearls were also used in the court robes of the Qing dynasty, and only a small number of people were allowed to wear dongzhu in their court robes.
The Qing dynasty initially authorized only the powerful classes of the state to extract pearls and other natural resources of Manchuria. But Nurhaci gradually begins to recover these privileges. Measures taken in 1622 made private appropriation of natural resources impossible and shifted the responsibility for their management to the state. Such a measure would seem to imply a shift to a monarch-centric system that would deprive the powerful of their vested privileges, but an immediate understanding of this shift as monarch-centric requires a more cautious approach. The elites of the Qing dynasty still participated in the collection of natural resources like pearls, and their authority was recognized by the state.