Historian Mark Elliot describes the Eight Banner system of the Qing Dynasty, which overthrew the Ming Dynasty and ruled China from 1644 CE to 1912 CE.The Eight Banners, "the most famous of all Manchu institutions," began as an umbrella organization overseeing the mobilization of Qing military forces and the management of many different populations associated with those forces in the forty-odd years leading up to the 1644 Qing conquest... After the conquest, the Eight Banners was retained as part of the administrative structure of Qing government, its ranks restricted to the the original Qing populations and their descendants, exclusive of Han Chinese civilians. …Membership in this caste played a vital role in the maintenance of Manchu ethnic identity and the perpetuation of Qing rule.The Eight Banners was a hybrid institution that combined a range of military, social, economic, and political functions... As a military force, it was the engine of expansion and the mainstay of power during the Manchu takeover in the mid-seventeenth century and even, in a modified way, into the first half of the nineteenth... As a social organization, the banners supervised the affairs of ordinary soldiers and their households, whose every member was registered in censuses taken at three year intervals... everything was reported to the banner, which was also responsible for the welfare of everyone on the these registers and thus deeply involved in both national and local economies.Elliott, Mark C. The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China. Stanford University Press, 2006. 39-40.A historian could BEST use the Eight Banners to illustrate which of the following developments in the 1600s C.E.?Elimination ToolSelect one answerAImperial conquests contributed to the formation of new elites.BState systems utilized the contributions of diverse groups.CRulers used religion to legitimize their rule.DThe power of existing elite groups continued to fluctuate.