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MongoliaThe End of Independence
Meanwhile, the Manchus had sent a large army into northern
Mongolia to confront Galdan in an effort to preempt any attempts
at establishing a new Mongol empire. The employment of artillery
had a decisive effect, and the Dzungar were routed. In May 1691,
Qing emperor Kangxi called a kuriltai of principal Khalkha
chiefs at Dolonnur. Those present acknowledged Manchu
overlordship in return for protection against the Dzungar. It had
become apparent by this time that, although there were strong
ties between the Qing court and local Mongol rulers, the
relations among individual Mongol leaders were weak. The head of
each banner was a vassal of the Qing emperor and was beholden to
the Chinese treasury for a pension. Mongols not only pledged
personal loyalty to the emperor, but they also became inseparable
from their banner and could not serve in any capacity in another
banner. Membership was hereditary; class structure was rigid; and
the whole feudal-like system helped the Manchus isolate and
control the Mongols. The banners, in effect, became petty
fiefdoms.
By this time, the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu had fled to escape
Galdan's renewed advances. After five years of continued raiding
by the Dzungar into central Mongolia, Kangxi led 80,000 troops
into Mongolia and in 1696 crushed Galdan near Jao Modo (south of
present-day Ulaanbaatar). Galdan retreated, and he died the next
year. This ended the influence of the Dzunger in most of
Mongolia, although they retained control of the western regions
and of parts of Xinjiang and Tibet.
Despite the defeat at Jao Modo, twenty years later the
Dzungar again were embroiled in war with the Qing. In 1718
Galdan's nephew and heir, Tsewang Rabdan, invaded Tibet to settle
a prolonged dispute over the successor to the Dalai Lama. His
troops seized Lhasa, imprisoned the Dalai Lama, and ambushed a
Manchu relief force. Kangxi retaliated in 1720; two Chinese
armies defeated the Dzungar and drove them from Tibet. This was
the first war in which Mongol forces made extensive use of
musketry; they were not very effective, however, against the
larger, better-armed and better-equipped Qing forces. After the
death of the Dalai Lama, a new Dalai Lama was installed by
Kangxi, and a Manchu garrison was left in Lhasa. Meanwhile,
another Chinese army invaded Dzungar territory to capture Ürümqi
and Turpan. Additional Chinese punitive expeditions eventually
defeated the Dzungar in 1732 and virtually ended Mongolian
independence for nearly two centuries.
The Russian and the Chinese empires continued their
expansions into Inner Asia during the eighteenth century. They
found it expedient to delimit the borders between the respective
areas of ancient Mongolia that they had conquered in the
seventeenth century. This was done by the Treaty of Kyakhta in
1727, which established the border between the portions of
Mongolia controlled by China and those controlled by Russia.
In the period 1755 to 1757, serious revolts against Chinese
rule broke out among the Dzungar in Xinjiang. These were
suppressed promptly, and Chinese control over western Mongolia
and Oirad territory was strengthened. In 1771 the Chinese
government persuaded part of the Kalmyk tribe to return from
Russia to repopulate the devastated region.
During the 1750s, as a result of Manchu administrative
policies, the first distinction was made between northern and
southern Mongolia. The southern provinces--Suiyuan, Chahar (or
Qahar), and Jehol (or Rehol), known as Inner Mongolia--were
virtually absorbed into China. The remainder of the region--the
northern provinces, which became known as Outer Mongolia--was
considered an "outside subordinate" by the Manchus, and it was
largely ignored. After another 100 years, however, China again
became alarmed by Russia's expansionist policy and colonial
development in the regions north and west of Outer Mongolia.
Increased Chinese activity in Outer Mongolia resulted in some
economic and social improvements, but it also revealed to the
Mongolians the possibilities of playing off the two great empires
against each other. Chinese merchants and moneylenders had become
ubiquitous, and the extent of Mongol debt had become enormous, by
the early nineteenth century. The debt situation, combined with
growing resentment over Chinese encroachment, gave impetus to
Mongol nationalism by the beginning of the twentieth century.
During the period of Chinese dominance, Mongolia not only
experienced a century of peace, but it became an increasingly
theocratic society. Buddhism relatively early had absorbed
shamanism, and the result was a unique local religion
(see Religion
, ch. 2). By the mid-nineteenth century, however, turmoil
in China, caused by internal rebellion and by pressures from the
West, resulted in a breakdown of the increasingly expensive
administrative apparatus in Outer Mongolia. Mounting debts and
higher taxes, which led to a growing impoverishment of Outer
Mongolia, gradually rekindled traditional Mongol dissatisfaction
with the Manchu overlord. Rioting, Mongol troop mutinies, and
other anti-Chinese incidents occurred with increasing regularity
in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Outside
help was sought from Russia in 1900, when a mission--which
failed--was sent to St. Petersburg. Thereafter, reform-minded
Chinese leaders abolished many old social and political
proscriptions, and, despite Mongol resentment of the idea and of
continued Chinese repression, preparations were being made for
constitutional government when revolution broke out in China.
Data as of June 1989
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