Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia From the Bronze Age to the Present (50 page)

10

The Road Is Closed

Peripheral Conquest and Partition of Central Eurasia

The Junghar Empire, the last great Central Eurasian steppe realm, had barely been established when it was undermined by the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk, between the Russians and the Manchu-Chinese Ch’ing Dynasty, which effectively partitioned Central Eurasia between the two powers. The Ch’ing massacre of most of the Junghars in 1756–1757 eliminated them as a significant nation. In the eighteenth century the Ch’ing completed its subjugation of eastern Central Eurasia, including the Eastern Steppe, East Turkistan, and Tibet, and in the nineteenth century the Russians conquered the Caucasus and the last remaining Central Asian khanates. Mongolia and Tibet were not made into Ch’ing provinces and remained semi-independent, but in all of Central Eurasia only the kingdom of Afghanistan survived as a fully independent state—a buffer between the Russians, the Manchu-Chinese, and British India.

The British became the world’s maritime superpower. Their empire included, among many other colonies around the globe, most of India, much of Africa and North America, and Australia and New Zealand. But because of the shifting network of alliances within Europe itself, not even the British were able to establish sole, uncontested domination of the high seas.

Under Western European management the volume and value of Asian Littoral zone commerce increased tremendously, attracting people, culture, and technology to the port cities. By the nineteenth century Eurasian commerce, wealth, and power had shifted completely to what had become the Littoral System, and the European-dominated port cities kept growing in size and in economic and political importance. This happened even in the Russian Empire; despite its conquest of a vast swath of Central Eurasia, its capital was on the Baltic Sea, and its strategically most important new city in the late nineteenth century was Vladivostok, on the Sea of Japan, a city that was for long supplied mainly by sea. Unlike Russia, the old peripheral empires founded by non-European Central Eurasians were unable to change quickly enough to avoid destruction, and fell one by one. Mughal India was incorporated into the British Empire; the Qajar Dynasty of Persia replaced the Safavids after a period of Afghan rule, but the country was largely partitioned into Russian and British sectors; and Ch’ing Dynasty China was divided up into European spheres of influence. The Eurasian economy had changed from one focused on the continental-based Silk Road system, with an auxiliary sea-based system in the Eurasian littoral, to a coastal Littoral System alone. Central Eurasia disappeared.

The Manchu Conquests in Central Eurasia

The Manchus knew they had to neutralize or, even better, subjugate the Mongols in order to achieve their dream of reestablishing the empire of their Jurchen ancestors, the Chin Dynasty, without succumbing to the Chin fate, which was to be conquered by the Mongols—though the Manchus apparently did not appreciate the quite different circumstances and background under which that conquest had happened. The Manchus’ carefully crafted strategy entailed incorporating the Mongols into their state as participants rather than ordinary subjects. The Mongols, as recent converts to Buddhism, were fervent believers and strongly devoted to the Dalai Lama. The Manchus adopted the same school of Tibetan Buddhism, partly via Mongol teachers, and chose the same patron Bodhisattva and the same fierce Protector as the Mongols, Mañju-śrî and Mahâkâla, respectively. As mentioned above, they even chose Manju (English ‘Manchu’) as their new national name.
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Mongol attempts to stave the Manchus off were defeated by the Mongols’ constant internecine warfare, the vast resources of the newly established Manchu Empire’s Ch’ing Dynasty in China, and the Ch’ing-Russian alliance.

By October 1679 Galdan had completed the Junghars’ conquest of East Turkistan as far east as the Kokonor region (which remained in the hands of the Khoshut) and sent a message to the Ch’ing saying of the latter region, “I want it back.”
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He also notified the Manchu emperor that the Fifth Dalai Lama had awarded him the title Boshughtu Khan, ‘The Khan with the Heavenly Mandate’. To the Manchu-Chinese, this meant that the Junghar ruler had declared himself to be the equal of the Ch’ing ruler,
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though they did not yet consider the Junghars to be a threat.

In the 1680s the Manchu-Chinese came close to war with the Russians over the Amur dispute and even attacked the Russian fortress of Albazin on the Amur in 1684 and 1686. They also wanted to maintain and expand their control over the Mongols in the Eastern Steppe. Despite their strong military position in the Amur region, the Manchu-Chinese knew that the Junghars were on friendly terms with the Russians.

In 1687, in connection with the long-running civil war among the Mongols in the Eastern Steppe, Galdan Khan’s younger brother was killed by Tüsiyetü Khan, the preeminent leader among the Khalkhas. In revenge, Galdan led the Junghars deep into Mongolia, where they smashed the Khalkha forces. They also captured and plundered Erdeni Zuu (located at Karakorum), the greatest monastic establishment in Mongolia, ostensibly because its abbot, the Jebtsundamba Khutukhtu—the younger brother of Tüsiyetü—had claimed to be of equal rank with the Dalai Lama (the former superior of Galdan, who had long lived as a monk in Tibet). The Khalkhas were shattered and fled in all directions, into Ch’ing, Russian, and Junghar territory.
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The defeat of the Eastern Mongols by Galdan, ruler of the Junghar Empire, therefore threatened Ch’ing power in Mongolia.

After Galdan’s initial victory in Mongolia in 1687, and another victory over Tüsiyetü Khan in 1688,
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the only way the Ch’ing could prevent the Junghars from conquering Mongolia and establishing a truly powerful steppe empire—essentially restoring the steppe realm of Chinggis Khan—was to reach a firm peace agreement with the Russians. The Russians too desired peace, partly because of their weakness in the Far East and partly because of Russian losses against the Crimean Tatars much closer to home. The Ch’ing and the Russians both had so much to gain and so little to lose that they quickly reached an agreement and signed the Treaty of Nerchinsk on August 29, 1689, setting the frontier between the two empires and establishing strict rules for international trade.
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The treaty was to remain the basis for Ch’ing-Russian relations down to the mid-nineteenth century.

Freed from the necessity of fighting the Russians and the possibility that the Junghars would forge an alliance with them, the Manchu-Chinese turned to their Mongol problem. With Tüsiyetü Khan and most of the broken Eastern Mongols already having submitted to the Manchus, who had begun incorporating them into the Manchu banner system,
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the K’ang-hsi Emperor (r. 1662–1722) formally requested the Dalai Lama to negotiate a peace settlement between the Junghars and the Khalkhas. This had no effect because, unknown to practically everyone, the Fifth Dalai Lama had died in 1682. The regent
(sdesrid),
Sangs-rgyas Rgyamtsho (d. 1705), who had kept the death of the Dalai Lama a secret,
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was the actual ruler. The regent supported the Junghars in opposition to the Khalkhas in Mongolia and the Khoshuts in the Kokonor region.

By this time, Galdan’s nephew Tsewang Rabtan (son of Galdan’s assassinated brother Sengge) had grown up and had begun threatening Galdan’s power. Galdan’s efforts to eliminate him in 1688 failed, and when the khan was away in Mongolia campaigning against the Khalkhas, Tsewang Rabtan attacked Hami. This forced Galdan to return west, where he remained in 1689–1690, attempting to restore his control there. Finally, on June 9, 1690, Galdan led his forces east to again attack Tüsiyetü Khan and his allies,
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leaving Tsewang Rabtan as de facto ruler in Jungharia and vicinity from 1690 on. Despite Galdan’s apparent strength, he was now in a weaker position, and the Russians, reminded to stick to their treaty by the Manchu-Chinese, refused the Junghar ruler’s request for additional troops.

Although Galdan appears to have had no intention of threatening China, and continued to behave as a peaceful neighbor, when he moved eastward along the Kerülen River and then southeast toward Jehol, he is said to have been positioned to attack Peking.
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However, he was actually so far away, and so much inhabited and fortified Manchu and Chinese territory intervened, that it is hardly conceivable he could have had any such intentions. Quite to the contrary, his location was conveniently close for Ch’ing forces to attack him, and indeed, the Ch’ing intelligence agents eagerly pounced on the fact, arguing that Galdan was weak and vulnerable. Opportunity, not fear, was certainly the motivation for the Manchu-Chinese decision to attack the Junghars. The K’ang-hsi Emperor promptly announced the organization of a great three-pronged military campaign against the Junghars in Mongolia and personally led the armies northward. Nevertheless, the expedition was unsuccessful. A defeat by the Junghars in August was followed by another inconclusive battle in September, by which time the emperor had returned to Peking, evidently due to illness. But with considerable Manchu-Chinese forces still facing Galdan, and more on the way, the Junghar ruler publicly swore an oath that he would move away from the Ch’ing borders. The oath was reported to the emperor, who publicly accepted it but privately hoped he could still catch Galdan. Yet by that time Galdan had indeed moved far from his enemies’ reach, and the emperor finally ordered the overextended, undersupplied Ch’ing forces to withdraw.

The subsequent decade of peace seems to have been merely a truce, at least from the Manchu-Chinese perspective: a truce that gave them time to recover their strength to attack the Junghars once more.
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In 1696 the Ch’ing government was ready for an all-out campaign against Galdan. Again led by the emperor himself, the armies marched north. One wing met Galdan’s forces in the Battle of Jao Modo, near Urga (now Ulaanbaatar), on June 12, 1696. The Ch’ing crushed the Junghars, and Galdan’s wife was killed. Galdan himself escaped with a small remnant of his forces.
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The Ch’ing army continued westward after him, pursuing the Junghars without rest. The pressure continued until finally Galdan, reduced to a small, rebellious following, was murdered on April 4, 1697.
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Despite the Manchu-Chinese defeat of Galdan, the Junghars remained a great power in Central Eurasia. Tsewang Rabtan (r. 1697–1727), Galdan’s nephew, succeeded him and continued to control the central Junghar lands, including Jungharia and East Turkistan.