At the end of the Ming Dynasty, when the "Great Khan" of Heduo and Qin died, he had eleven sons, of whom the sixth son, Sangha, the seventh son, Gardan, and the eighth son, Bumu, were born to the same mother. When Heduo and Qin were dying, they passed the Khanate to the sixth son, Sangha. Not long after, Chechen, the eldest son of Heduo and Qin, suddenly broke out, killed sangha, and became the "Great Khan" himself. When the news came out, Kaldan, the seventh son of Heduoheqin, who was studying religion with the Fifth Dalai Lama in Tibet, heard the news and was eager for revenge, and immediately led a group of men and horses to sneak back to Ili and kill the Chechen Khan in one fell swoop.
After Kaldan killed Chechnya, he did not elect Tserry Alabutan, the eldest son of the Sangha who was supposed to inherit the Khan's throne, his nephew, as the "Great Khan", but directly became the fourth generation of "Great Khan" of Erut.
Gardan
Kaldan, since he was born, was identified as the reincarnation of the third High Monk of the Gelug Sect of Tibetan Buddhism, Munsa Living Buddha, Lobzang Tenzin Zamcuo, thus establishing his prominent religious status. In the ninth year of Shunzhi (1652), when Kaldan was 9 years old, he sent a mission to the Qing Emperor in the name of "Wensa Living Buddha". It can be seen from this incident that from childhood, he played a pivotal role in the political and religious affairs of Veyrat Mongolia. Kaldan entered Tibet at the age of 13 and studied under the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, and was deeply appreciated by the two. According to Liang Fen's QinBian Jiluo:
"The disciples of the Dalai Lama are all over the western regions, and the words of the special Gardan (Gardan) are secret, although the Great Treasure And the Second Treasure Are not allowed to hear."
The reason why the Gelug sect at that time valued Kaldan was also that there were interests in it. The Gelug leaders hoped that Kaldan would in the future expand the influence of the Yellow Sect in future Mongolian politics, while Kaldan wanted to use the Dalai Lama's great influence in Tibet and Mongolia in an attempt to re-establish a unified Mongol Empire. Thus, after Kaldan returned to the Dzungars from Tibet, he had both the status of an aristocrat and the status of a living Buddha. Then, coupled with his extraordinary courage and perseverance, he gradually unified the various departments of Weilat, returned to Xinjiang in the south, expanded into Kazakhstan in the west, attacked everything, was invincible, captured and surrendered more than 1200 cities, and gradually became a powerful tribal regime facing the Qing Dynasty.
After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the main energy was focused on the Central Plains and the southern region of China, and there was little energy to run the northwest. The northwestern region, where Dzungar is located, borders not only Russia, but also India, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and other countries, and is connected to today's Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and other provinces. Therefore, the geographical location of the Dzungar regime should not be underestimated by the Qing government.
The Qing Dynasty's attack on the original areas of the Ming Dynasty was basically completed in only 20 years. And for the unification of the Dzungar tribal areas, it took three generations of monarchs and a century to complete!
In 1644, the Qing government entered Beijing, and the Qing Dynasty became the rightful central power ever since. At that time, the Erut tribes in Qinghai and Tibet, led by GuShi Khan, soon paid tribute to the Qing Dynasty and expressed their obedience to the rule of the Qing Emperor. In the third year of Shunzhi (1646 AD), the Dzungar chief Batur Huntaiji also sent envoys to pay tribute. At this time, the Qing Dynasty did not have any intention of actually managing the nomadic areas of Dzungar, as long as the Dzungars expressed their submission, naturally the Qing court also returned the book and gifts, and everyone was very happy. Previously, Emperor Taiji had conquered all the tribes of southern Mongolia, and the Fifth Dalai Lama and the Fourth Panchen Lama of Tibet also submitted to the Shuot Mongols.
The Fifth Dalai Lama
By the Kangxi Period, Southern Mongolia had submitted to the Qing Dynasty, and Northern Mongolia had expressed submission, but the relationship between Western Mongolia and the Qing Dynasty was relatively distant, and there was not much exchange. After the Kangxi Emperor took over the government, Zhi captured Aobai and then quelled the San Francisco rebellion led by Wu Sangui, and had no time to estimate the Gardan forces in the northwest. Later, when he learned that Kaldan was attacking the Heshuo Mongols in Qinghai, the Kangxi Emperor sent people to warn the other side not to continue the attack.
Fearing that Gardan's military operations in Qinghai and Gansu would affect the newly settled situation in Shaanxi and Gansu, the Qing court did not dare to particularly provoke Kaldan, but acted as a mediator, hoping that Kaldan and the Khalkha Mongols would be reconciled and would not attack each other again.
The Ivth Panchen Lama
Due to the influx of many Mongol tribes fleeing the calamity of the Kaldan war in Suzhou, the Kangxi Emperor did not know at that time that these people were the Heshuo mongols who had been defeated by Kaldan, thinking that these refugees were the people of the Dzungar tribe, so he ordered the local generals not to kill these poor Mongols, and ordered the generals to move Daniel Zhang from Lanzhou to Ganzhou, strengthen their defenses, and closely watch the every move of these Mongols to prevent them from acting rashly.
Soon, there were spies who reported that Gardan was going to lead a large army to attack Qinghai, and the Kangxi Emperor was very nervous about this, and strictly ordered the border generals to investigate the direction of Kaldan's troops and guard the border area. At that time, many Mongol tribes at that time moved in the direction of Qinghai, these people were not the Dzungar troops led by Gardan at all, but the Heshuo Mongols who were defeated by Kaldan. These refugees fled in panic, causing Qing spies to think that the defeat of these remnants would be the Gardan army.
Many scholars in later generations, in order to praise the benevolence of the Kangxi Emperor, always praised him for not taking the initiative to attack Dzungar out of benevolent considerations, in fact, the Kangxi Emperor did not attack at that time, but could not attack at that time - the Qing court was being overwhelmed by the forces of Wu Sangui Sanfan, where to take care of the Dzungars in the northwest.
In the autumn of the eighteenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1679 AD), Kaldan suddenly sent someone to the Qing court to "contribute" the fang, informing him that Kaldan himself had been canonized by the Fifth Dalai Lama as "Bosoktu Khan", and his original intention was to show off to the Qing court the close relationship between Kaldan and the Dalai Lama. It is reasonable to say that Tibet was a vassal of the Qing Dynasty, and the Fifth Dalai Lama should report to the Qing court in advance. Since the Qing court was busy with the San Francisco War at that time, there was no need to deliberately investigate this, so it had to acquiesce in the Dalai Lama's canonization of Kaldan and continue to implement the Huairou policy of the Dzungar tribe.
As a nomadic people, the Dzungar Khan King Kaldan grew stronger and stronger in continuous expansion. After unifying the Mongol tribes of Erut, he sent troops to southern Xinjiang, including the vast territory that originally belonged to the Chagatai Khanate, the second son of Genghis Khan, into his sphere of influence, and imprisoned the leaders of southern Xinjiang who had converted to Islam in the royal city of Ili. As a result, the Dzungars controlled the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains.
Relying on the rich resources and taxes in the southern tianshan mountains, Gardan's strength increased rapidly.
At this time, the Kangxi Emperor had basically quelled the San Francisco rebellion, and in the twenty-first year of Kangxi (1682 AD), he sent 10 missions to "report victory" to the foreign tribes, with the real intention of showing off the qing court's military achievements and appeasing the various departments. Of these 10 missions, one was also sent specifically to the Dzungars.
Later, in addition to recovering Taiwan and unifying the four seas, the Kangxi Emperor began to closely watch Russia's every move in the northeast, and became more vigilant against the Dzungars who were in collusion with Russia, ordering a limit on the number of envoys that Kaldan could bring to Beijing, and also restricting the trade between the Dzungars and the Qing Dynasty. However, from a general point of view, the Kangxi Emperor at that time was still mainly pacifying Dzungar.