Once upon a time, there was a life-and-death battle on the Mongolian steppe, and the two sides had a huge disparity in strength, but the final result was unexpected. What kind of fight led to what kind of earth-shattering change? How did the victor of this battle use the means of "grace and power" to finally unify the Mongolian steppe? Let's find out.
1. Chahar Lindan Khan's ambition is revived
The war for hegemony on the Mongolian plateau has never been extinguished. Since the royal family of the Yuan Dynasty was driven out by the Ming Dynasty and fled to Mobei, the Mongolian tribes no longer have a common master, and they have their own policies. As a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, the Chahar tribe Lin Dan Khan has the name "Khan", but his authority is meager, and he is only the leader of one of the four major Mongolian tribes.
However, Lin Dan Khan was arrogant, how could he be willing to be subordinate to others like this? He dreams of restoring the old business of his ancestors and rebuilding a powerful nomadic empire in the vast steppes. To this end, he spared no effort to integrate his forces, and planned to unify the entire Mongolian plateau.
Fortune may be matching with Lin Dan Khan for the time being. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty was in decline, the government and the opposition were corrupt, and the frontier was lost. Lin Dan Khan saw this opportunity, shook his army and marched south. The first to suffer were the Mongol tribes in Monan.
Mo Nan is located in the area of present-day Inner Mongolia, and its habits and climate are similar to those of the Lin Dan Khan tribe. The Yuan Dynasty also established some pastoral areas in this area. Lin Dan Khan, relying on the weight of the "Khan", vainly tried to collect the Mongol tribes in southern Mo as the foundation for his own unification of Mongolia.
Lin Dan Khan relied on the brave and warlike Mongolian horse team to fight all over the Monan region. No tribe that is not subordinate to him and unwilling to submit to him will be spared. Under the shadow of the sword and sword, Lin Dan Khan's majesty is always there. Many leaders of nomadic tribes were slaughtered by him, and their families were taken captive and separated.
In just a few years, Lin Dan Khan conquered sixteen tribes in Monan alone. His ambition is to continue to build on his ambition and soon regain access to the entire Mongolian plateau. At that time, it will be able to restore the majesty of the Northern Yuan Empire and dominate this vast grassland again!
Second, the Later Jin Emperor Taiji attracted Monangol to the south
Although Lin Dan Khan relied on his brave and good horse team, he was invincible in Monan for a while. But he soon encountered a powerful emerging force - Houjin.
The Houjin people were the remnants of the Jurchen who were expelled that year, and under the leadership of Nurhachi and Huang Taiji, they had re-emerged in the Mobei region. They were shrouded in horse leather and stationed in important places, and like the Mongolian nomads, they were battle-hardened nomads.
The Later Jin and Mongols have been adjacent to each other for generations, and naturally know each other's customs and strength well. Huang Taiji quickly saw through Lin Dan Khan's ambitions and realized that he was a hidden danger to Houjin's long-term foothold in the Northeast. Therefore, Huang Taiji made up his mind to strike preemptively, and to control this key area in his own hands before Lin Dan Khan completely unified Monan.
Huang Taiji adopted a series of means of "grace and power" in order to win over and unify the Monan tribes.
The first is through marriage, kinship alliances. Huang Taiji followed the tradition of intermarriage with the Mongol tribes during the Nurhachi period, and entered into kinship with some Mongolian noble families. He successively married the princesses of the Horqin, Orta and other tribes, and also married his own princesses to the chiefs of these tribes. Such a close marriage relationship undoubtedly deepened the friendship between the Later Jin and the Mongol tribes, making the latter feel close to the Later Jin.
Secondly, Huang Taiji skillfully used discordant means to prevent the Mongol tribes from having a sense of fear and awe towards Lin Dan Khan. Whenever Lin Dan Khan coerced a tribe by force, Huang Taiji always sent troops to help in time. For example, in the eleventh year of the Mandate of Heaven, Lin Dan Khan wanted to conquer the Nen Korqin Department, and Huang Taiji sent troops to reinforce in time to drive Lin Dan Khan's army away. The leader of the Nen Korqin tribe, Obahongtaiji, also surrendered to the Houjin.
Another example is that in the first year of Tiancong, Lin Dan Khan invaded the five departments of Inner Khalkha, and Huang Taiji also took the opportunity to send troops to fight. The defeated Zarut and Bahrain were forced to ask for help from Houjin. Under the placement of Houjin, they were given a chance to survive and thrive. The strength of the Later Jin regime gave them a strong reliance.
The strategy of the Later Jin was quite successful, and the Monan tribes surrendered one after another and submitted to the command of Huang Taiji. But Lin Dan Khan's prestige as the leader of the Mongols was still there, and Huang Taiji still needed further military action to suppress his ambitions...
Third, Lin Dan Khan's majesty is exhausted
Although Huang Taiji made a big effort to win over the Mongol tribes in the Monan region, Lin Dan Khan still regarded himself as the master of all Mongols, and he firmly believed that as long as he concentrated all his forces, he would be able to reverse the passive situation. As a result, Lin Dan Khan made a difficult decision - to give up temporarily dealing with Houjin, and first concentrate all his forces to completely clear Monan, an important base of Houjin in Mongolia.
In September of the second year of Tiancong, Lin Dan Khan personally led a large army to the south and launched a decisive attack in the area of Buha. His goal was to eliminate the combined forces of the three major tribes of Tumut, Karaqin and Ordos on the right flank of Monan. Despite the large number of men and horses of the three tribes, they were quickly dispersed by Lin Dan Khan's nomadic cavalry due to their demoralization and inconsistent pace. This fiasco caused the right wing of Mo Nan to basically collapse on all fronts, and Lin Dan Khan occupied this vast area for a time.
It seems that Lin Dan Khan has finally reversed the passive situation, but this is only a brief calm before the storm. Huang Taiji did not relax his attack on Lin Dan Khan at all, on the contrary, he took advantage of the victory to pursue, constantly gathered stragglers, and adopted a further isolated strike strategy against Lin Dan Khan.
Huang Taiji first appeased the Mongol tribes who submitted to the Later Jin and made them firm in their loyalty to the Later Jin. He then sent his trusted minister, Ilgen Holen, to lead an army to the stronghold of Lindan Khan and give him a fierce surprise attack. Although Lin Dan Khan ordered the whole army to let go of their horses to counterattack, they were unable to resist the ironclad torrent of the Houjin army after all.
This was only the beginning of Huang Taiji's offensive. The following year, he personally led a large army south, plundering the territory of Lin Dan Khan along the way, burning and looting, and dealing a heavy blow to Lin Dan Khan. Lin Dan Khan was so embarrassed that he had to abandon Suiyuan, Ningxia and other base areas, and led the rest of his troops to flee west to the steppe area in order to make a comeback.
However, Huang Taiji did not let Lin Dan Khan go. He ordered the Eight Banners Army to follow the trail and cut off Lin Dan Khan's connection with the other Manchu and Mongolian tribes on the outer line. Just when Lin Dan Khan fled west and gradually ran out of strength, Huang Taiji sent another army to clear Lin Dan Khan's strongholds in Daqingshan and Xiaoyunyun.
After this decisive battle, Lin Dan Khan's prestige was completely swept away. His originally loyal subordinates left him one after another and came to join Huang Taiji. Even Lin Dan Khan's biological son led the rest of the men and horses to take refuge in Houjin. As a result, Lin Dan Khan was alone and had to flee all the way to Dacaotan, Gansu...
Fourth, Monan Mongolia accepted the rule of the Later Jin
The complete destruction of Lin Dan Khan marked that the Mongol tribes in the Monan region were completely out of his control. Under Huang Taiji's policy of "grace and power", these tribes submitted to the Later Jin regime.
First of all, the tribes of the Zhuo Suo Tu League, which were originally closely related to Lin Dan Khan. With the defeat of Lin Dan Khan, they lost their backers. Seeing that the Houjin regime was getting stronger and stronger, they took the initiative to ask for help from the Houjin and surrendered to the Eight Banners.
Among them, the Horqin, Karaqin, Tumut, Bahrain, Naiman, Wengniut, Ao Han and other departments all passed the canonization ceremony and officially became the vassals of the Later Jin. The Later Jin regime gave them a large number of preferential policies, such as tax exemption and exemption from forced labor, in order to appease them. At the same time, Huang Taiji personally arranged Mongolian affairs, compiled flags for them and formulated an administrative program for Mongolian affairs.
Among these Guishun tribes, the Tumut and Karaqin coalition armies, which had been severely damaged by Lin Dan Khan, became the most effective among them. Although there were disagreements within the Karaqin tribe, most of them chose to join them. As for the Tumut Division, which had led the flag water, he took this opportunity to divide the original division into two and set up two flags, the left and right.
The Later Jin regime also adopted an active policy of marriage and forged close relations with these affiliated tribes. Huang Taiji successively married the princesses of the Horqin, Orta and other tribes, and married his own princesses to these Mongolian leader families. This method of "getting the house ripe" has greatly deepened the friendship between the two sides.
For those Mongol tribes who were still unwilling to submit, Huang Taiji resorted to military conquest. In the years after Lin Dan Khan completely lost power, the Later Jin army attacked one after another, conquered some of the non-subordinate clans of the Zhelimu League, and incorporated the Gollus tribe led by the Zhaoyi scholars, who were originally subordinate to the Ming Dynasty, into the territory of the Later Jin.
In the end, the three alliances of Zhao Wuda, Zhuo Suotu, and Zhelimu, without exception, all submitted to the Later Jin regime. For the Monan region, a new "nomadic dynasty" was officially opened.
In order to rule over these dependent tribes, Huang Taiji implemented the alliance flag system in the Mongolian region. He organized the three leagues of Zhaowuda, Zhuosuotu, and Zhelimu into thirteen Zasak banners, and adopted a hereditary chieftain system, with Mongol nobles as banner chiefs and in charge of tribal affairs. The entire system is under the direct jurisdiction of the Houjin Central Committee and under unified command. The Manchu and Mongolian nobles became closer through marriage, and the Mongols were gradually incorporated into the Qing administrative system, opening the way for the future naturalization of the Mongols...
Fifth, Mongolia's territory has been completely changed
After Lin Dan Khan was completely defeated and the Monan tribes surrendered to the Houjin, the territory of the entire Mongolian Plateau underwent a complete change. Originally, Lin Dan Khan once ruled the territory, but now it is completely controlled by the Later Jin regime.
Huang Taiji ordered his generals to lead an army to attack Garunziri, the last stronghold of Lin Dan Khan in the Zhuosuotu region. After a bloody battle, the Houjin army conquered what was once the strongest stronghold of Lin Dan Khan. Lin Dan Khan's remnants of his cronies were wiped out, and the only remaining clan relatives were captured.
Lin Dan Khan, who had suffered heavy losses in Monan, can now only lead the remnants to be displaced. He left his last strongholds in Daqingshan and Xiaoyunyun, and was also completely swept away by the Later Jin army. It has to be said that the decline of Lin Dan Khan was simply overnight.
With the submission of the Monan tribes, the Later Jin regime quickly extended its power throughout the Mongolian Plateau. Most of the lands under the jurisdiction of the three major alliances of Zhaowuda, Zhuo Suotu, and Zhelimu were all annexed by the Later Jin. A small number of small tribes that had not yet surrendered, also under the pressure of the Later Jin army, finally bowed their heads and confessed to being thieves.
In the entire Mongolian plateau, Lin Dan Khan has no place to stand. He could only lead his last relatives and fled all the way west, and finally ended up on the Gansu prairie. There, Lin Dan Khan fell ill and died, and the Mongols completely lost this great general. But his dream was shattered forever.
At the same time, Huang Taiji completely pacified the Mongolian Plateau. He ordered the entire Monan region to be included in the territory of the Later Jin, and implemented the alliance flag system in this vast land. According to the Mongol tradition, he divided it into three major leagues, Zhaowuda, Zhuosuotu, and Zhelimu, and governed 13 Zasak banners. The Mongol hereditary flag chief system was retained, and the Mongol nobles served as flag commanders and were responsible for managing the affairs of their own banners.
In reality, however, these bannermen had all submitted to and pledged allegiance to the central regime of the Later Jin Dynasty. The Later Jin Emperor also personally appointed the "Zasang" ministers, who were specifically responsible for overseeing Mongolian affairs, and the banner commanders had to obey their leadership and dispatch. The Mongol tribes were gradually incorporated into the Qing Dynasty's vassal system, marking the complete annexation of the Mongolian Plateau by the Central Plains Dynasty.
More importantly, Huang Taiji issued an edict to canonize himself as the "Emperor of the Celestial Empire" and officially claim the emperor's accession to the throne. This means that the Later Jin will regain the glory of the Great Mongolian State and rule the entire Chinese territory. The Mongolian Plateau became an important part of its territory. The annexation of Mongol to Monan was an important part of the beginning of this great cause...