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Updated: May 21, 2025
He led his army by a parallel route to that pursued by Feyanku across the Gobi Desert to Kobdo, where Galdan had established his headquarters. The details of the march are fully described by the Roman Catholic priest, Gerbillon, in his interesting narrative. They reveal the difficulties of the enterprise as well as its success.
After a march of more than three months' duration Feyanku pitched his camp near the sources of the Tula, his army being reduced to twelve thousand available men. These were placed in a fortified position within the Mongol camping-ground of Chowmodo. Meanwhile how was Galdan engaged?
He placed four armies in the field numbering about 150,000 combatants, and it has been computed that, with non-combatants, the total of men employed did not fall short of a million. The first of these armies numbered 35,600 men, and was intrusted to Feyanku, the Ney of the Manchu army.
The culminating scene in the ceremony took place when Feyanku approached the throne, received on his knees from the emperor's hand a cup of wine, and retired down the steps, at whose foot he quaffed the wine amid the shouts of thousands of spectators. This ceremony was repeated with each of the subordinate generals, and then with the lower officers of the army, ten at a time.
The despatch of a large army into the recesses of Central Asia was a difficult and hazardous enterprise, yet it seemed the only means of ending the strained situation, and by 1696 a large force was got ready for a protracted desert war, the principal command being given to a frontier soldier named Feyanku, who in the preceding troubles had shown marked ability.
The Chinese armies were recalled for this occasion, and the only force left on the remote frontier was a small one under the command of the gallant Feyanku. The overthrow and death of Galdan brought Tse Wang Rabdan into direct contact with the Chinese.
Feyanku approached his sovereign, and received at his hands a cup of wine, which the general took while on his knees, and which, on descending from the steps of the throne, he quaffed in full view of the spectators. Each of his assistant generals and the subordinate officers in groups of ten went through the same ceremony, and the ruin of Galdan was anticipated in the libations of his conquerors.
While Feyanku marched to encounter Galdan wherever he should find him, the ministers and courtiers at Pekin made a strenuous effort to prevent Kanghi taking the field in person, expatiating on the dangers of a war in the desert, and of the loss to the empire if anything happened to him. But Kanghi, while thanking them for their solicitude, was not to be deterred from his purpose.
Of the battle that followed we know only that Feyanku remained on the defensive and sustained Galdan's attacks for three hours, when he gave the signal for a charge.
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