Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 7, 2025
Retreat seemed their only means of extricating themselves from their dilemma, and the question of doing so was under discussion when the sudden assault of Galdan happily relieved Feyanku from a situation which threatened the loss of his military renown.
It was shown above that the situation of all these leaders became hopeless as soon as the Manchus had occupied the rich Yangtze region and the intelligentsia and the gentry of that region had gone over to them. A quite different type of insurgent commander was the Mongol prince Galdan. He, too, planned to make himself independent of Manchu overlordship.
Kanghi showed that he was resolved not to let the terms, to which Galdan had subscribed, become a dead letter. He summoned a great assemblage of the Khalka tribes on the plain of Dolonor the Seven Springs near Changtu and he attended it in person, bestowing gifts and titles with a lavish hand.
Galdan, bound by the laws of hospitality, nowhere more sacred than in the East, gave them an honorable reception, and lavished upon them the poor resources he commanded. In hyperbolic terms he declared that the arrival of an embassy from the rich and powerful Chinese emperor in his poor State would be handed down as the most glorious event of his reign.
Kanghi admonished them to heal their differences and to abstain from an internecine strife, which would only facilitate their conquest by Galdan, and he succeeded so far that he induced them to swear a peace among themselves before an image of Buddha. At this juncture the Chinese came into collision with the Russians on the Amour.
The mere rumor of a possible alliance between Galdan and the Russians roused Kanghi to increased activity, and all the picked troops of the Eight Manchu Banners, the Forty-nine Mongol Banners, and the Chinese auxiliaries, were dispatched across the steppe to bring the Napoleon of Central Asia to reason. In face of this formidable danger Galdan showed undiminished courage and energy.
He had from his hostile relations with Galdan the murderer of his father Tsenka acted as the ally of Kanghi, but when he became the chief of the Eleuths on the death of his uncle, his ideas underwent a change, and he thought more of his dignity and independence.
The influence thus gained and his boldness and ruthlessness completed the work he had in mind. The ruling khan was deposed, all members of his family whose hostility was feared by Galdan were slain, and he found himself at the head of the tribe, whose members were terrified into submission. His thirst for power now showed itself in encroachments upon the lands of neighboring clans.
No rupture might have taken place, but that the Chinese, in their implacable resolve to exterminate the family of their enemy Galdan, demanded from Tse Wang Rabdan not only the bones of that chieftain, but also the persons of his son and daughter, who had taken refuge with him. Tse Wang Rabdan resented both the demand itself and the language in which it was expressed.
In Galdan died a man who, under more fortunate circumstances, might have emulated some of the famous Tartar chiefs, a warrior of the greatest skill, courage, and daring, a "formidable enemy" to the Chinese empire, and one who, had the government of that empire been as weak as it proved strong, might have gathered all the nomads under arms and overthrown the dynasty.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking