Dga’-ldan

Dga’-ldan, also spelled Galdan, (born 1644Turkistan [now Xinjiang, China]), leader of the Dzungar tribes of Mongols (reigned 1676–97). He conquered an empire that included Tibet in the southwest and ranged across Central Asia to the borders of Russia on the northeast.

Dga’-ldan was a descendant of Esen, a Mongol chieftain who harassed the northern border of China during the 15th century, and his father was a powerful Dzungar chief. As a younger son, Dga’-ldan was sent to Tibet, a Dzungar protectorate since 1636, where he was educated to be a Buddhist lama. In 1671, however, when his brother (who had become the tribal leader) was murdered, Dga’-ldan returned to Turkistan to seek vengeance. Because of his great military ability and his prestige as a lama, he rapidly gained authority over the other Dzungar chiefs. He avenged his brother’s death and then occupied all of East Turkistan (now in Uighur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang), subduing the Muslim population there. He then conquered Outer Mongolia (now Mongolia), expelling the Khalkha Mongols from their land.

In 1690 Dga’-ldan led his armies toward Beijing, the Chinese capital, but the Chinese forces stopped him short of his destination. Finally in 1696, after several years of indecisive fighting, the second emperor Kangxi of Qing-dynasty China, allied with the Khalkhans, personally led some 80,000 troops across Mongolia in pursuit of Dga’-ldan. Kangxi’s use of Western artillery, made under instruction from Jesuit missionaries, crushed Dga’-ldan at Dzuunmod, near present-day Ulaanbaatar. The battle signaled the beginning of Chinese domination over the Central Asian nomads who had harassed the empire for a millennium.

Although his wife and son were killed, Dga’-ldan refused to surrender. He fled with a small band of followers to the Altai Mountains. When news came the next year that the emperor was leading another expedition against him, Dga’-ldan reportedly poisoned himself.