In the summer and autumn of 1634, Lin Dan Khan, the last great khan of the Mongolian plateau, retreated to the great grass beach of Qinghai in the midst of internal and external troubles, struggling. In the end, he died of smallpox, and all his remnants surrendered under the attack of the Later Jin, marking the official demise of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, and Lin Dan Khan also became the last Mongol Great Khan in history.
Lin Dan Khan's life, if there is one word to describe, is "ambitious but limited talent". Despite his limited capabilities, he still hoped to recreate the glory of Genghis Khan's era, but his conquests not only accelerated the unification of southern Mongolia by the Later Jin, but also weakened the financial resources of the Ming Dynasty, which was undoubtedly the main help of Huang Taiji's unification of the frontier. He, like Emperor Chongzhen, can be seen as a pair of wizards and heroes in the late Ming Dynasty, and yes, Lin Dan Khan is like the Chongzhen Emperor of Mongolia.
Lin Dan Khan, whose full name is Lin Dan Batur, can be seen from his surname, he is a descendant of the ** family and the seventh grandson of Dayan Khan.
In 1604, at the age of 13, Lindan Batur succeeded to the throne and was revered as "Khutuktu Khan", which means the Khan of Blessing. As for the Ming Dynasty, it was translated as Hudun Tuhan, which was obviously a deliberate distortion by the Ming Dynasty and a consistent practice of the Ming Dynasty in translating Mongolian names.
Although Lin Dan Khan was a Mongol Great Khan, his position was only a nominal leader on the steppe, and there were Western Mongolian tribes led by King Shunyi, a descendant of Altan Khan, in the west, and the Nekhalkha, Karaqin Wulianghai, and Horqin tribes in the east did not obey his orders, and he really controlled only the Chahar tribe, and even within the Chahar tribe, few tribes really obeyed his rule.
Nevertheless, these did not stop Lin Dan Khan's ambition to unify the entire steppe and restore the glory of Genghis Khan's time, he wanted to become the true master of the steppe. However, Lin Dan Khan's strength was too weak to cause too many waves, and he could only rely on the Ming Dynasty that invaded the frontier to enhance his sense of existence, and for a time even made the Ming Dynasty mistakenly think that he was outstanding, until the rise of the Later Jin.
After the Battle of Kaitie in 1619, the Later Jin began to border the Mongol tribes, and the contradictions between the two sides deepened, especially with the five Inner Khalkha tribes. Just when the two sides were attacking each other, he who had nothing to do with Lin Dan Khan stood up as the lord of the steppe.
In his capacity as the Great Khan of the Mongols, he sent a fiercely worded letter to Nurhachi and accused him of not taking him as the Great Khan of the Mongols. Nurhachi was not ignorant of the actual situation in Mongolia, and he was unceremonious about this, and directly beheaded the envoy sent by Lin Dan Khan, and Lin Dan Khan was furious and could not do anything. In this way, the first confrontation between Lin Dan Khan and Nurhachi ended in complete failure.
According to common sense, Lin Dan Khan should have kept to himself, just as a nominal leader. But unexpectedly, the Ming Dynasty gave him a huge opportunity. After the Battle of Sarhu, the Ming Dynasty began to consider uniting with the Mongol tribes against the Later Jin. But at that time, the Ming Dynasty's intelligence on Mongolia was almost zero, and under the deception of Lin Dan Khan, they believed that Lin Dan Khan was really able to control the entire Mongolian tribe and was a veritable emperor of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, and planned to join forces with him to deal with the Later Jin.
The person in charge of liaison was Wang Huazhen, the governor of Liaodong. Lin Dan Khan boasted to Wang Huazhen that he had an army of more than 400,000 and could easily destroy Houjin. Wang Huazhen, who was kept in the dark, actually believed it and gave a large amount of wealth to Lin Dan Khan, and gave Lin Dan Khan a million taels of silver, which was originally the life-saving money of the Ming Dynasty.
However, in the Battle of Guangning initiated by the Later Jin, although Lin Dan Khan led a large army to reinforcements, he quickly retreated, and watched the Ming army suffer a crushing defeat, and the Ming Dynasty lost the land of Liaoxi as a result.
Taking advantage of the defeat of the Ming army, Lin Dan Khan used the funds given by the Ming Dynasty to buy a large amount of equipment left over from the battlefield, thereby strengthening his own strength, and then attacked the Arak and other tribes in the Chahar tribe, becoming one of the stronger tribes in the Chahar tribe in one fell swoop. In this situation of getting carried away, Lin Danhan thought that the time had come for him to make a big difference.
His first target was the Ministries of the Inner Khalkha. Lin Dan Khan used the connection between the Inner Khalkha tribes and the Houjin as an excuse to send troops to attack the Inner Khalkha tribes. In fact, the friction between the Inner Khalkha ministries and the Houjin is very intense, and conflicts and negotiations between the two sides are the norm. However, Lin Dan Khan believed that the Inner Khalkha tribes did not attack Houjin with all their might, which was tantamount to collusion with the enemy state. In this situation, the leader of the Inner Khalkha tribe, Sonom, understood that he could not win, so he simply surrendered to Houjin, and Nurhachi was ecstatic.
Of course, there are other tribes in the Nekharkha tribe who are still hostile to Nurhachi. Nurhachi also wanted to conquer these tribes completely. When the Later Jin army attacked, the remaining tribes of the Inner Khalkha tribe planned to join forces with Lin Dan Khan to resist the Hou Jin, but Lin Dan Khan.
However, he said that he would support them in the rear, and in the end the Nekhalkha Ministry was defeated.
As for Lin Dan Khan, he went**? He went against the tribes who disobeyed him.
At the end of 1624, Lin Dan Khan sent troops to attack the Korqin tribe. The Horqin Department was defeated and asked for help from Houjin. Nurhachi sent Mang Gurtai and Huang Taiji to lead 5,000 soldiers and horses to support. Faced with the arrival of the army, Lin Dan Khan chose to flee, and from then on, the Korqin tribe completely became a subordinate tribe of the Later Jin. Houjin thus took a crucial step in conquering the grasslands.
After the Korqin tribe returned to Houjin, Nurhachi again sent troops to attack the Inner Khalkha tribe. Instead of providing assistance, Lin Dan Khan took advantage of the opportunity to invade and annex a large number of his subordinates when the Inner Khalkha tribe was defeated, and killed the alliance leader of the Inner Khalkha tribe, Fried Flowers. The rest of the tribes of the Inner Khalkha tribe can only survive.
It is worth mentioning that Fried Flower was once the only tribal leader who regarded Lin Dan Khan as a Great Khan, but Lin Dan Khan ignored it in his moment of crisis and instead took the opportunity to annex the forces of the Inner Khalkha Tribe. This practice is confusing.
At the end of 1626, after Huang Taiji succeeded to the throne, in order to establish his prestige, he attacked the Inner Khalkha Department again. Lin Dan Khan still took a bystander attitude, taking advantage of the Houjin attack on the Inner Khalkha tribe, and once again annexed the remnants of the tribe.
In this way, the Nekhalkha tribe, which once dominated the steppe, almost perished under the blow of the Later Jin and the robbery of Lin Dan Khan. The remnants of the tribe, fearing to be annexed by Lin Dan Khan, chose to surrender to Houjin. As a result, the territory of the Later Jin was further expanded, and it began to border the Ao Han and Naiman tribes of the Chahar tribe.
The two knew they could not resist and could only try to curry favor with both sides. As a result, Lin Dan Khan sent troops to attack on the grounds of collaborating with the enemy, and the two tribes simply surrendered to Houjin. At this point, the remnants of the Korqin, Nekhalkha tribes and part of the Chahar tribes of the Mongolian steppe began to submit and join the Houjin.
For all this, Lin Dan Khan did not seem to care, and continued to annex other tribes. In 1628, Lin Dan Khan attacked the Karaqin Wuliang Sea Department located outside Jizhen and Xuanfu in the Ming Dynasty. Coincidentally, when a natural disaster occurred, the Karaqin Wuliang Sea Department was powerless to resist and hoped to receive assistance from the Ming Dynasty. However, the Ming Dynasty itself could not protect itself, and could only verbally express its support. In desperation, he could only seek the help of Bu Lost Rabbit, the king of Shunyi in the west.
The king of Shunyi, Bu Lostu, led the Western Mongolian tribes to fight against Lin Dan Khan, but was defeated by Lin Dan Khan. This became the most glorious moment of Lin Dan Khan's life, and it also reversed the situation in which the western part of Mongolia was stronger than the eastern part of Mongolia since Alta.
The situation changed in 1629. After the defeat of Bu Lost Rabbit, in order to avoid being annexed by Lin Dan Khan, he began to seek assistance from the Ming Dynasty. In fact, since the Longqing Peace Conference, the Shunyi family has always had a good relationship with the Ming Dynasty, and they are also the most reliable allies of the Ming Dynasty. But at this time, Emperor Chongzhen thought that Lin Dan Khan could help him attack Houjin after he became stronger, and gave up Bu Lost Rabbit at a critical moment, resulting in his complete defeat.
As for the Karaqin Wuliang Haibu, who asked for help at the beginning, seeing that his backer had fallen, he could only seek help from the Houjin and the Ming army in Liaodong. Fortunately, Yuan Conghuan, the governor of Liaodong, sold them some grain to help them tide over the difficulties. Coupled with the protection promised by Huang Taiji, Lin Dan Khan did not dare to attack him. But the Karaqin Wuliang Haibu has actually surrendered to Huang Taiji.
Over time, due to Lin Dan Khan's continuous campaigns, almost all the tribes of Eastern Mongolia surrendered to the Houjin and became the enemies of Lin Dan Khan. Clashes between the two sides continued. In addition, the defeat of the king of Shunyi and the abundance of water and grass in the west, Lin Dan Khan led his troops directly to the territory of the king of Shunyi, completely abandoning the territory of Eastern Mongolia bordering Liaodong and Jizhen. This made Huang Taiji effortlessly become the suzerainty of the Eastern Mongolian tribes, and Huang Taiji was almost crazy with joy.
In this way, Lin Dan Khan attacked all the way to the west, completely defeated the remnants of the Shunyi king's forces, and occupied Guihua City and Hetao and other areas. He asked the Ming Dynasty to treat him like the king of Shunyi, not only asking for a mutual market, but also hoping for a large reward, but was rejected by Emperor Chongzhen.
Lin Dan Khan claimed that since the Ming Dynasty did not give him benefits, then don't blame him for being ruthless. From the first year of Chongzhen, Lin Dan Khan began to invade the frontier and once captured Datong. At this time, Emperor Chongzhen had no energy to deal with the two-front battle, so he had to agree to give Lin Dan Khan a gift. However, the Ming Dynasty was already poor, and the two sides quarreled over the amount of the annual gift. During this period, Lin Dan Khan constantly infested the frontier.
Just when Lin Dan Khan and the Ming Dynasty were in constant disputes on the border, Huang Taiji began to carry out a tentative attack on Lin Dan Khan, wanting to find out Lin Dan Khan's strength at this time. But Lin Dan Khan showed that he would not easily reveal his details, no matter how many soldiers and horses Houjin sent, he would flee when he saw it. In this way, while Lin Dan Khan continued to invade the frontier, Huang Taiji stopped the pace of his western expedition and turned to consolidate and digest the Eastern Mongolian tribes that had been gained.
For example, taking the conquered Mongolian tribes to sacrifice together, saying that no matter what the grievances between the two sides were, they will all be written off now, and then rely on mutual marriage to maintain each other.
In the fifth year of Chongzhen (1632), Huang Taiji, who integrated the Eastern Mongolian tribes, led the army to raid Lin Dan Khan, Lin Dan Khan ignored it, and fled directly with the army everywhere, the vast grassland, Huang Taiji chased for forty days and did not catch up, but successfully occupied the city of Guihua, and conquered a number of Western Mongolian tribes by the way.
Relying on the city of naturalization, Huang Taiji began to encroach on the rest of the Western Mongolian tribes, and Lin Dan Khan suppressed and annexed these Western Mongolian tribes, and a large number of Western Mongolian tribes who could not stand Lin Dan Khan surrendered to Huang Taiji, which also allowed Huang Taiji to consolidate his control over Western Mongolia, and on this basis, he promoted the alliance flag system and carried out effective management here.
From the sixth year of Chongzhen, Lin Dan Khan began to frantically raid the major towns in the west of the Ming Dynasty, but on the whole, most of them failed, especially Hong Chengchou, who was in Shaanxi and fought with the rebel army, and Lin Dan Khan fought with Lin Dan Khan.
Huang Taiji in the east can't be provoked, the former Mongolian tribes can't be beaten now, and they can't take advantage of the robbery of the Ming Dynasty and the perennial war, their tribe has suffered serious casualties, and has lost a lot of land with abundant water and grass, so that their lives are almost unbearable, and there is cannibalism within the tribe.
Chongzhen seven years (1634), the destitute Lin Dan Khan infected smallpox, died of illness in the Siratala grass, the rest of the army led by his son Ezhe, ready to migrate to the Hetao area, learned that Lin Dan Khan died of illness in the following year ordered Dolgon and others to lead an army of 10,000 troops, this time not so much an expedition, but a surrender, all the way over, Lin Dan Khan's remnants are almost all looking at the wind to surrender, as for Lin Dan Khan's wives became the spoils of Houjin.
Lin Dan Khan had eight wives, two of whom were married to Huang Taiji, one to Zilharang, one to Brother Hao, one to Abatai, and the remaining three were missing, while Lin Dan Khan's sister was married to Dai Shan, and his daughter was married to Dolgon, Huang Taiji, Dai Shan, and Dolgon were all brothers, and I would like to know how to call several Fujin after marriage.
More importantly, in this expedition, Huang Taiji obtained the jade seal left over from the Yuan Dynasty, and Huang Taiji officially called the emperor through the jade seal, and changed the gold to the Qing Dynasty.
To tell the truth, although Lin Dan Khan's life is wonderful, but for the old opponent Houjin has never been able to fight seriously, the Ming Dynasty can be his good ally, but the Ming Dynasty is regarded as a big wrong, took a large number of rewards from the Ming Dynasty but did not fight Houjin, would rather sell his teammates than conflict with Houjin, and then as long as the Ming Dynasty does not give money, he will turn his head to attack the Ming Dynasty.
It also made the Ming Dynasty realize that Lin Dan Khan's house was really unreliable, and he began to reward him in the early years of the Apocalypse, but he didn't do anything in the Chongzhen period, but sold the other Mongolian tribes cleanly, and let Houjin subdue Mo Nan Mongolia in vain, and the angry Chongzhen ordered a counterattack against Lin Dan Khan's Koubian, which contributed to the decline of Lin Dan Khan.
In this life, Lin Dan Khan extorted excessively from the Ming Dynasty, attacked the Mongolian ministries with heavy punches, and never dared to fight against the mortal enemy Houjin, and wanted to unify the Mongolian ministries, but the various ministries were jumping, and he would rather defect to Houjin than submit to him, a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, which shows that the Mongolian ministries have disliked him like what they have become? Lin Dan Khan finally killed himself, saying that he was the last Chongzhen of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, and there was nothing wrong with him at all.