Kangxi made three expeditions to Galdan, personally conquered the Junggar Department of Moxi Mongolia, quelled the Galdan rebellion, and finally achieved victory.
In the war, the two sides fought desperately, artillery and muskets bombarded each other, and finally the Qing army defeated Dzungaria by virtue of its strength advantage.
This victory not only prevented the eastward advance of Dzungaria, but also dealt a heavy blow to the separatist forces of the Mongol nomadic groups and defended the unity of the country.
Since the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, the Dzungar Ministry has been paying tribute to the Qing Dynasty, and the situation has been stable. However, in 1670, when Galdan succeeded to the Great Khan of Dzungaria, the situation began to change.
Galdan was born in the year when the Qing army entered the customs, and he studied Buddhism in ** since he was a child.
He defeated his political opponents with his fierce and swift political skills, successfully succeeded to the throne, and actively expanded abroad, successively defeating neighboring countries such as the Hoshute Tribe, Kazakhstan, and Yarkand Khanate.
After more than ten years of annexation, in 1683, the territory under the control of Dzungaria dominated almost the entire Central Asia and the Western Regions.
Galdan asked the Qing court for the title of "Boshoketu Khan" conferred by the Fifth Lama, but this did not grant him his wish, because according to the canonization tradition, he was not a descendant of Genghis Khan's family and was not eligible to use the title of Khan, so he was rejected by Kangxi.
This refusal caused a rift in the relationship between the Dzungar tribe and the Central Plains Dynasty. However, this was not the ultimate cause of the Qing Dynasty's enmity with Dzungaria. The real trigger was Galdan's coveting of the Khalkha tribes in Mobei.
In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, the Khalkha Mongols in Mobei were divided into three major tribes: the Zasaktu Khan, the Tushetu Khan, and the Chechen Khan. All three of these were subordinate to the Qing Dynasty.
However, in 1687, an internal conflict between Zasaktu Khan and Tushetu Khan over population and resources led directly to a civil war in Khalkha.
This is a great opportunity for Galdan, who is eyeing Mobei. So, in 1688, he led 30,000 cavalry to the east and launched an attack on the Khalkha tribes.
Tushetu Khan led his army to resist, but due to the large gap in strength, after three days of fierce fighting, the whole army was scattered. The Khalkha tribes could only flee south in panic and annex the Qing Dynasty. However, Galdan, carried away by the victory, was not satisfied.
He even wanted to completely expel the Qing Dynasty forces from Mongolia and make himself the overlord of the steppe.
In 1689, Galdan led 20,000 cavalry to the Xilin Gol League in eastern Inner Mongolia, as if crossing the entire Mongolian plateau from the Western Regions to challenge the authority of the Qing Dynasty.
In the face of the 20,000 Qing troops who came to stop him, Galdan showed his bravery and resourcefulness, and finally annihilated them all. This victory strengthened his ambitions, and he saw the Eight Banners Iron Cavalry as nothing more than a frail army with no appearance.
So, he continued his invasion of the south, all the way to the Xilinhot area, which was only a thousand miles away from Beijing.
He even flaunted his force outside the Great Wall, and the news spread to the mainland, causing great horror among the people of Beijing, whose shops closed and the price of rice increased to more than three taels.
Emperor Kangxi was even more troubled, because he found that Galdan had colluded with Tsarist Russia to form a pincer offensive, which put the Qing Dynasty into a passive situation of fighting on two fronts.
This directly led to Kangxi making territorial concessions in the Nebuchu negotiations to ease the strategic pressure in the northeast and enable him to deal with Galdan with all his might.
Kangxi's personal expedition to Ulan Butong: bloody fighting, breaking the "camel city" Galdan fled westward! In the face of strategic threats, Kangxi decided to drive the expedition in person, leading an army of 50,000 troops into Boluo and Tun to supervise the left and right armies.
He was accompanied by Kangxi's two uncles and important ministers of the imperial court, and the strategic intention was to capture and kill Galdan in one fell swoop by attacking from the left and right.
Although the battle was very difficult, Changning, the right army, was the first to encounter Galdan, and the two sides engaged in a fierce battle. Due to the lack of food and logistics support for the Qing army, the battle was lost and forced to retreat south.
The Dzungar army took advantage of the momentum to pursue, crossed the Shalamulun River, and approached Fuquan's left army. Despite the large size of the Qing army, it was not of high quality, and 50,000 of them were logistics troops.
Kangxi himself was also infected with the wind and cold and was unable to command it in person. In addition, Changning's defeat made Fuquan the key to the entire campaign.
In late August, Fuquan set up camp 40 miles away from Ulan Butong, forming 40 company camps, stretching for more than 60 miles and more than 20 miles wide, connected from end to end, like a mountain peak.
Galdan personally led 20,000 elite troops, tied thousands of camels to the ground, put boxes on their backs, and covered them with wet felt, forming a strong fortress and setting up a formation.
Because Ulan Butong Mountain is a small hill with steep cliffs and steep slopes, it is easy to defend and difficult to attack, coupled with a large number of smoothbore guns and artillery supported by Tsarist Russia in the Dzungar Department, which brought great pressure to the Qing army.
Faced with this difficult situation, Fuquan adjusted its deployment, with firearms as the front, infantry as the second, and cavalry as the two wings.
On the first day of August, the Battle of Ulan Butong officially began, and the Qing army concentrated artillery to carry out upward bombardment, and the Dzungar army did not show weakness to launch a bombardment with it.
In the Battle of Ulan Butong, the Qing army took full advantage of the condescending terrain and led crossbow cavalry and musketeers to charge down the slope.
However, the uncle Tong Guogang was killed instantly, causing the Qing army to fall into chaos and retreat in a hurry, resulting in a large number of soldiers killed and wounded.
Fuquan was very angry about this, and he reorganized the army and launched many **. Kaldan, on the other hand, relied on the camel city and fired bows and firearms to stop the Qing army's attack.
Although the musket technology of the Qing army still stayed at the end of the Ming Dynasty and could not match the Junggar army, due to its advantage in the number of firearms, it caused a certain amount of ** to the Dzungar department.
Subsequently, the Qing army adjusted its combat deployment, relying on the frontal charge of the infantry, the cavalry to attack from the left and right, and the artillery to cover a large area of fire, and finally, the "camel city" of the Dzungar army was completely destroyed, and Galdan was forced to shrink its forces to the top of the mountain.
However, the Qing army was not in a hurry to attack, and they chose to shoot at the Dzungar army below, trading time for victory. Obviously, the Qing army, which had a numerical superiority, gradually gained the upper hand, and the ammunition of the Dzungar division was exhausted.
At this time, Galdan saw that the situation was not good, so he used the strategy of delaying the army, pretending to sue for peace with Fuquan, and successfully stabilized Fuquan. Immediately afterwards, Galdan gathered his men and horses, crossed the Sarik River, fled northwest, and burned the meadows along the way to cut off the pursuers.
However, by the time Fuquan reacted, Galdan had already fled. Therefore, Fuquan could only order the division, and the Battle of Ulan Butong ended with the victory of the Qing army.
In the Battle of Zhaomoduo, although the Qing army was victorious, important generals such as his uncle Tong Guogang were unfortunately killed, and the number of the army exceeded that of the enemy.
However, Galdan's situation was even worse, as he unfortunately broke out of the plague on the way back, and lost more people than the Qing army killed.
To make matters worse, his nephew Arabutan took advantage of his absence to clear his lair, and even his wife and people were taken away. Faced with all this, the indignant Galdan decided to reorganize his army and fight again.
After nearly six years of recuperation, Galdan, unwilling to be defeated, personally led 30,000 cavalry to attack the Khalkha Chechen Khan in September 1695, and then marched east along the Khulun River, finally reaching Bayan-Ulan.
In order to completely eliminate the threat from the northern frontier, Kangxi decided to personally go to Dzungaria again. In February 1696, the Qing army gathered 100,000 men and attacked in three directions: eastern, central, and western.
Kangxi pro-rate 340,000 elite soldiers, out of the Dushikou to the north, the east road Sabusu led more than 9,000 people out of the Great Xing'an Mountains, the west road Feiyangu rate of 460,000 people went north from Guihua and Yinchuan respectively, crossed the desert to cut off the enemy's way back, and finally formed a three-way army to encircle and annihilate Galdan in one battle.
The battle plan was properly deployed, and the Qing army's three armies advanced almost in unison to avoid the danger of being attacked by the enemy, among which Kangxi's middle route army made relatively smooth progress, arriving at the Krulun River in early May and approaching the Kaldan camp.
Kangxi's dispatch of troops caught Galdan off guard, and he looked at the top of the mountain, only to see the Qing army camps dotted around, as if the heavenly soldiers were going down to earth. His heart was filled with panic, so he immediately abandoned his tent and apparatus and fled westward.
Kangxi naturally did not miss this excellent opportunity to completely annihilate Galdan, and he immediately ordered the vanguard troops to pursue closely, clenching like a hound.
Although Galdan resisted hard in the battle, he eventually lost nearly 10,000 men before he managed to escape the pursuit of the Central Route Army.
The battle between the Qing Dynasty and Dzungaria was fought at Zhaomodo, and Galdan and his wife Anukodun led more than 2,000 cavalry to storm the mountain, trying to thwart Feiyangu's main force and break through and escape.
Feiyangu divided the army into left and right flanks, and his general Sun Sike occupied the hill in the center, and Feiyangu commanded the army behind. The Qing army was condescending, arrows and crossbows and firearms were fired one after another, and the battle was very fierce.
Dzungaria suffered heavy losses, but they still fought tenaciously. The stalemate was broken, and Feiyangu made a surprise attack, attacking the flank and rear of the Dzungar army, forming a joint encirclement and flanking attack.
Under the attack of the three-way Qing army, the Dzungar army fell into chaos, and Galdan fought alone, unable to resist, so he could only flee. At this time, the Dzungar army was leaderless and quickly collapsed.
The Qing army at the top of the hill took advantage of the momentum and pursued from top to bottom, killing more than 3,000 people, including Galdan's wife, who himself managed to escape with only a few dozen cavalry.
After this battle, Galdan's rebel forces completely collapsed and could no longer compete with the Qing army. In order to completely eliminate the threat of Dzungaria, Kangxi personally made a third expedition in 1697 and crossed the Yellow River.
Galdan was already in a desperate situation, and his former base of Ili was taken away by his nephew Alabutan, and his cronies turned against him. There were only a few dozen people left around Galdan, and when there was no way out, he first refused Kangxi's persuasion to surrender, and then committed suicide by taking poison.
In this way, Kangxi's battle to quell the Galdan rebellion came to an end. Through the three expeditions to Galdan, Kangxi successfully pacified the powerful secession forces in northern Dzungaria.
Although it cannot be compared with the Han and Tang dynasties in terms of combat radius and difficulty, it is of great strategic significance.
The victory in this battle greatly consolidated the security of the northwest frontier, effectively safeguarded the reunification of the motherland, and laid the foundation for the complete pacification of Dzungaria during the Qianlong period.