From Hovd Travel in Mongolia
King Amarsanaa
Amarsanaa was the last major King of Zuungaria (Western Mongolia) who from 1755-1757 led a series of uprisings against the Qing Dynasty and its emperor Qianlong. These uprisings were mercilessly crushed by Qianlong, and Zuungaria fell under Manchurian control for the next 150 years. The following is an account of his relatively brief, but adventurous life.
It might be useful to start by explaining that in Amarsanaa's time the Mongolian people were not a united entity. They were split into Khalkh Mongolia (in the east), Zuungaria (in the west), and Inner Mongolia (in present-day China). The Khalkhs are the ethnic majority in Mongolia, and the Zuungarians were a confederation of several smaller Oirat tribes in western Mongolia and in China's present-day Xinjiang province who united in the early 1600's to battle the much more numerous Khalkh Mongols.
Amarsanaa, whose name means something like "Peaceful Soul" in English, was born in 1723, a time in which Khalkh Mongolia (in the east) had already fallen under the control of the Manchurian Qing Dynasty. His father Uizen was a Khoit nobleman (the Khoit are a fairly minor Oirat tribe, who were at the time subordinate to the Durvud, a larger Oirat tribe), and this was his mother Botlag's second marriage: her first husband was killed in 1717, about 3 years after they were married. This is a matter of fairly minor import, except that the Qing Emperor Qianlong would later suggest that Amarsanaa was conceived before Botlag married the Khoit chieftain, and as such, he could not legitimately claim to be a chieftain of the Khoit. Given the fairly obvious motivation for Qianlong to make such a de-stabilizing claim about a troublesome nemesis, most historians have dismissed this claim. It should be noted that Amarsanaa's mother Botlog was the daughter of another Zuungarian King named Tseveenravdan, who was himself the grandson of Erdenebaatar, the first of the Zuungarian Kings (please refer to the diagram below); but because Amarsanaa was connected to the bloodline of the Zuungarian Kings through his mother, and not his father, his connection was viewed as being insubstantial compared to someone who was connected via his father.
The events that allowed Amarsanaa, a Khoit man of inauspicious origin, to become a King of Zuungaria started in 1745, when Galdan Tseren, the recently-deceased Zuungarian King passed over his 19 year-old son Lama Dorj in his will, in favor of his 14 year-old son Tseveendorj. The elder son was passed over because his was viewed as a low birth, his mother had apparently been a commoner with whom Galdan Tseren coupled with only briefly. But the choice of the younger Tseveendorj proved to be a poor one, as the teenage king neglected affairs of state and instead devoted his attention to binge drinking, seducing women, and killing dogs. Fed up with his younger brother's antics, Lama Dorj led a group of noblemen and seized the young king, put out his eyes, and sent him into what his now Xinjiang province in China where he was eventually executed.
King Lama Dorj's time on the throne was imperiled from the start, as grumblings about the new king's low birth convinced a man named Davatsi (grandson of Tserendondov, a Mongolian general who invaded Tibet in 1717 and destroyed numerous monasteries; to this day, the incursion is still infamous to Tibetans) to lead a new group of conspirators to depose Lama Dorj in favor of his remaining brother Tseevendash, who was perhaps 9 years-old at this time.
Lama Dorj discovered the plot and quickly defeated Davatsi, who fled westward into Kazakh territory with 12 of his followers; among them was Amarsanaa. The group found refuge amongst the Kazakh Middle Horde of Sultan Ablai, who sensed that a civil war within the Zuungars could weaken the kingdom, which might prove to be to the Sultan's advantage. As such, Sultan Ablai greatly encouraged Davatsi and Amarsanaa, and even gave Amarsanaa one of his daughters as a wife.
Amarsanaa snuck back to his Khoit tribe, north of the city of Ili in Xinjiang, and rounded up an army of 1,000 men. This force, along with some Kazakh troops sent by the Sultan, marched on King Lama Dorj at Ili. On January 13, 1752 this modest-sized army caught Lama Dorj by surprise and defeated him. In the aftermath of the coup, as could probably have been predicted, the victor Davatsi refused to relinquish power to the not-yet-even-teenage Tseevendash, and assumed the role as the King of the Zuungars.
Davatsi proved to be a drunken and incompetent ruler, and Amarsanaa demanded that he and Davatsi divide the rule of the Zuungars between them. But Davatsi flatly rejected this offer, he was a direct descendent of the great Erdenebaatar, founder of the Zuungarian Khaanate, and he was not about to share power equally with the son of minor Khoit nobleman. Very quickly the two became deadly enemies, and in 1754 Amarsanaa, along with 5,000 soldiers and 20,000 women and children broke away from the Zuungars and fled to Khalkh Mongolia, which had been ruled by the Manchurian Qing Dynasty since 1691.
Here, Amarsanaa swore allegiance to the Qing Emperor Qianlong. For the time being, the hatred between the Zuungars and the Qing was put aside, though it was the Qing Emperor Kangxi who had hounded the great Zuungarian King Galdan Boshogt to his death in 1697. With Amarsanaa as an ostensibly loyal subject, Qianlong at last saw a way to complete the task started by Kangxi and subdue the Zuungars, the last major group of nomads on China's border still maintaining their independence. To solidify Amarsanaa's loyalty, Qianlong granted him and his followers land on the Orkhon River in Mongolia's present day Uvurkhangai Aimag, then declared him as a prince of the first degree.
In 1755, Qianlong decided it was time to move forward with the extermination of the Zuungarian Kingdom, and appointed Amarsanaa as assistant commander of the Northern Route Army, under the general command of Bandi, an Eastern Mongol from Chinggis Khaan's own clan. The army, which numbered about 100,000 was made up in large part of Khalkh Mongols, and was also supplied largely from Khalkh provisions. Thus, Qianlong was using the Eastern Mongols to rid himself of the Western Mongols.
The Northern Route Army left Uliastai in Mongolia's present day Zavkhan aimag in March of 1755 and by early summer linked up with the Western Route Army, also numbering about 100,000 under the command of the Chinese General Yung Ch'ang. The armies converged on the city of Ili in China's present day Xinjiang province and took it without a fight. Most of the Zuungars simply surrendered in the face of such an over-whelming force. The Zuungarian King Davatsi and a band of followers finally confronted the army south of Ili on June 20th but were quickly defeated. Davatsi evaded capture for some time, but was eventually seized and handed over to Amarsanaa, who passed him along to Qianlong. In Beijing, Davatsi was paraded as a captive, but was then granted a princedom of the first degree and given a mansion north of Beijing. He was alive, in comfortable accomodations, but utterly powerless. He devoted himself to his original ruinous habit of drinking and died in 1759.
The original agreement between Amarsanaa and Qianlong was that after Davatsi's defeat, each of the Oirat tribes would be allowed to live on their traditional land under a ruler appointed by the Qing Emperor (for example, Amarsanaa was to be made the ruler of his Khoit tribe), but the Zuungars were no longer to have a position as powerful as a King amongst their ranks. But now Amarsanaa revealed his much greater ambitions. Why should he be satisfied ruling only the minor little Khoit tribe? He had helped the Qing defeat the Zuungarian King, so why shouldn't he assume the role of the ruler of all the Zuungars? Amarsanaa told Bandi to inform Qianlong that he demanded to be made overall ruler of the Zuungars. Upon hearing of this brazen deviation from the original plan, Qianlong ordered Bandi to seize Amarsanaa and bring him to Beijing. Amarsanaa was taken into custody, but on September 24, 1755 his escort allowed him to escape and he fled into the Kazakh steppe to seek refuge with his father-in-law Sultan Ablai. The commander of this escort, who was a direct descendent of Chinggis Khaan, was tried and executed for aiding Amarsanaa.
Believing that the Zuungars had been conquered and that their only claimant to the throne was living in exile, Qianlong recalled most of the 200,000 man army from Zuungaria, leaving only a small detachment with General Bandi. With the land unattended, Amarsanaa snuck back into Zuungaria, rallied the Oirat princes and incited a rebellion. The newly-reunited Oirats quickly defeated the small Qing detachment, and Bandi, realizing the hopelessness of his position committed suicide on October 4, 1755. Amarsanaa took control of Ili and laid claim to all of Zuungaria, a short time later his followers named him the new (and ultimately the final) Zuungarian King.
Qianlong dispatched an army to Zuungaria and Ili once again fell to the formidable Qing army in late March 1756, but Amarsanaa again fled westward into present day Kazakhstan. Sultan Ablai refused to hand over his son-in-law to the Qing, and Qianlong, furious that Amarsanaa had escaped again dismissed the generals of the army and again recalled most of the troops to China (leaving, as before, only a small detachment at Ili).
In late 1757, Amarsanaa popped up again in Zungaria, rallied the Oirat princes and retook Ili. Qianlong was livid, and his retalliation for this continued provocation would prove cataclysmic to the world of the Zuungars. This was the third time Qianlong had thought the Zuungarian problem was resolved, only to have Amarsanaa derail his designs each time. To make matters worse for the Emperor, not only was Zuungaria in revolt, but his subjects in Khalkh Mongolia (a Qing territory since 1691) were beginning to stage uprisings of their own. The Khalkhs were upset over the deteriorating condition of their country; meeting the demands of the Qing army's campaigns had stripped the land of most of the able-bodied men, as well as horses and food. Harsh winters in 1755 had impoverished many herdsmen, and a small-pox epidemic raged. Disaffected Khalkh Mongols started to follow the lead of the Zuungarians in the west and joined in the revolutionary cause.
This was when Amarsanaa's plans became clearer to see. He had allied himself with the Qing in order to help rid Zuungaria of its incompetent drunkard of a king, and then planned to start an uprising that would throw the Qing out of not just Zuungaria, but also Khalkh Mongolia. While preparing with the Northern Route Army back in 1755, Amarsanaa had met with noblemen and rulers to co-ordinate uprisings against the Qing in both Zuungaria and Khalkh Mongolia. But the Khalkh side of the plot was exposed before the idea could gain momentum, and many of the conspirators (including Chingunjav, the head of the rebellion amongst the Khalkhs, just as Amarsanaa was the head of the rebellion amongst the Zuungars) were captured, taken to Beijing, subjected to ghastly tortures, and then publicly executed.
Qianlong had intended for the executions to impress upon the Mongolians the price to be paid for rebelling agains the Qing and sap their revolutionary spirit; but his actions had entirely the opposite effect. As word of the executions reached Mongolia, still more insurrections broke out. But for some reason, the Bogd Gegeen (the top ranked lama in Mongolia and the head of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia) refused to support the rebellion, as did many of Mongolia's noblemen who were used to receiving perks from the Qing government. Without the support of those who had the power to sway so many others into action, the revolt was doomed.
In 1757, Qianlong amassed an army of 400,000 men and sent it west to finally deal with the incurably rebellious Amarsanaa and the Zuungars. Kelsang Gyatso, the 7th Dalai Lama of Tibet, asked the Oirats to stay loyal to the Chinese as part of their religious duties, which was quite a turnaround from the days of the 5th Dalai Lama who had whole-heartedly backed his one-time disciple King Galdan Boshogt in his battle against the Qing.
The enormous Qing army seized Ili with no trouble and quickly subdued most of the Oirats, except for Amarsanaa yet again. With only 2,500 soldiers left he made a last-ditch stand against a detachment of Qing soldiers and held them at bay for 17 days. Then at the end of June 1757 he simply disappeared. Not until November 1, 1757 did the Qing authorities find out that he had gone to Russia, but by then he was already dead. Qing officials were able to piece together that after disappearing from Zungaria, he had gathered 4,000 followers and fled toward the Kazakh steppe to seek protection from Sultan Ablai. But by now the Sultan recognized the authority of the Qing Dynasty and was under strict orders not to aid Amarsanaa. He then fled to Russia and in Tobolsk (Western Siberia) he fell ill to small pox and died on September 21, 1757. He was only 35 at the time, a man who had stood up time and time again to the greatest power in East Asia and in the end had eluded capture. His Zuungarian brethren would not be so lucky.
Qianlong was unconvinced that his old adversary was really dead. He demanded that Russian officials return his body to China so it could be properly identified. The Russians refused, but offered to send the body to Selenginsk in Siberia to allow Qing officials to examine it there. Qianlong was furious with the Russians' refusal to send him the body, he halted trade between China and Russia and threatened to send his armies into Russia. This threat was taken seriously enough that a fortress wall was built to protect Irkutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia. By March of 1758 Qianlong had cooled down, and he finally arranged for a delegation to go to Selenginsk to examine the remains. They determined that it was indeed Amarsanaa's body, and with the question of Amarsanaa settled, Qianlong turned his attention to the Oirats of Zuungaria who had revolted time and time again.
For the next two years Qing soldiers went on a rampage, tracking down and killing every Oirat man, woman, and child they could find. They burned their homes and slaughtered their livestock. Figures vary, but some sources estimate 500,000-600,000 Oirat people died, which would mean that only 10% of the original Oirat population survived the onslaught. Only when Dawa Achi, Amarsanaa's successor and the last of the Zuungarian kings, died in 1759 that Qianlong called an end to the slaughter. After existing for 124 years in Western Mongolia, the Zuungarian Kingdom went out of existence forever.
In the aftermath of the retribution handed down by Qianlong, some began to regard Amarsanaa as an evil man. After all, it was his actions that led the Zuungarian Kingdom to become desolate and destroyed. Qianlong made an example of him, proclaiming that Amarsanaa's actions had "caused so much harm to so many", and therefore his name was "not to be uttered ever again".
The passage of time has vindicated Amarsanaa, and he is now included amongst the Mongolian heroes regarded as true warriors who fought for Mongolia while others caved into the Qing. A statue of Amarsanaa on horseback commemorates the last of the Zuungarian Kings in Hovd City's Secret Park. Years later, an almost mythically powerful madman by the name of Dambijantsan would claim to be the reincarnation of Amarsanaa, and would help liberate Mongolia from the Qing once and for all.
This page would not have been possible without the information posted on Don Croner's website, enormous chunks of this page have been paraphrased from his work. Please visit his site for further reading, as it is an outstanding resource for information on Mongolian history.
