The Manchu Solved the Northern Barbarian Problem

Part 3 of the Series on China’s 2,000 year effort to deal with the Northern Barbarians

(Pictured: the Kangxi Emperor, ready to go out on yet another campaign into Mongolia)

This is Part 3 of a 4 part series. See Part 1, the Problem - Part 2, the Wars and Walls of the Ming - Part 4, the Northern Barbarians

For a related series on Chinese attitudes towards their military see The Song, Ming, and Qing efforts to built a functional army - Part 1.

The Manchu Strategy for Beating the Mongols

As mentioned in Part II, the Ming spent 175 years building their Ming Wall, to keep the Mongols at bay. Then, starting in 1625, the Manchu armies blasted holes in the Ming’s expensive and ineffective wall, and shattered the Ming government over the next twenty years.

Once the Manchu took over all of China - which took them 16 years (finally killing the last Ming pretenders around 1660), the Manchu - having named themselves the Qing Dynasty - had to deal with the Mongols.

The Qing Strategy was based on two concepts:

1. They would prevent the Mongols from attacking them by bringing many of them into their government - sort of.

2. They would destroy any Mongol tribes that refused to submit to the Qing authority.

No previous Chinese dynasty had attempted (or been interested) in the first strategy, of bringing the Mongols into the government. As far as the Chinese were concerned, the Mongols were Northern Barbarians - savages - without learning, without cultivation, without any civilized qualities. Note: Li Shimin of Tang did contemplate making the Northern Barbarians a full part of his state when he conquered the Western Turks. However, his advisors persuaded him to leave the Western Turks as a subservient client state.

The previous Chinese dynasties that attempted to destroy rebellious northern barbarian tribes sent many armies into Mongolia which were defeated. The Tang and the early Ming were the only Chinese states which had real success in military operations in central or northern Mongolia.

The core military problem is easy to state: the Mongols never had a fixed point which they had to defend. Since they built no cities, all their land was, in a sense, the same. They could retreat away from the Chinese army for weeks or months. Since the Mongols had the best horses, and perfect conditions for raising horses, the Mongol armies were incredibly fast, and dangerous. Chinese armies were usually slow, with lots of supplies, wagons, and infantry. So, when the Chinese gave up chasing the Mongols due to lack of supplies or the approach of winter, the Mongols would simply flow back to the lands they lived in. If necessary, the Mongols could retreat all the way to the great northern forests surrounding Lake Baikal - where no Chinese army could possibly follow them.

The Manchu Treated the Mongols who Joined them as Near-Equals

The Manchu, claiming descent from the Jin Dynasty, the Liao Dynasty, and even the ancient Korean kingdom of Balhae - asserted they were not Chinese. The Manchu, under their founder Nurhaci, told the Mongols: together, we can reconquer China. Nurhaci married several high ranking women from the Khalkha tribe and other Manchu noblemen did the same. Hong Taiji married 12 of his daughters off to other Mongol nobles to further cement relations. Later Qing Huangdi followed these same policies.

When the Manchu established 15 garrison cities in China, they established one section for Manchu Bannermen, and another section for Mongol Bannermen in each city. Allied Mongol tribes formed a key part of the Manchu northern armies.

Note that the Manchu did not actually include the Mongols in their decision-making process. The Mongols did not know how to read or write and were of no use in managing the government of the Qing state. The Mongols were exclusively used because of their military prowess. Never-the-less, this junior partnership was deemed good enough by most Mongols.

Mongols Who Didn’t Submit Were Destroyed

The Manchu made the choice for the Mongols very stark: submit to our authority, or die. The powerful Chahar Mongol clan refused to submit to rule by the upstart Manchus. So Hong Taiji sent his army against them in 1628 and again in 1632 - defeating the Chahars. For 30 years the surviving Chahar leaders pretended to be loyal allies of the Manchu but they rebelled again in 1675, at the same time as the revolt by Wu Sangui. In response, the Kangxi Emperor defeated the Chahars again, and executed all of the Chahar chieftains. That was the end of the Chahar tribe.

The Kangxi Emperor was the most militarily-minded ruler of China since the Hongwu Huangdi of the Ming. The Kangxi Emperor sent armies into western Mongolia, starting with his wars against Gladan in 1690 and only stopping at age 67, just before he died in 1721. The Kangxi Emperor went in person on many of these campaigns into Western Mongolia, risking his life and potentially the Qing Empire each time.

Unlike all previous Chinese armies, the Kangxi’s army was a mix of Manchu and Mongol cavalry. His army was nearly all cavalry, and it could move very fast, The Qing even developed some lightweight cannons, creating an early version of the Horse Artillery used by the major European nations in the Napoleonic wars. Consequently, the Qing army was capable of chasing down any retreating Mongols, and they could fight them on nearly even terms when they turned and fought a battle.

Time after time, the Manchu-Mongol army of the Qing was able to force enemy Mongol tribes into battles, which the Qing usually won. By 1760 the last of the independent Mongol hordes, the Zunghar Mongols, had been destroyed. The Qing - and thus by extension China - had finally defeated the Northern Barbarians.

The Russian Empire Played an Important Role

A significant factor in the Qing ability to completely subdue the Mongols was the appearance of the Russian army in the far north. From 1580 to 1780, Russian explorers, traders, and soldiers advanced steadily across Siberia, taking control - to a limited degree - over a vast region of Asia. Today, Russia still controls nearly all of Siberia.

From the end of the last ice age, ~15,000 years ago, Siberia had been occupied by a small number of primitive hunter-gatherer tribes. Barely surviving in the forests during the deadly cold winters, these people hunted and fished throughout the short summers, stocking up enough food to survive in log huts for nearly half a year when snow and ice ruled the Siberian forests. Russia’s conquest of Siberia was largely unopposed. The Russians traded very useful iron tools, hunting equipment, and new types of food to the Siberian natives in exchange for animal pelts which sold well in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Every 200 miles, the Russians would build a fort/trading post and tell the local tribes, The Czar of Russia now owns all this land! The Russians had guns, medicine, Christianity, alcohol, and sugar - this was all they needed. By 1680, the Russians had come into contact with the furthest edges of Qing patrols in eastern Mongolia.

The Kangxi Emperor, displaying his usual foresight, managed to have a treaty negotiated by one of his top aides, with Jesuits from Peking, negotiating with Russian Jesuits using Latin as the common language. This was the Treaty of Nerchinsk, the first treaty the Chinese had signed with an equal power in 600 years. Although the border defined by the treaty didn’t extend below the Siberian forests, it meant that the Russians would not let the Mongols retreat safely into the far north any longer. In addition, the Russians had good reason to remain on friendly terms with the Qing governments, so they refused all requests for assistance or trade from the Western Mongols, when the Qing started their attacks on them.

Other Factors in Qing Success

Gunpowder, and improved technology clearly played a role. The Mongols didn’t have gunpowder and couldn’t easily make it. The Mongols didn’t have any industry and had no ability to make guns or cannons. They could buy some guns from the Durrani Empire, but the Zunghar had fought wars with them so they were hardly on good terms.

The in-person leadership by the Kangxi Emperor was doubtless a huge factor in the success of the Qing efforts. The Kangxi Emperor is generally regarded as one of the most capable rulers in all of Chinese history. He was a brilliant man, without any weaknesses and he both lived and ruled for a very long time. The army under his command fought hard and fought well.

In the 1750s, the Qianlong Emperor ordered his Manchu-Mongol army to utterly destroy the Zunghar Mongols - who had once again rebelled against Qing authority. This time, the Zunghar were hunted down and largely exterminated. The Qing took most of the land which they captured from the now defunct Zunghar Khanate, while Russia took the rest.

Conclusion

Can we really say the Chinese finally defeated the Northern Barbarians? Not really. To a large degree, the Manchu were not Chinese. Instead, they were a successful hybrid Northern & Chinese military power. The Manchu used Chinese technology, Chinese medicine, and Chinese organizational skills to maintain their armies on campaign. The Qing then used allied Mongol cavalry units to chase down and battle the Western - Zunghar Mongols.

It turned out the solution to the problem of the Northern Barbarians was:

1. Take outright control over part of Mongolia, and make the Mongols living there your military allies.

2. Send Mongolian-style armies into the other parts of Mongolia and kill all who refuse to surrender.

3. Maintain a constant military presence in Mongolia. Never let it slip from your control.

4. Support the creation of a Western power (like Russia) which will control the Western side of the Eurasian steppes.

None of these steps were easy or even possible for earlier Chinese Dynasties to accomplish.

Sources:

The main source as of 2022 is Peter Perdue’s masterpiece: China Marches West (2005). Additional sources are the Cambridge History of China: the Chi’ng Dynasty, Mote‘s book Imperial China 800-1800 and many more.

This is Part 3 of a 4 part series. See Part 1, the Problem - Part 2, the Wars and Walls of the Ming - Part 4, the Northern Barbarians

For a related series on Chinese attitudes towards their military see The Song, Ming, and Qing efforts to built a functional army - Part 1.