Qianlong Emperor significant event Zunghar genocide
Frontier wars
The Qianlong Emperor was a successful military leader. Immediately after ascending the throne, he sent armies to suppress the Miao rebellion. His later campaigns greatly expanded the territory controlled by the Qing Empire. This was made possible not only by Qing military might, but also by the disunity and declining strength of the Inner Asian peoples.
Under the Qianlong Emperor's reign, the Dzungar Khanate was incorporated into the Qing Empire's rule and renamed Xinjiang, while to the west, Ili was conquered and garrisoned. The incorporation of Xinjiang into the Qing Empire resulted from the final defeat and destruction of the Dzungars (or Zunghars), a coalition of Western Mongol tribes. The Qianlong Emperor then ordered the Dzungar genocide. According to the Qing dynasty scholar Wei Yuan, 40% of the 600,000 Dzungars were killed by smallpox, 20% fled to the Russian Empire or Kazakh tribes, and 30% were killed by the Qing army, in what Michael Edmund Clarke described as "the complete destruction of not only the Zunghar state but of the Zunghars as a people." Historian Peter Perdue has argued that the decimation of the Dzungars was the result of an explicit policy of massacre launched by the Qianlong Emperor.The Dzungar genocide has been compared to the Qing extermination of the Jinchuan Tibetan people in 1776, which also occurred during the Qianlong Emperor's reign. When victorious troops returned to Beijing, a celebratory hymn was sung in their honour. A Manchu version of the hymn was recorded by the Jesuit Amoit and sent to Paris.The Qing Empire hired Zhao Yi and Jiang Yongzhi at the Military Archives Office, in their capacity as members of the Hanlin Academy, to compile works on the Dzungar campaign, such as Strategy for the pacification of the Dzungars (Pingding Zhunge'er fanglue). Poems glorifying the Qing conquest and genocide of the Dzungar Mongols were written by Zhao, who wrote the Yanpu zaji in "brush-notes" style, where military expenditures of the Qianlong Emperor's reign were recorded. The Qianlong Emperor was praised as being the source of "eighteenth-century peace and prosperity" by Zhao Yi.Khalkha Mongol rebels under Prince Chingünjav had plotted with the Dzungar leader Amursana and led a rebellion against the Qing Empire around the same time as the Dzungars. The Qing army crushed the rebellion and executed Chingünjav and his entire family.
Throughout this period there were continued Mongol interventions in Tibet and a reciprocal spread of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia. After the Lhasa riot of 1750, the Qianlong Emperor sent armies into Tibet and firmly established the Dalai Lama as the ruler of Tibet, with a Qing resident and garrison to preserve Qing presence. Further afield, military campaigns against Nepalese and Gurkhas forced the emperor into stalemate where both parties had to submit.
On 23 January 1751, Tibetan rebels who participated in the Lhasa riot of 1750 against the Qing were sliced to death by Qing Manchu general Bandi, similar to what happened to Tibetan rebels on 1 November 1728 during his father, the Yongzheng Emperor's reign. Six Tibetan rebel leaders plus Tibetan rebel leader Blo-bzan-bkra-sis were sliced to death. The rest of the Tibetan rebel leaders were strangled and beheaded and their heads were displayed to the Tibetan public on poles. The Qing seized the property of the rebels and exiled other Tibetan rebels. Manchu General Bandi sent a report to the Qing Qianlong emperor on 26 January 1751 on how he carried out the slicings and executions of the Tibetan rebels. The Tibetan rebels dBan-rgyas (Wang-chieh), Padma-sku-rje-c'os-a['el (Pa-t'e-ma-ku-erh-chi-ch'un-p'i-lo) and Tarqan Yasor (Ta-erh-han Ya-hsün) were sliced to death for injuring the Manchu ambans with arrows, bows and fowling pieces during the Lhasa riot when they assault the building the Manchu ambans (Labdon and Fucin) were in. Tibetan rebel Sacan Hasiha (Ch'e-ch'en-ha-shih-ha) was sliced to death for murder of multiple individuals. Tibetan rebels Ch'ui-mu-cha-t'e and Rab-brtan (A-la-pu-tan) were sliced to death for looting money and setting fire during the attack on the Ambans. Tibetan rebel Blo-bzan-bkra-sis, the mgron-gner was sliced to death for being the overall leader of the rebels who led the attack which looted money and killed the Manchu ambans. Two Tibetan rebels who had already died before the execution had their dead bodies beheaded, one died in jail, Lag-mgon-po (La-k'o-kun-pu) and the other killed himself since he was scared of the punishment, Pei-lung-sha-k'o-pa. Bandi sentenced to strangulation several rebel followers and bKra-sis-rab-brtan (Cha-shih-la-pu-tan) a messenger. He ordered the live beheadings of Man-chin Te-shih-nai and rDson-dpon dBan-rgyal (Ts'eng-pen Wang-cha-lo and P'yag-mdsod-pa Lha-skyabs (Shang-cho-t'e-pa La-cha-pu) for leading the attack on the building by being the first to go to on the staircase to the next floor and setting fire and carrying the straw to fuel the fire besides killing several men on orders from the rebel leader.In 1762 the Qianlong Emperor came close to war with the Afghan Emir Ahmad Shah Durrani because of Qing China's expansions in Central Asia. While Qing and Durrani Empire troops were sent near the frontier in Central Asia, war did not break out. A year later, Durrani sent an envoy to Beijing gifting four splendid horses to Qianlong, which became the subject of a series of paintings, Four Afghan Steeds. However, the Afghan envoy failed to make a good impression to Qianlong after refusing to perform the kowtow. Qianlong later refused to intervene in the Durrani Empire's killing of the Sultan of Badakhshan, who was a vassal of Qing China.
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