Galdan Boshugtu Khan
As tensions between Dzungar and Khalkha Mongols grew, Zanabazar attempted to pacify the Dzungar leader Galdan Boshugtu Khan with gifts of his artwork and sacred texts. In 1686 he attended a peace conference at the behest of the Kangxi Emperor to reach a reconciliation with the Dzungars. Despite these efforts, skirmishes and vendettas soon led to all-out war. As Galdan's forces swept eastward into Khalka territory in 1688, Zanabazar and nearly 20,000 Khalkha refugees fled south into present day Inner Mongolia to seek the protection of the Qing Emperor. In pursuit, Dzungar forces pillaged Erdene Zuu and destroyed several monasteries built by Zanabazar. Under Zanabazar's authority, the three Khalkha rulers declared themselves Qing vassals at Dolon Nor (the site of Shangdu, the pleasure palace of the Yuan Emperors) in 1691, a politically decisive step that officially ended the last remnants of the Yuan dynasty and allowed the Qing to assume the mantle of the Genghisid khans, merging the Khalkha forces into the Qing army. Motivated by the appeals of Zanabazar, whom he greatly admired, as well as the threat posed by a strong, unified Mongol state under Dzungar rule, the Kangxi Emperor dispatched Qing armies north to subdue the Galdan's forces.