Ligdan Khan
After the invitation of the 3rd Dalai Lama to Mongolia and conversion of Altan Khan, king of the Tümed Mongols in 1578, nearly all Mongols had become Buddhist within 50 years, including tens of thousands of monks, almost all followers of the Gelug school and loyal to the Dalai Lama. During Hong Taiji's campaign against the last Mongol khan Ligdan Khan, he took on more and more the trappings of a universal king, including the sponsorship of the Tibetan Buddhism that the Mongols believed in. In private however, he viewed the belief in the Buddhist faith by the Mongols with disdain and thought to be destructive to Mongol identity; he said "The Mongolian princes are abandoning the Mongolian language; their names are all in imitation of the lamas". The Manchu leaders themselves like Hung Taiji did not personally believe in Tibetan Buddhism and did not want to convert, in fact the words "incorrigibles" and liars" were used to describe the Lamas by Hung Taiji, however Hung Taiji patronized Buddhism in order to exploit the Tibetans and Mongols belief in the religion. According to the Manchu historian Jin Qicong, Buddhism was used by Qing rulers to control Mongolians and Tibetans; it was of little relevance to ordinary Manchus in the Qing dynasty.