page_title: Dzungar Khanate
section_title: Khalkha war (1687–1688)
hierarchical_section_title: Dzungar Khanate / History / Khalkha war (1687–1688)
caption_attribution_description: English: Qing Dynasty, Khalkha and Dzungaria
context_page_description: The Dzungar Khanate, also written as the Zunghar Khanate, was an Inner Asian khanate of Oirat Mongol origin. At its greatest extent, it covered an area from southern Siberia in the north to present-day Kyrgyzstan in the south, and from the Great Wall of China in the east to present-day Kazakhstan in the west. The core of the Dzungar Khanate is today part of northern Xinjiang, also called Dzungaria.
  About 1620 the western Mongols, known as the Oirats, united in Dzungaria. In 1678, Galdan received from the Dalai Lama the title of Boshogtu Khan, making the Dzungars the leading tribe within the Oirats. The Dzungar rulers used the title of Khong Tayiji, which translates into English as "crown prince". Between 1680 and 1688, the Dzungars conquered the Tarim Basin, which is now southern Xinjiang, and defeated the Khalkha Mongols to the east. In 1696, Galdan was defeated by the Qing dynasty and lost Outer Mongolia. In 1717 the Dzungars conquered Tibet, but were driven out a year later by the Qing. In 1755, the Manchus took advantage of a Dzungar civil war to conquer Dzungaria and destroyed the Dzungars as a people.
context_section_description: The Oirats had established peace with the Khalkha Mongols since Ligdan Khan died in 1634 and the Khalkhas were preoccupied with the rise of the Qing dynasty. However, when the Jasaghtu Khan Shira lost part of his subjects to the Tüsheet Khan Chikhundorj, Galdan moved his orda near the Altai Mountains to prepare an attack. Chikhundorj attacked the right wing of the Khalkhas and killed Shira in 1687. In 1688, Galdan dispatched troops under his younger brother Dorji-jav against Chikhundorj but they were eventually defeated. Dorji-jav was killed in battle. Chikhundorj then murdered Degdeehei Mergen Ahai of the Jasaghtu Khan who was on the way to Galdan. To avenge the death of his brother, Galdan established friendly relations with the Russians who were already at war with Chikhundorj over territories near Lake Baikal. Armed with Russian firearms, Galdan led 30,000 Dzungar troops into Khalkha Mongolia in 1688 and defeated Chikhundorj in three days. The Siberian Cossacks, meanwhile, attacked and defeated a Khalkha army of 10,000 near Lake Baikal. After two bloody battles with the Dzungars near Erdene Zuu Monastery and Tomor, Chakhundorji and his brother Jebtsundamba Khutuktu Zanabazar fled across the Gobi Desert to the Qing dynasty and submitted to the Kangxi Emperor.
caption: Dzungar Khanate before Galdan's invasion of Khalkha in 1688
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