Torghut Migration

Kalmyk Exodus to Dzungaria
Part of Kalmyk-Russian Wars, Kazakh-Kalmyk Wars
Kalmyk exodus to Dzungaria. Engraving by Charles Michel Geoffroy, 1845.
Date 1771 Location Volga river, Emba river, Yaik river, Or, Sagyz rivers, Aktobe Region, Turgai River, Karaganda Region, Lake Balkhash, Russia and Kazakhstan Result Kalmyk migration to Dzungaria Liquidation of the Kalmyk Khanate Heavy raids and casualties on Kazakh Khanate and Russian Empire Territorial changes Annexation of the Kalmyk Khanate
Belligerents
Kalmyk Khanate	Russian Empire Supported by: Kazakh Khanate
Commanders and leaders
Ubashi Khan Various princes	Russian Empire: Catherine the Great General von Traubenberg Pirogov Goglazin † Kazakh Khanate: Nurali Khan Ablai Khan Yaman-Kary Aiguvak Dzhamankura (POW) Janatai Batyr Arkandar{{KIA}} Uysunbay
Strength
10,000	Russian Empire: 7,000 Kazakh Khanate: 50,000 batyrs
Casualties and losses
100,000	Heavy

The Torghut Migration or Kalmyk Exodus to Dzungaria (sometimes spelled Dusty Trek or Torgutsky Trek) is a mass migration in 1771 of Kalmyks, among who were mostly Torghuts, from the Volga River of the Russian Empire to the Qing Empire's Dzungaria in 1771.

Background

During the Final conquest of Dzungaria, Dzungar genocide resulted with attacking around 400 thousand Dzungar Mongolians(70%–80% of the Dzungar population, from both warfare and disease) and from that an emergence of refugees in the Kalmyk Khanate who agitated for the restoration of the Dzungar Khanate. One of the main proponents of migration to Dzungaria was Tsebek Dorji.

During the reigns of the khans Dondog taiyishi and Ubashi, the Russian government began to pursue a policy of limiting the khan's authority. In the 1760s, crisises intensified in the Kalmyk Khanate, associated with the colonization of lands by Russian landowners and peasants, the reduction of pasture lands, the infringement of the rights of the ruling elite, and the interference of the tsarist administration in Kalmyk affairs.

During the snowy and frosty winter of 1767–1768, livestock began to die off in the Kalmyk uluses. The people's misery was exacerbated by a 1768 decree prohibiting the sale of grain to Kalmyks in unauthorized locations. Mass famine ensued. The reduction of Kalmyk nomadic territories by government decrees led to the depletion of pastures. Livestock began to die off again in the uluses.

After the establishment of the fortified Tsaritsyn Line, Don Cossacks began to settle in the area of ​​the Kalmyks' main nomadic camps . The narrowing of the nomadic area exacerbated internal tensions within the khanate. Under these circumstances, the idea of ​​returning to the historical homeland Dzungaria, which was at that time under the rule of the Manchu Qing Empire became widespread .

The resettlement was prepared during 1767–1770 by the Torghut and Khoshut noyons, as well as the highest Buddhist clergy, who made an astrological forecast, determining a favorable year and month for the resettlement. In the autumn of 1770, Ubashi, returning from the Caucasian front of the Russo-Turkish War, held a meeting on the eastern bank of the Volga River, attended by Tsebek-Dorji, Sheareng, Bambar, Donduk taiyishi, Erempel and the Shajin Lama Luvsan-Chalchin. At the meeting, after a solemn oath was taken to "leave Russia and return to the east to the homeland," it was decided to begin action in the following year, 1771, in the year of the tiger.

Migrations and Conflicts

On January 5, 1771, the noyons, led by the young governor of the Kalmyk Khanate — Ubashi, roused the uluses roaming along the left bank of the Volga and began their migration to their historical homeland, Dzungaria. The Kalmyks (primarily Dörbets) were unable or unwilling to join the migration. The Russian government's reaction was relatively mild. Remembering the Kalmyks' past services to the Russian empire, the military officials sent merely begged them to remain. Thus, the Erketenevsky ulus was stopped.

Later, they had entered the Yaik river, The Yaik cossacks of the Vetlyaninskaya stanitsa, Goglazin, was killed in a floodplain along with several Cossacks. The Kalmyks killed, plundered, and burned everything they came across. The case file shows that in five places (the bazaar at the governor's house, Mitinsky, Nikolaevskaya Sloboda, from the colonists and Krasnoyarsk residents), goods, money, and livestock worth 607,945 rubles 25 kopecks were taken; 13 were killed, 102 were taken prisoner, 32 were wounded, and 8 people were missing. The Erketenevsky ulus, nomadic near Tsaritsyn, plundered the market and captured its people. When the ulus was repulsed from the general masses and returned from the Yaik, all those captured at the market were killed to prevent their involvement in the plundering. Krasnoyarsk commandant Pirogov reported on January 8 and 9 that Kalmyks were plundering gangs and threatening the city. Forty-four Yaik Cossacks, who had been fishing at Uzen, were all killed, and only one, Gavriil Chumakov, survived and returned.

On January 27, to counter the migration of the Kalmyks, the government of Catherine II sent a circular to the Yaik Cossacks, the governor of Orenburg, and the khans of the subject Kazakh jüzes. Nurali Khan demanded Russian cannons and a dragoon regiment to stop the Kalmyk advance. General von Traubenberg, in his report to the government, indicated that leaving Russian artillery and a dragoon regiment to assist Khan Nurali would mean their certain death, and was skeptical about the ability of the irregular militia of the Kazakh khans to independently, without the support of Russian troops, stop the Kalmyk army, which, according to him, with its own artillery and the combat experience of a regular army, would freely advance into the territory of its former nomadic camps in Dzungaria.

On February 18, the Ubashi's Kalmyks reached the banks of the Emba River. A peaceful rest on the Emba lasted until March 15, the Kalmyks were subjected to their first attack by the Kazakh detachment of Yaman-Kary, which was routed. Clashes between the Kalmyks and the Kazakhs occurred on the Or and Sagyz rivers, Aiguvak suddenly attacked the Myk lands, men, women and children were killed a total of 130 people were taken prisoner, and a considerable number were also driven away cattle. From March 18 to 23, there were a hundred new attacks by the Kazakhs, but already expect — The Kalmyks who gave them successfully repelled the attacks with heavy losses on both sides. Having united with Aiguvak, Khan Nuraly tried tried to attack the Kalmyks, but was forced to retreat. During the second Kalmyks clashed with Aiguvak's attacks with a certain batyr Dzhamankura, whom successfully defeated him, capturing his horses and people. The Kazakhs of the Junior jüz did not go further decided on open military clashes.

On April 12, a 7,000-strong corps under the command of Traubenberg set out from the Orsk Fortress (now part of Orenburg Oblast). Detachments from some other cities also set out, but their actions were unsuccessful due to late response and lack of supplies. In April 15, the Kalmyks passed the Mugodzhar Mountains (now Aktobe Region). On April 18, Ubashi attempted to negotiate with Khan Nurali. The Kalmyks' route then proceeded along the Turgai River. On May 13, von Traubenberg decided to cease the pursuit of Ubashi and return to the Ust-Uysk Fortress. A hurt Arkandar decided to try the same trick himself: he stole nine camels, but the Kalmyks noticed and rushed after him. When the pursuit began to catch up with Arkandar, he dropped behind the detachment to allow his men to reach their own, while he himself engaged the Kalmyks. Uysunbay, who was standing on a hilltop with his men, witnessed his brother's death.

Janatai Batyr, upon learning of his brother's death, was shocked. Enraged, he mounted his horse and rode toward the Kalmyks. He and his five hundred men invaded the Kalmyks camp, where 10,000 warriors were resting. All the Kazakhs perished. The battle was bloody. A great number of Kamlyks were killed. Almost all the horsemen faced certain death.

At the Karaganda Region, the Kazakhs again attacked the Kalmyks. In this battle, the Kazakh militia of Ablai Khan numbered about 50,000 horsemen. After this, the Kalmyks began to bypass Lake Balkhash from the north. In August, the Kalmyks reached the Chinese border on the Ili River. Ubashi's uluses were so weakened and exhausted that they could only await the mercy of the Chinese Emperor Qianlong. With that the Kalmyks were accepted as Chinese subjects on July 24.

Aftermath

Emperor Qianlong was pleased with the Torghuts’ migration, and claimed in a poem that all the Mongols had now became his vassals. Those Torghuts who had lived on the banks of the Volga since 1630 referred to the newcomers who had fled to them after the destruction of the Dzungar khanate as the New Torghuts. The Qing accordingly divided the Old and the New Torghuts, appointing zasags from among them after the precedent of the Mongol banner commanders. Ubashi obtained the honoured title of khan and was appointed the head of the League of the Ten Old Torghut Banners, while his subordinate chiefs received such honorary titles as Qinnwang, Junwang, beile, beise, gong, first-class tayiji. All through the nineteenth century, the Torghuts had their pastures in the north of the Tian Shan mountains and, as Qing subjects, received annual subsidies of Horses, cattle and sheep, Brick tea, Wheat and millet, Sheepskins, Calico, Cotton paper, Yurt, Silver - 400 poods (6.5 tons). Some of them even served at the imperial court in Beijing, having few if any contacts with the Muslims in the Tarim basin to the south.

Legacy

Monument to the return of the Torghuts in Korla, Xinjiang, PRC. Statue of Khan Ubashi in front and memorial tower behind.

• In Chinese historiography, the return of the Torghuts is viewed as the "zenith of the Qing Dynasty" and the concluding stage of the "gathering of the lands and tribes of Central Asia". These events have been depicted in the PRC in the film "Wobaxi Khan" (2005) and the 30-episode TV series "Heroes Return to the East" (2008).
• In 1837, Thomas De Quincey published the book "Revolt of the Tartars: Or, Flight of the Kalmuck Khan and His People from the Russian Territories to the Frontiers of China", which narrates the exodus from a pro-Chinese perspective in a characteristically ornate style with an abundance of hyperbole. This text has been republished many times. It has not been translated into Russian.
• The second of eight chapters in Sergei Yesenin's poem "Pugachev" (1921) is dedicated to the Kalmyk exodus.
• "Asarai. The Command of the Gods" is a historical novel by the Dutch orientalist Carl Barkman, published in 1997. As early as 1955, in a scholarly article on the flight of the Torghuts, Barkman summarized its outcome as follows:

• Both groups, those who remained and those who departed, found themselves under foreign rule, although, as the future showed, the latter enjoyed greater freedom to enjoy nomadic life, preserve their customs, and practice Buddhism than their brethren on the Volga. In any case, the Torghuts ceased to exist as an independent people.

References

Sources

• Clarke, Michael Edmund (2004). In the Eye of Power: China and Xinjiang from the Qing Conquest to the 'New Great Game' for Central Asia, 1759–2004 (PDF) (PhD). Brisbane, Queensland: Dept. of International Business & Asian Studies, Griffith University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 April 2008.
• Perdue, Peter C. (30 June 2009). China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674042025. Search this book on

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