Ligdan Khan

Ligdan Khan (* 1592, † 1634) was the last independent Khan of the Mongols. With his fall the Mongolia assumed successively the Manchu rule.

Government

Ligdan Khan came from the descendants of Batu Khan's eldest son Mongke Dayan Toro Bolod († 1523) and as such was nominally the Khan of the Mongols, since this dignity was passed down in his family. In practice, however, he was only the tribal leader of the Chakhar the Liao River ( in Liaodong ). He dominated the left, that is, the eastern wing of the Mongols, and the other Mongol tribes resisted his claims to power, as it was to those of his immediate predecessors. Similar to his relatives in the Khalka, Tümed and Ordos Ligdan Khan was a patron of Lamaism in Mongolia.

The Khan struggled unsuccessfully since 1619 to combat the growing pressure of the Manchu under Nurhaci († 1626 ) and Hung Tayiji (also: Abahai, † 1643). In that year, Nurhaci had destroyed the Yehe - Jurchen to which the Khan maintained a marriage alliance, and also achieved an impressive military success against Ming China. Ligdan warned then Nurhaci in a letter, but was not impressed and counted it to him in a letter of reply its military weakness before (1619 /20).

First, both sides avoided the war against each other, trying instead to secure the military superiority through complex alliances and counter- alliances with the Mongols tribes. It seems as if Ligdan Khan and his tribe in these rivalries demonstrated little sensitivity. He took his followers arbitrarily herds and families away and was not able to subordinate his subjects in a peaceful way, but held it together by force. The mid- 1620s began Ligdan Khan's support among the left wing seriously to wane and his vendetta against the apostates were unsuccessful, as he had to reckon with the reaction of the Manchu and the indignation of other Mongol leaders. In 1628 he suffered a severe defeat against the tribes of the right wing: Qaracin, Tümed and Ordos, who were joined by the abaya and numerous Khalka. At the beginning of the 1630s left him more groups of the left wing.

As Hung Tayiji officially told him in the spring of 1632 the war, his power base was already eroded and he was supported only by the Northern Khalka that Chogtu († 1637 ) had been responsible. Ligdan Khan had his Chakhar ( approx 100,000 people ) to flee and died, followed by a Manchu army, 1634 at Kukunor. His widow and minor children of Ejei and Abunai were then at the mercy of various interests, and fell into the hands of the Manchus. Ejei (1622-1641) gave Hung Tayiji doing that - supposedly rediscovered by wonderful circumstances - Yuan Empire seal and thus the Khanate.