unclear

Chapter 791: The Oirat Tribes
When it comes to Mongolia, it is easy to get confused. Sometimes there is Mongolia in the north of the desert, sometimes there is Mongolia in the south of the desert, and now there is East and West Mongolia. It is indeed very complicated. The reason is that Mongolia is not a nation in the narrow sense, but a general name for a group of northern nomadic peoples.

The Mongolian tribes in the north of the desert can also be called Khalkha Mongolia, and later called Outer Mongolia. The five Khalkha tribes that formed an alliance with Ligdan Khan were a branch of the Khalkha Mongols. They were not happy with their lives in Outer Mongolia and were always bullied. So they moved to the south of the desert and became part of the left wing of the Mongolian tribes in the south of the desert.

This is why the Mongolian tribes are difficult to remember. Unlike the Han people, they can migrate whenever they want. They may migrate as a whole, or only part of them, and they may even change their names when they arrive somewhere else.

The Han people are not like that. Shandong is Shandong, no matter who occupies it. When asked where you are from, you can say "I am from Fujian". These few simple words clearly express the ethnicity and region, making it easy to remember.

When Mongolia was unified, that is, during the Genghis Khan era, there was no distinction between northern and southern Mongolia, eastern and western Mongolia. There were only names of tribes that were distinguished according to bloodline and close relationship.

When the Yuan Dynasty was defeated by the Ming Dynasty and retreated step by step to its birthplace, which is north of the Khalkha River (Khara River), the Han people gave them geographical names in order to distinguish them easily.

Later, the Mongolian tribes that retreated to the northern desert recovered, and the Ming Dynasty gradually declined. Therefore, some Mongolian tribes that fled to the north considered whether to develop southward. For example, the Chahar, Tumed, and Kharchin tribes gradually returned to the south of the Khalkha River and were called the Southern Mongolians by the Han people.

What is that thing about? This has to mention another northern nomadic tribe that rose in the early Ming Dynasty, the Oirat, also known as the Oirat or the Oirat.

They originally lived in the forests in the upper reaches of the Yenisei River and near Lake Baikal. Similar to the Jurchens, they were not a purely nomadic tribe, but made their living by fishing and hunting.

Oirat means "people in the forest". It does not refer to a certain tribe, but a general term for a large group of small tribes living here, and it is a general term for them by outsiders. Oirat is just the most populous tribe among them, and it has come to represent all the tribes living in the nearby woods.

Before Genghis Khan unified Mongolia, the Oirat people were his enemies and firmly opposed the invasion of Mongolia. But in the end, they were no match for him and were conquered by Jochi.

At that time, there were still the Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty in the south. In order to stabilize the rear area, Genghis Khan married his daughter to the leader of the Oirat Mongols, allowed him to continue to lead the people in the forest, and granted him the title of Four Thousand Households.

As the Mongol Empire made many westward expeditions, the Oirat tribes dispersed to various places along the way and multiplied and thrived. Relying on their marriage relationship with the Golden Family, they annexed and integrated many Turkic tribes and gradually grew stronger.

The Yuan Dynasty was defeated by the Ming Dynasty, and the authentic Mongolian tribes suffered heavy losses and were unable to maintain the so-called orthodoxy of the Golden Family. The Oirat tribe saw an opportunity and immediately marched south, crossed the Altai Mountains and occupied the northwest region. In order to distinguish between the two nomadic peoples, the Ming Dynasty called them Oirat and Tatar.

At that time, the main target of the Ming Dynasty was definitely the Northern Yuan Dynasty, that is, the Tatar Mongols. So they thought of a lazy way to attack together with the Oirat.

Under the double blow, the Tatar tribes suffered heavy losses. The Battle of Yijinai that Yuan Keli just mentioned was that the Ming Dynasty and the Oirat attacked the Tatars together and eventually won.

The Tatars were defeated and fled. The Ming Dynasty took a closer look and realized that there was another Oirat tribe that also liked to invade the south. There was nothing they could do but appease them, engage in trade and take precautions. The famous Battle of Tumu was committed by the Oirat leader Yesen. At that time, the orthodox Mongolian tribes either submitted to the Oirat or ran away. The Oirat tribe almost unified Mongolia and its sphere of influence was close to the Korean Peninsula.

But nomadic peoples have a characteristic: they rise quickly and fall quickly. After Yesen's death, the Oirat was in chaos before outsiders attacked. At this time, the Tatar tribes that were hiding in various places to recuperate, just like the Oirat took the opportunity to rise, suddenly jumped out from nowhere to add insult to injury and kill you.

Under multiple blows, the various tribes of the Oirat could only retreat westwards, and finally retreated to the Ruoshui River to catch their breath. At this time, there were still different opinions within the Oirat, so it split into many small tribes again. The largest of them were the Junggar, Khoshut, Torghut and Durburt.

From then on, Mongolia was divided into east, west, south and north. The so-called orthodox Golden Family was the Mongolia of the North and the Mongolia of the South, while the four tribes of the Oirat were called the Western Mongolia and the Mongolia of the South was called the Eastern Mongolia.

Do the four tribes of Dzungar, Khoshut, Torghut and Durbet sound familiar to you? Not just a little, but definitely. The Dzungar tribe established the Dzungar Khanate, which was later destroyed by the Qing Dynasty.

The Torghut tribe migrated westward to the Volga River Basin, and then migrated back eastward more than a hundred years later. Some people say that they were nostalgic for their homeland and patriotic, but I don’t know how these people came to this conclusion.

The Torghut tribe had no homeland at all. They were nomadic people who went wherever the living environment was good. If they had to miss their homeland, they should have returned to Lake Baikal, the birthplace of the Wala tribe, and continued to be forest dwellers.

Now the Ordos tribe was driven to the border area with the Oirat Mongols, so the Great Taiji Bushitu did not recommend sending troops to continue the expedition, because he knew the hatred between the East and West Mongols, and the Oirat tribes would definitely not allow the Ordos tribe to rest and recuperate near Yijinai.

Sending troops there would be superfluous and might even trigger another large-scale war between East and West Mongolia. It would be uneconomical for the Tumed tribe, which had also suffered considerable losses, and it would not be a good thing for the Ming Dynasty either.

Hong Tao guessed what Bu Shitu was thinking, so he sent an additional guard to Gansu Town. Now the threat from Shaanxi and northern Shanxi has been reduced to the lowest, but the pressure from the northwest has risen again. If the Oirat Mongols intend to take advantage of the internal friction among the Eastern Mongolian tribes to advance eastward, Suzhou must bear the brunt.

“Your Majesty, the commander of the Guihua Military Region, Du Wenhuan, wrote a letter to the Army General Staff, suggesting that a city be built at a ferry crossing 300 miles north of Zhenyuan Pass.

After discussion, the General Staff felt that this city was feasible. Once built, it would not only block the Yellow River crossing, but also threaten the western foot of Yinshan Mountain and prevent the northern barbarians from making a comeback. "

Seeing that the emperor mostly approved of his actions, Yuan Keli was not only satisfied but also much more motivated. He planned to strike while the iron was hot and take advantage of the decline of the Tumed tribe to strengthen the fence in the north and solve the problem once and for all.

(End of this chapter)