Oirats

  General Description  
“During this time the power of the Oirat rulers in the western part of the Mongolian steppe was growing. The Oirats had sworn fealty to Chinggis Khan shortly after his rise to power. Their nobility had been appointed to senior positions in the empire and diplomatic marriages between the Oirat aristocracy and the Chinggisid imperial house had continued since that time. At the end of the fourteenth century Oirat rulers began to challenge the power of the fractious Chinggisid emperors of the northern Yuan. They came to play the role of king makers, installing compliant emperors and taking the title taishi (grand preceptor). With the Ming still doggedly hostile to the northern Yuan, the Oirats became increasingly powerful. The Oirat ruler, Esen, who had succeeded his father as taishi, attacked the Ming, subjugating parts of Manchuria and the Hami region in Turkestan. He invaded northern China and captured the Ming emperor. When attacked in 1452 by his nominal overlord, the emperor Togoo-Bukha, Esen defeated him and took the title of Great Khan of the Yuan for himself. But Esen’s reign as Yuan emperor was short, one of his generals turned against him in 1454 and he was killed as he fled. The Yuan throne was recaptured by the house of Qubilai once more, and the Chinggisids had some success against the Ming in the Ordos. The Oirat descendants of Esen remained powerful in the west, and Oirats continued to hold the powerful position of taishi, but around 1480 a vigorous new ruler appeared to unite the Chinggisid noble houses.” ^[1]
“In this period, Mongolian lands were divided into three parts: the ‘central’ division, comprising East Mongolia; the West, or Oirat, Mongolia; and the South-Western part, the Uriankhai frontier… In comparison with East Mongolia, Oirat or Western Mongolia had a good level of internal unity, at first, and was less subject to military attack. Consequently, the Oirats used their political unity and economic superiority to try to unite all the Mongols. Having been just four myangan (mingghan – units of a thousand) in the times of the Great Mongol Empire, the Oirats, who had been subjects of the Mongol emperors, had grown to four tümen (units of ten thousand). In the late fourteenth century, when East Mongolia had become a site of continuous political crisis and struggle, Ugechi Khasakha the lord of the Khoit, re-established the League of the Four Oirats, that had been dissolved a century before, and became its khan, organizing the Oirat into the Baatuud, Barga, Buriad, Khori, Tümed and Choros divisions. Breaking away from East Mongolian rule, Ugechi Khasakha began to challenge the political authority of members of the Golden Lineage. At that time a Taiyu (Teivei) [from the Chinese taiwei – senior military official] named Khuukhai served as the representative of the Four Oirats in the court of the Mongol Great Khaan (emperor), Elbeg the Compassionate, who ruled from 1393 to 1399.” ^[2]
“The Oirats largely disappeared from China’s frontier history following Esen’s death in the mid- fifteenth century, when the Eastern Mongols became dominant in southern Mongolia. However, Esen’s failure did not lead to an immediate breakup of the Ojirat confederation outside of this area. The Oirats continued to occupy northern Mongolia and Esen’s son recouped some of his confederation’s losses by attacking the Kazakhs in the west to bring the strategic Ili Valley under Oirat control. From here the Oirats dominated the oasis cities in eastern Turkestan and controlled trade through that region. This more remote but fairly stable empire, which lasted for about a century, ruled northern Mongolia unt, after suffering a number of defeats at the hands of the Eastern Mongols, they lost Karakorum to Altan Khan in 1552. This forced an Oirat withdrawal into the Tarbaghatai region which had been their homeland. The movement of retreating tribes led to a breakdown of the confederation and its reorganization.” ^[3]

[1]: (Sneath 2010: 395) Sneath, David. 2010. “Introduction,” in The History of Mongolia: Volume II, Yuan and Late Medieval Period, vol. 2, 3 vols. Kent: Global Oriental. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/FBJBCKMT

[2]: (Jamsran 2010: 497-498) Jamsran, L. 2010. “The Crisis of the Forty and the Four,” in The History of Mongolia: Volume II, Yuan and Late Medieval Period, ed. David Sneath, vol. 2, 3 vols. Kent: Global Oriental. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/D8IE2XAD

[3]: (Barfield 1989: 277) Barfield, Thomas J. 1989. The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China 221 B.C. to AD 1757 Cambridge: Wiley-Blackwell. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/D2MQHV94