Qing conquest of the Dzungars and the creation of Xinjiang
- Date
- 1755–1759
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Central Asia (Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin)
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
Between 1755 and 1759 the armies of the Qianlong Emperor destroyed the Dzungar Khanate, the last great steppe nomadic power of Inner Asia, and brought the vast region north and south of the Tianshan mountains under Qing rule as a single new dominion named Xinjiang, meaning new frontier.
Initial campaigns in 1755 toppled the khanate with the help of the Dzungar leader Amursana, but when he rebelled against Qing overlordship the Qianlong Emperor ordered a campaign of extermination. Through warfare, massacre, famine and smallpox, an estimated 70 to 80 percent of a Dzungar population of perhaps 600,000 perished, a destruction many scholars characterise as genocide; the depopulated lands were resettled by Han, Hui, Uyghur and other migrants. Subduing the Tarim Basin oases in 1758-59 completed the conquest. The result roughly doubled the territory of the empire and pushed Qing power deep into Central Asia, securing the inner-Asian frontier and integrating diverse Muslim and Mongol populations into the multi-ethnic Qing order. These campaigns formed the core of Qianlong's self-proclaimed Ten Great Campaigns and define the High Qing as the moment China reached its greatest historical extent, with lasting and contested consequences for the region's demography and governance.
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Empires active in 1755–1759
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
- Russian Empire1721 CE – 1917 CE
Related military & conflict events
- Fall of Beijing and the Ming–Qing transition1644
- Battle of Plassey and the rise of British power in Bengal23 June 1757
- Third Battle of Panipat checks Maratha expansion14 January 1761
- Nadir Shah sacks Delhi and shatters Mughal powerMarch 1739
- Defenestration of Prague and the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War23 May 1618
- The Treaty of Paris ends the American Revolutionary War3 September 1783
Further reading
The wider story
China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia
Landmark account of the Qing-Dzungar struggle for Central Asia.
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