Last Years
In 1696 Galdan was on the upper Kherlen River east of Ulaanbaatar about 700 km northwest of Beijing. Kangxi's plan was to personally lead an army northwest to Galdan while sending a second army north from the Ordos Desert to block his escape. Kangxi reached the Kherlen, found Galdan gone but was forced to turn back due to lack of supplies. On the same day that Kangxi turned back (June 12) Galdan blundered into the western army and was disastrously defeated at Terelj's Zuunmod near the upper Tuul River east of Ulaanbaatar. Galdan's wife, Anu, was killed and the Manchus captured 20,000 cattle and 40,000 sheep. Galdan fled with his remaining 40 or 50 men. He gathered a few thousand followers who later deserted due to hunger. In 1697 he was in the Altai Mountains near Khovd with 300 men when he died suddenly under mysterious circumstances (April 4, 1697). He was succeeded by Tsewang Rabtan who had revolted against him.
Read more about this topic: Galdan Boshugtu Khan
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“Twenty years a child; twenty years running wild; twenty years a mature man—and after that, praying.”
—Irish proverb.
“We need not have the loftiest mind to understand that here is no lasting and real satisfaction, that our pleasures are only vanity, that our evils are infinite, and, lastly, that death, which threatens us every moment, must infallibly place us within a few years under the dreadful necessity of being forever either annihilated or unhappy.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)