ann
(Ann)
#1
not simply connect people ofhoshuuandgūsabanners but was a network
also connecting banners and their herds.
imperial pastoralism: consolidating banners
and herds
Dynastic military power was needed to unify the Inner Mongolianaimag
as the social basis for the Manchu state’s northern borderland. Such
unification under Qing authority was not completed until 1636.^6 The
Qing defeat of the last would-be Mongol unifier, the Chakhar khaghan
and Chinggisid heir Lingdan Khan, in 1632 effectively legitimized dynas-
tic domination of Inner Mongolia. Uprisings among the Khorchin in
1634 , the Tümed of Guihua (Hohhot) in 1635 , and the Chakhar revolt
under Prince Burni in 1675 were ineffectual.^7 By 1636 the Qing was
consolidating its steppe borderland to deal with the remaining two major
Mongol conglomerations, the Oirad of the west and the Khalkha
of the north.
TheLifanyuanwas the main government organ for the mediation of
differences with, and between, Mongols, who were administered under
thejasagsystem of leagues andhoshuubanners.^8 Regulation encom-
passed court audience and tribute protocol, lama affairs, judicial and
commercial regulation, and military mobilization. Codified as a series of
Mongol legal statutes from the 1630 s, these regulations were intended
“to put an end to the legal differences among the Mongols”and were
“binding on all Mongols under the authority of the Manchus.”^9
Such statutory uniformity, however, expressed only the amalgamat-
ing letter of Qing Mongol law, not its divisive spirit. The 1691 Dolon
Nuur assembly, under the exigency of Galdan’s 1687 Zunghar invasion,
extended controls north of Inner Mongolia to the Khalkhaotog, whose
relations with the Qing began in 1638.^10 Final conquest of the
Zunghars would not be completed until 1757 when this last and most
powerful Oirad polity was defeated in Xinjiang.Hoshuubanner prolif-
eration and diversification, however, defined ensuingLifanyuanconsoli-
dation. Khalkha banners, for example, were increased from an initial
fifty-five in 1691 to seventy-eight no later than 1756 , then to eighty-two
by 1764.^11
Qing authorities were most gratified by this“unprecedented”submis-
sion of“all the Mongol tribes,”even if it the Oirad would remain recalci-
trant for nearly the next seventy years. The dynasty was nevertheless
saddled with a“vast territory and numerous populace”and“ordered
118 Across Forest, Steppe, and Mountain
