Four Oirats

Overview

The Four Oirats (Dörbön Oyirad; Chinese: 四衛拉特), also known as the Oirat Confederation and formerly as the Eleuths, was the confederation of Oirat tribes that marked the rise of the Western Mongols on the Mongolian Plateau. Conventionally dated 1399–1634, it was a nomadic confederation whose component tribes are usually given as the Choros, Torghut, Dörbet, and Khoshut, although scholars have reached no consensus on the original "four," and one theory holds that the Oirats were political-ethnic units composed of many patrilineages rather than consanguineous tribes. The Kergüd tribe also belonged to the early confederation.

The Oirats were originally one of the forest peoples living west of the Mongols of Genghis Khan; they submitted to him in 1207 and played prominent roles in the Mongol Empire. After the fall of the Yuan dynasty (1368), the Yuan official Möngke-Temür placed himself at the head of the Oirats; after his death the chieftains Mahamu, Taiping, and Batu-bolad ruled and exchanged envoys with the Ming, receiving the title of wang from the Yongle Emperor in 1409. The Oirats began challenging the Borjigin khans of the Northern Yuan in the reign of Elbeg Khan (c. 1394–1399).

The confederation's apogee came under the Choros leaders Toghan (1408–1438) and especially his son Esen Taishi (1438–1454). Toghan defeated the Eastern Mongol leader Arugtai and the Ögedeid Adai Khan by 1437, installing Genghisid puppet khans. Esen extended Oirat power over Outer and Inner Mongolia, subjugated Jurchens in Manchuria, and forced the Chagatai khans of Moghulistan and Hami to accept his overlordship; in 1449 he captured the Ming Emperor Yingzong at Tumu, one of the most dramatic episodes in Ming history. After murdering Khagan Agbarjin, Esen took the title of khan himself (1453), but was overthrown and killed by Oirat noblemen in 1454–55. At its height under Esen, the Oirat sphere stretched across the Mongolian Plateau with western limits at Barkol and the Irtysh — a domain on the order of 4 million square kilometres.

Esen's death broke Oirat unity. From 1480 the resurgent Eastern Mongols under Mandukhai Khatun and Dayan Khan pushed the Oirats westward; by 1510 Dayan Khan had unified the Mongol tribes. The Oirats nonetheless remained powerful, holding Karakorum into the 16th century and crushing the Khalkha prince Sholoi Ubashi Khong Tayiji around 1623. The confederation dissolved in the early 17th century: the Torghut chief Kho Orluk led Torghuts, Dörbets, and some Khoshuts west across the Kazakh steppes (1628–1630s), defeating the Kazakhs and Nogais and founding the Kalmyk Khanate on the Volga; the Khoshut Güshi Khan established the Khoshut Khanate in Qinghai-Tibet (1636, protecting the 5th Dalai Lama); and the Choros, with Dörbets and Khoits, formed the Dzungar Khanate in the Ili region. In 1640 the Oirats and Khalkhas concluded peace and issued the Mongol–Oirat Code, and the Oirats converted to Tibetan Buddhism, adopting the "clear script" devised by Zaya Pandita in 1648–49. Their successor states remained major Inner Asian powers until the Kalmyk return migration of 1771 and the Qing destruction of the Dzungars in 1755–58.