Mongolia | Khovd Aimag | Shivriin Khötöl Ambush

After the Siege of Khovd began in May of 1912 the Manchu authorities in Xinjiang dispatched a relief column to the besieged city. Some sources say the column was organized by the Torgut prince Palto, who had refused to take part in the Mongolian independence movement and instead had decided to remained faithful to the Manchus. Reportedly the column consisted of 200 Chinese cavalry and eighty camels laden with modern Japanese carbines, ammunition, and foodstuffs.

According to the famous Mongolian lama Diluv Khutagt, who was in the area at the time, the Manchu authorities sent a messenger to the Chinese Amban (governor) of Khovd informing him that the relief column was on the way. This messenger was caught by the Mongol forces besieging the city and under interrogation revealed what he knew.

The besiegers sent the Zakhchin chief Sambuu to the Chinese border to meet the relief column. He greeted the commander of the column with a khadag (prayer scarf) and offered to provide fresh horses for the soldiers. He also offered to lead the column to a suitable campground near Shivriin Khötöl. While on the way to Shivriin Khötöl, however, Sambuu managed to secretly dispatch four or five messengers to Magsarjav, informing him of the column’s progress.

Sambuu’s portrait in the Khovd Aimag Museum

Sambuu himself led the relief column down the defile of Shivriin Khötöl, about 200 feet wide, and flanked on either side by sheer cliffs. As they approached the end of the defile, Sambuu and his men suddenly galloped away from the relief column, leaving the Chinese soldiers exposed to the Mongol soldiers who were waiting in ambush at the mouth of the defile and in the cliffs above. According to Diluv Khutagt:

. . . the Mongols suddenly opened fire with their flintlocks, knocking over a file of ten or more men, beginning with the standard bearer. Dismayed and astonished, they had no time to unload their pack animals. When the Mongols knew that the Chinese had shot away all the ammunition that they carried ready on their person, they advanced to close quarters and killed them all. Taking their weapons and the 80 camels with their loads as booty, they found themselves splendidly armed.

Entrance to Shivriin Khötöl

The Mongol troops, who up until then had only ancient flintlocks and outmoded single-shot Russian army rifles, were now equipped with the latest model Japanese army rifles and plentiful ammunition. Had these supplies reached instead the Manchu garrison in Khovd it is doubtful the later Mongol attack on the fortress would have succeeded.

Exactly who led the ambush at Shivriin Khötöl is unclear. Diluv Khutagt says that both Magsarjav and Dambijantsan took part. A. V. Burdukov, a Russian settler who was in the area at time, claimed that Dambijantsan carried out the ambush and that Magsarjav was not present. However, surviving members of Magsarjav’s detachment interviewed by Professor Baasankhüü of Khovd in the 1970s claimed that Dambijantsan was not involved in the ambush and only claimed afterward that he was. In any case, the Shivriin Khötöl ambush was one of the key events in the expulsion of the Manchu garrison in Khovd, at the time the last remaining outpost of Manchu authority in Mongolia.

Shivriin Khötöl is located 9.6 miles (15.5 km) from Khovd City.

Professor Baasankhüu

Mongolia | Zaisan Tolgoi | Wildflower Alert

Alert! Alert! Alert! Alert! Alert!

The first wildflowers of the year have been sighted on Bogd Khan Uul above my lair! Saw some tiny white primroses and minute yellow buttercups. After the sighting I sat by Khiimoryn Ovoo until 10:00 pm, an hour and a half after sunset, and was treated to the sight of the planet Mercury in the west-northwest sky, not far above the horizon. How lucky am I?

Mongolia | Khovd Aimag | Ja Lama and the Siege of Khovd

Who was Dambijantsan?

A Buddhist monk; a freedom fighter for Mongolian independence; the descendant of Amursanaa (1723–1757), the Western Mongol who led the last great uprising against the Qing Dynasty of China; the incarnation of Mahakala, the Buddhist god of war; bandit, torturer, murderer, or evil incarnate? During his lifetime no one was sure who he really was, and even today the controversy about his life continues.

Born in what is now the Republic of Kalmykia, part of the Russian Federation, Dambijantsen traveled throughout Tibet, India, and China before arriving in Mongolia in 1890 where he tossed gold coins to bystanders and announced to one and all that he had come to free Mongolia from the yoke of the Qing Dynasty of China. After disappearing almost twenty years he returned to lead the attack on Khovd City, the last Chinese outpost in Mongolia. Honored by the Eighth Bogd Gegeen, the theocratic leader of Mongolia, for his efforts in achieving Mongolian independence, he went on to establish his own mini-state in western Mongolia, which he hoped to use as a base for establishing a Mongol-led Buddhist khanate in Inner Asia. His dictatorial nature and unbridled sadism soon came to the fore and he was finally arrested and imprisoned in Russia. After the Russian Revolution he returned to Mongolia, gathered new followers around him, and established a stronghold at the nexus of old caravan routes in Gansu Province, China. He robbed caravans, grew opium, and once again dreamed of creating a new Mongolian khanate in Inner Asia. Finally the new Bolshevik government in Mongolia, fearful of his rising power, issued orders for his assassination. Dambijantsan died in 1922, but in Mongolia legends persist to this day that his spirit still rides on the wind of the Gobi and continues to haunt his former lairs.

For more on Dambijantsan see False Lama of Mongolia: The Life and Death of Dambijantsan.