Qianlong exploited a Dzungar civil war to conquer Dzungaria in 1755 in alliance with the pretender Amursana, withdrawing after a rapid campaign. When Amursana revolted at being denied full authority, the emperor returned with overwhelming force and, in the words of the Encyclopedia.com account, set about the universal destruction of the Oirat population, issuing edicts for the killing of adult males and the distribution of women and children. Smallpox swept the survivors. The Dzungars, a people of about 600,000, ceased to exist as a political and largely as an ethnic entity within three years; their genealogies and records were destroyed, their settlements eliminated, and the Ili valley resettled with populations brought in from elsewhere. Scholars disagree on the proportions: Encyclopedia.com summarises Owen Lattimore as putting 50 per cent exterminated, 20 per cent dead of smallpox and 30 per cent surviving, Peter Perdue as 30 per cent exterminated, 40 per cent dead of smallpox and 30 per cent surviving, and Ilya Zlatkin as holding that only 7 per cent survived. The conquest brought the whole of Xinjiang under Qing rule.
The Qianlong emperor's armies destroyed the Dzungar (Zunghar) Mongol confederation and repopulated its lands
Peter Perdue, following the Qing official Wei Yuan, puts the Dzungars at roughly 600,000 people in about 200,000 households before the campaigns; Wei Yuan's account states that some 40 per cent died of smallpox, 20 per cent fled to Russia and the Kazakhs, and 30 per cent were killed by Qing forces. Estimates of the pre-war population range from about 500,000 to 800,000.
The range applies the competing scholarly proportions to a pre-campaign population of about 600,000. Peter Perdue's figures - 30 per cent exterminated and 40 per cent dead of smallpox - give roughly 420,000 deaths; Owen Lattimore's - 50 per cent exterminated and 20 per cent of smallpox - give a similar total by a different route; Ilya Zlatkin's claim that only 7 per cent survived gives about 560,000. The lower bound reflects scepticism about the 600,000 baseline itself, which rests on Qing and Russian estimates rather than enumeration. The split between deaths by killing and deaths by epidemic is precisely what the scholars disagree about.
Encyclopedia.com's account, drawing on the Qing edicts and campaign records, documents orders for the killing of the Oirat population, the enslavement and distribution of women and children, and the deliberate destruction of Dzungar genealogies, documents and settlements.
China, Kazakhstan