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Citizens march in traditional dress at the Nauryz festival celebration in Kazakhstan. Unrelated to the article content. / Getty Images Bank

New research finds that the collapse of the Dzungar Khanate, Central Asia's last major nomadic empire — long attributed to conquest by the Qing dynasty — was actually driven by a combination of climate-driven grassland collapse, famine, and a smallpox epidemic.

Founded in 1635 by the western Mongol Oirat tribes, the Dzungar Khanate is considered the last great nomadic empire of Eurasia, having ruled over roughly 3.6 million square kilometers spanning today's eastern Kazakhstan, China's Xinjiang region, western Mongolia, and southern Siberia in Russia.

In Kazakh history in particular, the Dzungars are remembered as the greatest historical adversary, having waged war against the Kazakh Khanate for more than two centuries and threatened its very survival. The so-called "Aktaban Shubyryndy" (Great Disaster) — in which large numbers of Kazakhs died during major Dzungar invasions in the early 18th century — remains one of the defining national tragedies in Kazakh collective memory.

According to Kazakh state news agency Kazinform on the 6th, a joint research team from China, Europe, and Canada, led by Prof. Fang Keyan of Fujian Normal University, published a paper in the latest issue of the journal Science Advances arguing that Qing conquest alone cannot fully explain the mid-18th-century collapse of the Dzungar Khanate. Instead, the researchers concluded that prolonged climate deterioration led to the collapse of the steppe ecosystem, triggering large-scale famine that coincided with a smallpox outbreak — together hastening the empire's demise.

The researchers analyzed 441 tree-ring samples collected from 14 sites across the Tian Shan and Altai mountain ranges to digitally reconstruct climate and vegetation changes across the Central Asian steppe since 1625. They cross-referenced this data with satellite vegetation indices (NDVI), historical documents, trade records, population changes, and records of smallpox outbreaks to quantitatively trace the socioeconomic changes that occurred in the Dzungar Khanate's final years.

Based on this analysis, the researchers concluded that while the Qing dynasty ultimately delivered the final blow to a Dzungar state whose internal foundations had already crumbled, the decisive factor that fundamentally weakened its national strength was the collapse of ecosystem productivity driven by climate crisis.

The core Dzungar region recorded its lowest grassland productivity in roughly 400 years between 1751 and 1761. Severe drought devastated pastureland, causing mass livestock deaths, which in turn led to food shortages and famine. The researchers assessed that this, combined with major smallpox epidemics in 1743 and 1758, sharply weakened the state's governing capacity and military strength.

The paper specifically noted that the war with the Qing dynasty and internal Dzungar power struggles — factors historians have traditionally emphasized — are insufficient on their own to fully explain the state's collapse. Instead, it argued that climate change first destabilized the steppe ecosystem, which in turn triggered a cascading chain of famine, trade collapse, social unrest, and epidemic disease that ultimately pushed the state's resilience past its breaking point.

The Qing dynasty subsequently conquered the Dzungars through a series of military campaigns from 1755 to 1759. The researchers estimated that roughly 70-80% of the total population died from war and smallpox during this period — marking the end of Eurasia's last nomadic empire and a historic turning point that fundamentally reshaped the geopolitics of Central Asia.

Local historians in Kazakhstan also regard the wars with the Dzungars as one of the most important episodes in the formation of the modern Kazakh state.

Berekhet Karibayev, a historian at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, told Kazinform that the Kazakh-Dzungar wars were not simply a territorial dispute but a struggle for national survival that lasted more than 200 years, explaining that while the Dzungar invasions pushed the Kazakh state to the brink of collapse, it ultimately survived through national unity and resistance.

He noted in particular that while the Dzungars maintained a powerful standing army, the Kazakhs — despite relying on a tribal militia system — were able to preserve their state through the exploits of numerous batyrs (heroes) such as Kabanbai, Bogenbai, and Rayimbek, and through solidarity among the tribes.

The researchers stressed that the significance of the study extends beyond historical interpretation alone. They noted that it demonstrates how a sharp decline in steppe productivity due to climate change can trigger a compounding chain of food shortages, population displacement, and epidemic spread that can overwhelm a society's overall resilience — advising that, amid current global conditions showing similar patterns, strengthening climate resilience and building epidemic surveillance systems in Central Asia's nomadic regions has become more important than ever.

                                                                                                             Kim Min-gyu