The Qing Dynasty lost so much land, why was it so concerned about the Western Regions?

Since the Han Dynasty, the presence of the Central Plains Dynasty in the Western Regions has never disappeared. Although during the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, the Central Plains Dynasty's control over the Western Regions almost disappeared, after the Qing Dynasty, control of the Western Regions finally returned to the hands of the Central Plains Dynasty.

History tells us that in the early Qing Dynasty, the strategic core of Manchu rule was in the southern provinces, because the economy here was the most developed and the strategic significance was very important. But during the Kangxi period, Kangxi finally made plans to go to war against the Junggar Khanate, which had repeatedly caused trouble. This became a critical turning point. You must know that the Manchu and Qing Dynasties only brought the tribes of Eastern Mongolia under their control through marriages and alliances, but the Qing Dynasty was always beyond the reach of the further Western Regions.

After the Manchus and Qing Dynasties entered the customs, they have been carefully managing the eighteen provinces in the mainland for decades. At that time, the relationship between the Western Regions and the Qing Dynasty was actually a vassal relationship, similar to that of the Korean Peninsula. However, during the Kangxi period, the Junggar Khanate, which emerged in the Western Regions, began to expand eastward, seriously affecting the Qing Dynasty's suzerainty in the Mongolian grasslands. This was something Kangxi could not tolerate, so the Qing Dynasty took action and conducted two defensive wars with the Junggar Khanate. war.

For the Qing Dynasty, the Junggar Khanate was not a weak opponent. At its peak, the Junggar Khanate even controlled large areas of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Judging from the situation at that time, the Junggar Khanate had even formed a situation of encircling the western and northern parts of the Qing Dynasty. It was most powerful during the Galdan period.

As a result, the Qing Dynasty urgently needed to disintegrate the hegemony of Junggar. Driven by the combined forces of internal and external forces, the Qing Dynasty began to focus on the Western Regions and fight a decisive battle with the Junggar Khanate.

Starting from the Kangxi era and passing through the three dynasties of Kangxi, Yongzong and Qianlong, the Qing Dynasty continued to use troops in the northwest for more than a hundred years, and finally achieved its strategic goals.

So in the late Qing Dynasty, even though the Qing Dynasty lost so much land, Zuo Zongtang still achieved the feat of regaining Xinjiang.