Naghachu


Naghachu, also written as Nahacu, was a Uriankhai leader and general of the Northern Yuan dynasty in Manchuria, which was under Liaoyang province of the former Yuan dynasty. Originally a Yuan official, he had won hegemony over the Mongol tribes in a wide area including much of Rehe and Liaoning by the mid-1380s. Now he grew strong in the northeast, with forces large enough to threaten invasion of the newly founded Ming dynasty in order to restore the Mongols to power in China. Instead of waiting for the Mongols to attack, in 1387 the Ming sent a military campaign to attack Naghachu and forced his surrender after a successful diplomacy of the Ming. Naghachu and thousands of his officers and relatives were sent to Nanjing, the capital of the Ming dynasty at that time. The Ming granted Naghachu himself a marquisate with a stipend of 2,000 piculs of grain, and estate of public fields in Jiangxi, and a mansion in Nanjing. He died near Wuchang on 31 August 1388, probably from overindulgence in alcohol, and was buried outside Nanjing.