Targabatay

Tarbagatai lies at the foot of the mountains of the same name, where the Emin valley opens toward the steppe. Its grasslands were used by Mongol pastoral peoples, and in 1640 Oirat and Khalkha leaders gathered in the Tarbagatai mountains to agree on a common code. The region stood at the meeting of routes between Dzungaria and the lands to the northwest.

After the Qing conquest of the Dzungars in the eighteenth century, the court established a military administration in Tarbagatai. In 1766 a fortified city was completed at Chuguchak and given the name Suijing. Its garrison included soldiers and families brought from other parts of the empire, among them Daur and Evenki. The new town became a centre of Qing authority in the mountain foothills and an important meeting place for the peoples of the surrounding grasslands.