Gantimur

Gantimur (Mongolian: Гүн Төмөр; Chinese: 根特木; pinyin: Gēntèmù; Russian: Гантимур) was a Daurian tribal chief and military leader.

[citation needed] Born into a family of eastern Siberian tribal chiefs of the siberian-transbaikalian Evenks and the Mongolian Daurian tribes,[1] the details of his early life are unknown.

Gantimur initially entered the service of Emperor Shunzhi and led his 8,000 cavalry Evenks into Inner Mongolia as a unit of the Chinese army.

Tasked with fighting the Russian Cossacks, who had built a fort in Kumarsk on the Amur River, he defected to them to seek an alliance.

In 1667 he returned with his troops to his home near Nerchinsk and put himself into the service of the Russians, along with his relatives and forty elders of his tribe.