Currently, there are approximately 9000 Ööld Mongolians in Nilah County of Ili. According to archives and other available materials, there were at least 24 ethnic groups in the Jungar Khanate before its defeat by the Qing troops. The Öölds in Nilah County were the descendants of the people who resisted the Qing empire until the conclusion of the Jungar Qing war. In the aftermath of the war, they either sought refuge in the deep mountains or migrated to other areas, mingling with Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and Uyghurs, and assimilating with these communities. Between 1761 and 1763, immediately following the war, the Qing government implemented a relatively lenient policy to gather the dispersed Öölds from the deep mountains and settle them in the Nilah area, comprising ten Sums. One primary reason for this policy was that the sparseness of the population resulting from the Qing genocide movement during the war resulted in an uneasy situation for the Qing government’s western frontier. As the policy was implemented in the following years, not only did the Qing government support surviving Öölds to settle in Ili, but they also relocated Shibe, Daur and Solon Evenki to the Ili region from the Empire’s easter coast, Inner Mongolia, and Northern China. Another group that returned to the Ili region was the subordinates of Dashdawa Noyan, who had surrendered with his groups and migrated to Chengde city prior to the war. The Qing government organised these people, totalling approximately 500, into the upper three Banners (Deed Gurban Hoshuu), which form the core of the Mongol Khüree Banner today. In contrast to the surrendered Öölds, those who emerged from the deep mountains organised into the lower five Banners, primarily settling in Nilah County today as the Eight Ööld Banners in Ili. The three Banners in Mongol Khüree were Khöl Shar, Khöbet Shar, and Khöl Tsagan. Khöl Shar takes the first place as it consists of the direct lineage of the golden family. Khöbet Shar includes close relatives of the Khan, while those who surrendered themselves to the Qing government were incorporated into the Khöl Tsagan Banner. Therefore, the upper three Banners were the most loyal to the Qing government either through bloodline or marital relationship. People in the lower five Banners held a different position as they engaged in battles with the Qing troops and suffered the most. When the Qing state reassembled these people from various places, they showed great diversity, representing only small portions of all 24 ethnic groups. This led the Qing state to change the name to Ilin Ööld Horooni Doord Tabun Hoshuni Arban Sum Ööld. Eventually, after the Qing era, people gradually shortened the name to Ili’s Ten Sum Öölds. The Ten Sum Öölds’ pasture, during the Qing period, included Hashiin Gol valley, Künes River Valley, and the Ili Steppe (Ilin shar Khödee). According to Manchu regulations, a Sum should comprise 200 people, as explained by Batjav, and these figures represent individuals aged 18 to 60 – those available to enrol in the army at any time. Therefore, the actual population of a Sum is approximately a thousand people, including children, women, and elders. However, if the Öölds exceeded the population limitation, they would either be included in Chahar groups from Zhangjiakou or other Öölds in Tarbagatai. In 1864, a series of peasant uprisings swept through Ili and the entire Xinjiang in following years. Initially, Uyghurs and other Muslims not only destroyed the Manchu military operational base in one night but also targeted local Öölds who disagreed with their movements. The Muslim peasant uprising persisted for several years due to the limited capabilities of the Qing state and was eventually quelled by the Tsarist Russians. After the conflict, Tsarist Russians and the Qing government, between 1883 and 1884, signed an unequal treaty stipulating that Ili should be returned to the Qing, while many other places, such as Lake Balkhash, belonged to the Russian side. The Ööld population during this period remains unclear. However, recent scholarly findings, a handwritten paper by one of the Ööld elders, indicate that there were at least 120,000 Öölds before the Muslim Revolt. The war, similar to the Qing genocide, claimed many lives in Ili, resulting in many Öölds to flee to various places, including assimilated among the Uyghurs in southern Xinjiang and migrating north to the Mongolian territory. Following these tumultuous incidents, the Ööld population dwindled to a point where it was insufficient to form the initial Ten Sum Öölds with reduced population requirements, ultimately reducing to eight Banners. The discovered handwritten material reveals that there were only about 8000 Öölds in the 1900s. The Chinese Communist Party census on Öölds in 1949 reported approximately 3000 Öölds in Nilah County. Currently, Öölds in Nilah County predominantly reside along the Hash River. One reason is that the Muslim revolt, which once again swept through the Ili region, further decreased the population, and many Kazakhs settled in the vast vacant area. On the one hand, the Kazakhs escaped from the Russian side to the unpopulated Ili region, and on the other hand, the newly established Xinjiang province in Urumchi diminished the role that Ili had previously played. The Qing government, hardly concerned about Kazakh emigration to Ili, moved Öölds from the Khünes River Valley to the Hash River Valley and replaced the Kazakhs in the region. These reshuffling movements continued until the end of the 1930s, when the Öölds eventually gathered along the Hash River Valley, known as the Eight Sums Öölds of Hashin Gol. After the Communist Party came to power in China in 1949, the Öölds experienced a population growth trend in the 1970s due to a willingness to have more children, reaching approximately 7,000 in Nilah County. In the 1980s, however, the Ööld birth rate stabilised once again due to China’s birth control policy. Since the 2000s, population fluctuation has not been noticeable, despite the relaxation of birth control among minority groups, ranging between 8,000 and 9,000 up until today. The Jungar Khanate was known to be comprised of 24 Otog, 21 class, and nine Jisee. In recent years, one of the young local scholars of Nilah, Bulgan, has diligently collected Otog data through intensive fieldwork. Bulgan discovered that the Otog notion is not a single term used among Öölds; many more terms exist among Öölds, such as Obog, Elkhin, Ung, etc. To date, Bulgan has identified 16 Otog of Öölds: Dörbed, Hoid, Shar Sahaltu Hoid, Altan Tebsh Hoid, Halh, Torghut, Shabinar, and Chahar. Sometimes people confuse the Jungar four Oirat and the Jungar four Öölds terms, and we have not yet uncovered its secret.