>>22590424Hutukhta did not share Ungern's enthusiasm for re-establishing monarchy across the continent, knowing that his small army would likely be vanquished by the Soviets or Chinese long before any of these ambitions could be realized. In April 1921 he wrote to Beijing distancing Outer Mongolia from Ungern's vision and asking if the Chinese government would be interested in resuming the dominant relationship it had had under the former emperors. Ungern thus began seeking other sources of support. Japan, believed by the Soviets to be supporting Ungern extensively, instead doubted the capability of the ACD and considered the mercurial Ungern harder to work with than Semyonov had been. The Chinese warlords Ungern reached out to also rejected his plans, even Zhang Zuolin, then in control of most of Manchuria, to whom Ungern offered the throne of a hypothetical empire that would stretch to Central Asia.[66]
