The Life of Yakoob Beg; Athalik Ghazi, and Badaulet; Ameer of Kashgar
by Demetrius Charles Boulger · English · Gutenberg #33712 · 682,372 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Life of Yakoob Beg; Athalik Ghazi, and Badaulet; Ameer of Kashgar
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The Life of Yakoob Beg; Athalik Ghazi, and Badaulet; Ameer of Kashgar
Author: Demetrius Charles Boulger
Release date: September 12, 2010 [eBook #33712]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33712
Credits: Produced by The Bookworm, [bookworm.librivox AT gmail.com],
Asad Razzaki and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned
images of public domain material from the Google Print
project.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF YAKOOB BEG; ATHALIK GHAZI, AND BADAULET; AMEER OF KASHGAR ***
Produced by The Bookworm, [bookworm.librivox AT gmail.com],
Asad Razzaki and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned
images of public domain material from the Google Print
project.)
Transcriber's Note:
Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been retained as in
the original.
Some typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected. A
complete list follows the text.
Words italicized in the original are surrounded by _underscores_.
Superscripted words are surrounded by {} brackets.
The 'oe' ligature is represented as oe.
THE LIFE
OF
YAKOOB BEG;
ATHALIK GHAZI, AND BADAULET;
AMEER OF KASHGAR.
BY
DEMETRIUS CHARLES BOULGER,
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY.
_WITH MAP AND APPENDIX._
LONDON:
W{M} H. ALLEN & CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE, S.W.
1878.
_[All rights reserved.]_
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER,
MILFORD LANE, STRAND, W.C.
THE LIFE
OF
YAKOOB BEG.
TO MY FATHER,
BRIAN AUSTEN BOULGER,
I Dedicate
THE FOLLOWING PAGES, AS SOME FAINT TOKEN
OF FILIAL AFFECTION AND GRATITUDE.
PREFACE.
The following account of the life of Yakoob Beg was written with a
twofold intention. In the first place, it attempts to trace the career
of a soldier of fortune, who, without birth, power, or even any great
amount of genius, constructed an independent rule in Central Asia, and
maintained it against many adversaries during the space of twelve years.
The name of the Athalik Ghazi became so well known in this country, and
his person was so exaggerated by popular report, that those who come to
these pages with a belief that their hero will be lauded to the skies
must be disappointed. Yakoob Beg was a very able and courageous man, and
the task he did accomplish in Kashgaria was in the highest degree
creditable; but he was no Timour or Babur. His internal policy was
marred by his severity, and the system of terrorism that he principally
adopted; and his external policy, bold and audacious as it often was,
was enfeebled by periods of vacillation and doubt. Yet his career was
truly remarkable. He was not the arbiter of the destinies of Central
Asia, nor was he even the consistent opponent of Russian claims to
supremacy therein. He was essentially of the common mould of human
nature, sharing the weaknesses and the fears of ordinary men. The
Badaulet, or "the fortunate one," as he was called, was essentially
indebted to good fortune in many crises of his career. He cannot, in any
sense, be compared to the giants produced by Central Asia in days of
old; and among moderns Dost Mahomed of Afghanistan probably should rank
as high as he does. Yet he gives an individuality to the history of
Kashgar that it would otherwise lack. The recent triumphs of the Chinese
received all their attraction to Englishmen from the decline and fall of
Yakoob Beg, the hero they had erected in the country north of Cashmere.
In the second place, the following pages strive to bring before the
English reader the great merits of China as a governing power; and this
object is really the more important of the two. It is absolutely
necessary for this country to remember that there are only three Great
Powers in Asia, and of these China is in many respects the foremost.
Whereas both England and Russia are simply conquering Governments, China
is a mighty and self-governing country. China's rule in Eastern
Turkestan and Jungaria is one of the most instructive pages in the
history of modern Asia, yet it may freely be admitted that the brief
career of Yakoob Beg gave an interest to the consideration of the
Chinese in Central Asia that that theme might otherwise have failed to
supply. The authorities used in the compilation of the facts upon which
the following pages have been erected are principally and above all the
official Report of Sir Douglas Forsyth, and the files of the _Tashkent_
and _Pekin Gazettes_ since the beginning of 1874. Mr. Shaw's most
interesting work on "High Tartary," Dr. Bellew's "Kashgar," and
Gregorieff's work on "Eastern Turkestan," have also been consulted in
various portions of the narrative. A vast mass of newspaper articles
have likewise been laid under contribution for details which have not
been noticed anywhere else.
In conclusion, the author would ask the English reader to consider very
carefully what the true lesson of Chinese valour and statesmanship may
be for us, because those qualities have now become the guiding power in
every Indian border question, from Siam and Birma to Cashmere. Mr.
Schuyler's "Turkestan," which still maintains its place as the leading
work on Central Asia, although not treating on the affairs of Kashgar,
has been frequently referred to for the course of affairs in Khokand;
but, in the main, Dr. Bellew's historical narrative in Sir D. Forsyth's
Report has been followed.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF KASHGAR 1
CHAPTER II.
ETHNOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF KASHGAR 14
CHAPTER III.
HISTORY OF KASHGAR 22
CHAPTER IV.
THE CONQUEST OF KASHGAR BY CHINA 41
CHAPTER V.
THE CHINESE RULE IN KASHGAR 54
CHAPTER VI.
THE BIRTH OF YAKOOB BEG AND CAREER IN
THE SERVICE OF KHOKAND 76
CHAPTER VII.
THE INVASION OF KASHGAR BY BUZURG KHAN
AND YAKOOB BEG 92
CHAPTER VIII.
WARS WITH THE TUNGANI 119
CHAPTER IX.
YAKOOB BEG'S GOVERNMENT OF KASHGAR 137
CHAPTER X.
YAKOOB BEG'S POLICY TOWARDS RUSSIA 173
CHAPTER XI.
YAKOOB BEG'S RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND 212
CHAPTER XII.
YAKOOB BEG'S LAST WAR WITH CHINA,
AND DEATH 236
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CHINESE RECONQUEST OF KASHGAR 268
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CHINESE FACTOR IN THE CENTRAL
ASIA QUESTION 277
APPENDIX.
THE POSITION OF LOB-NOR 303
TREATY BETWEEN RUSSIA AND CHINA 308
TREATY BETWEEN ENGLAND AND CASHMERE 315
TREATY BETWEEN RUSSIA AND KASHGAR 320
TREATY BETWEEN ENGLAND AND KASHGAR 322
RULES FOR THE GUIDANCE OF THE JOINT
COMMISSIONERS APPOINTED FOR THE
NEW ROUTE TO EASTERN TURKESTAN 330
A STORY FROM KASHGAR 334
YAKOOB BEG.
CHAPTER I.
GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF KASHGAR.
The state of Kashgar, which comprises the western portion of Eastern or
Chinese Turkestan, has been defined as being bounded on the north by
Siberia, on the south by the mountains of Cashmere, on the east by the
Great Desert of Gobi, and on the west by the steppe of "High Pamere."
This description, while sufficiently correct for general speaking,
admits of more detail in a work dealing at some length with that
country. Strictly, the name Kashgar or Cashgar applies only to the city,
and it was not until after the time of Marco Polo, when it was the most
populous and opulent town in the whole region, that it became used for
the neighbouring country. The correct name is either Little Bokhara or
Eastern Turkestan, and the Chinese call it Sule. Recent writers have
styled the territory of the Athalik Ghazi Kashgaria. It certainly
extended through a larger portion of Chinese Turkestan than did any past
native rule in Kashgar, the Chinese of course excepted. The definition
given above of the limits of Kashgar states that on the north it is
bounded by Siberia, but this is erroneous, for the extensive territory
of Jungaria or Mugholistan intervenes. Jungaria under the Chinese was
known as Ili from its capital, and now under the Russians is spoken of
as Kuldja, another name for the same city. This very extensive and
important district was included in the same government with Kashgar when
the Chinese dominated in all this region from their head-quarters at
Ili; but in the final settlement after the disruption of the Chinese
power in 1863, while Kashgar fell to the Khoja Buzurg Khan, and the
eastern portion of Jungaria, together with the cities of Kucha,
Karashar, and Turfan south of the Tian Shan range, to the Tungani;
Kuldja or Ili was occupied by the Russians. The frontier line between
Kuldja and Kashgar is very clearly marked by the Tian Shan, and the same
effectual barrier divides the continent into two well-defined divisions
from Aksu to Turfan and beyond. Eastern Turkestan is, therefore, bounded
on the north by the Tian Shan, and on the south the Karakoram Mountains
form a no less satisfactory bulwark between it and Kohistan and
Cashmerian Tibet. As has been said, on the west the steppe of Pamir and
on the east the desert of Gobi present distinct and secure defences
against aggression from without in those directions. There are few
states in Asia with a more clearly marked position than that of which we
have been speaking. Nature seems to have formed it to lead an isolated
and independent existence, happy and prosperous in its own resources and
careless of the outer world; but its history has been of a more troubled
character, and at only brief intervals has its natural wealth been so
fostered as to make it that which it has been called, "the Garden of
Asia." This condition of almost continual warfare and disturbance during
centuries, has left many visible marks on the external features of the
country, and in nothing is this more strikingly evident than in the
small population. A region which contains at the most moderate estimate
250,000 square miles, is believed by the highest authorities to contain
less than 1,000,000 inhabitants. In breadth Kashgaria may be said to
extend from longitude E. 73 deg. to 89 deg., and in width from latitude N. 36 deg.
to 43 deg.; but the ancient kingdom of Kashgar has been always considered to
have reached only to Aksu, a town about 300 miles north-east of Kashgar.
When the Chinese about fifty years ago conceded certain trade privileges
to Khokand, they were not to have effect east of Aksu; this fact seems
conclusive as to the recognized limits of the ancient dynasty of
Kashgar. The capital of this district, which at one time has been a
flourishing kingdom under a native ruler, at another a tributary of some
Tartar conqueror, and then distracted by the struggles of his effete
successors, and at a third time a subject province of the Chinese, has
fluctuated as much as the fortunes of the state itself. Now it has been
Yarkand, now Kashgar, and yet again, on several occasions, Aksu. The
claims of Kashgar seem to have prevailed in the long run, for, although
Yarkand is still the larger city, Yakoob Beg established his capital at
Kashgar, and made that town known throughout the whole of Asia by the
means of his government.
Kashgar is situated in a plain in the north of the province, and the
small river on which it is built is known as the Kizil Su. Immediately
beyond it the country becomes hilly and mountainous, until in the far
distance may be seen the snow-clad peaks of the Tian Shan, and the Aksai
Plateau. Although the population is barely 30,000, there is now an air
of brisker activity in the bazaars and caravanserais of this capital
than in any other city in the country. The trade carried on with Russia
in recent years has given some life to the place; but few, if any,
merchants proceed more inland than this, whether they come from Khokand
or from Kuldja. The town stretches on both sides of the river, which is
crossed by a wooden bridge; but there are no buildings of any
pretensions for external beauty or internal comfort. The _orda_ or
palace of the Ameer, which is in Yangy Shahr, five miles from the city,
is a large gloomy barrack of a place with several buildings within each
other; the outer ones are occupied by the household troops and by the
court officials, and the inner one of all is set apart for the family
and _serai_ of the ruler himself. In connection with this is a hall of
audience, in which he receives in solemn state such foreigners as it
seems politic for him to honour. In the old days, Kashgar used to be a
strongly fortified position, but the only remains of its former strength
are the ruins which are strewn freely all around. Kashgar is, therefore,
an open and quite defenceless town, and lies completely at the mercy of
any invader who might come along the high road from Aksu or Bartchuk, or
across the mountains from Khokand or Kuldja; but at Yangy Shahr, about
five miles south of Kashgar, Yakoob Beg constructed a strong fort, where
he deposited all his treasure, and this may be taken to be the citadel
of Kashgar as well as the residence of the ruler. Yangy Shahr means new
city, and as a fortification erected by a Central Asian potentate with
very limited means, it must be considered to be a very creditable piece
of military workmanship. The Andijanis or Khokandian merchants who have
at various times settled here, form a very important class in this town
in particular, and it was they who more than any one else contributed to
the success of the invasion of Buzurg Khan and Mahomed Yakoob. It is,
however, said that these merchant classes had become to some extent
dissatisfied with the late state of things, whether because Yakoob Beg
did not fulfil all his promises, or for some other reason, is not clear.
If Kashgar under its late rule was not restored to that prosperous
condition which excited the admiration of Marco Polo, and the Chinese
traveller, Hwang Tsang, before him, it may be considered to have been as
fairly well-doing as any other city in either Turkestan, while life and
property were a great deal more secure than in some we could mention.
Situated about half-way on the road to Yarkand is Yangy Hissar, a town
which has always been of importance both as a military position and as a
place of trade. It has greatly fallen into decay, however, but still
possesses a certain amount of its former influence from being a military
post, and from the exceptional fertility of the neighbouring country.
Yarkand, about eighty miles as the crow flies, and 120 by road, to the
south-east of Kashgar, is still the most populous of all the cities of
Eastern Turkestan. It lies in the open plain on the Yarkand river, and
its walls, four miles in circuit, testify to its former greatness. Under
the Chinese it was quite the most flourishing town in the region, and
even now Sir Douglas Forsyth estimates that it contains 40,000 people,
while the surrounding country has nearly 200,000 more. The fruit gardens
and orchards, which extend in a wide belt round it, give an air of
peculiar prosperity to the country, and quite possibly induce travellers
to take a too sanguine view of the resources of the country. In addition
to the abundance of fruit and grain produce that is brought into the
city for sale, there is a large and profitable business carried on in
leather. Yarkand has almost a monopoly of this article, and the
consumption of it is very great indeed. The Ameer himself took large
quantities yearly for his army, for, in addition to that required for
boots and saddles, many of his regiments wore uniforms of that
substance.
But, although Yarkand is the chief market-place of the richest province,
and although its population is thriving and energetic, there is a
general _consensus_ of opinion that it has become much less prosperous
and much more of a rural town since the transference of the seat of
government to Kashgar, and the disappearance of Chinese merchants with
the Chinese ruler. A very intelligent merchant of the town replied as
follows to questions put to him, as to the Chinese and native rulers,
and it will be seen that it was especially favourable to the claims of
the Chinese as the better masters.
"What you see on market-day now, is nothing to the life and activity
there was in the time of the Khitay. To-day the peasantry come in with
their fowls and eggs, with their cotton and yarn, or with their sheep
and cattle and horses for sale, and they go back with printed cotton, a
fur cap, or city made boots, or whatever domestic necessaries they may
require, and always with a good dinner inside them; and then we shut up
our shops and stow away our goods till next week's market-day brings
back our customers. Some of us, indeed, go out with a small venture in
the interim to the rural markets around, but our great day is market-day
in town. It was very different in the Khitay time. People then bought
and sold every day, and market-day was a much jollier time. There was no
Kazi Rais, with his six Muhtasib, armed with the _dira_ to flog people
off to prayer, and drive the women out of the streets, and nobody was
bastinadoed for drinking spirits and eating forbidden meats. There were
mimics and acrobats, and fortune-tellers and story-tellers, who moved
about amongst the crowd and diverted the people. There were flags and
banners and all sorts of pictures floating at the shop fronts; and there
was the _jallab_, who painted her face and decked herself in silks and
laces to please her customers." And then, replying to a question whether
the morals were not more depraved under this system than under the
strict Mahomedan rule of the Athalik Ghazi, the same witness went on to
say--"Yes, perhaps so. There were many rogues and gamblers too, and
people did get drunk and have their pockets picked. But so they do now,
though not so publicly, because we are under Islam, and the shariat is
strictly enforced."
This very graphic piece of evidence gives a clearer picture of the two
systems of government, than perhaps paragraphs of explanatory writing;
and, to return to the immediate subject before us, it shows that Yarkand
has deteriorated in wealth and population since the Chinese were
expelled from it fifteen years ago.
Khoten is situated 150 miles south-east of Yarkand, and about ninety
miles due east of Sanju. It lies on the northern base of the Kuen Lun
Mountains, and is the most southern city of any importance in Kashgaria.
Under the Chinese, it was one of the most flourishing centres of
industry, and as the _entrepot_ of all trade with Tibet it held a
bustling active community. The Chinese called it Houtan, and even now it
is locally called Ilchi. In addition to the wool and gold imported from
Tibet, it possessed gold mines of its own in the Kuen Lun range, and was
widely celebrated for its musk, silk, and jade. It likewise has suffered
from the departure of the Chinese; and the energy and wealth of that
extraordinary people have found, in the case of this city also, a very
inadequate substitute in the strict military order and security
introduced by Yakoob Beg.
Ush Turfan, New Turfan, is a small town on the road from Kashgar to
Aksu, and is not to be confounded with the better known Turfan which is
situated in the far east on the highway to Kansuh. This latter town is
called Kuhna Turfan, or Old Turfan, to distinguish it from the other.
Ush Turfan, without ever having been a place of the first importance,
derived very considerable advantage from its position on the road
followed by the Chinese caravans, and Yakoob Beg converted it into a
strong military position by constructing several forts there.
Aksu, one of the old capitals of Kashgar, may fairly be called the third
city of the state, although it has, perhaps, more than any other
declined since the expulsion of the Khitay. Before that event took place
there was a road across the mountains to Ili, by the Muzart glacier, and
relays of men were kept continually employed in maintaining this
delicately constructed road in a state fit for passage both on foot and
mounted. But all this has been discontinued for many years now, and not
only is the road quite impassable, but it would require much labour and
more outlay to restore it to its former utility. In the neighbourhood of
this town there are rich mines of lead, copper, and sulphur. These
have, practically speaking, been untouched in recent years. Coal is also
the ordinary fuel among the inhabitants; and both in intelligence as
well as in worldly prosperity, the good people of Aksu used to be
entitled to a foremost position among the Kashgari. As a consequence of
the blocking up of the Muzart Pass, the old trade with Kuldja has
completely disappeared, and all communications with this Russian
province are now carried on by the Narym Pass to Vernoe. This change
benefits the city of Kashgar, but is a decided loss to Aksu. Aksu may
still justly rank as an important place, and under very probable
contingencies may regain all the ground it has lost. In conclusion, we
may say that Yakoob Beg has converted its old walls and castles into
fortifications, which are said to be capable of resisting the fire of
modern artillery.
We have enumerated six cities--Kashgar, Yangy Hissar, Yarkand, Khoten,
Ush Turfan, and Aksu--and these constitute the territory of Kashgar
proper. At one time, indeed, it was called Alty Shahr, or six cities,
from this fact. In addition to these may be mentioned, in modern
Kashgaria, Sirikul, or Tashkurgan, in the extreme south-west, which is
principally of importance as the chief post on the frontier of
Afghanistan. Near Sirikul are Badakshan and Wakhan, and it has been
asserted that Shere Ali, of Afghanistan, viewed with a suspicious eye
the presence of Kashgar in this quarter. It is quite certain that he
would not have tolerated that further advance along the Pamir, which
Yakoob Beg seemed on several occasions inclined to make. Sirikul
commands the northern entrance of the Baroghil Pass, and has
consequently been often mentioned in recent accounts of this road to
India.
Maralbashi, or Bartchuk, a military post of some strength, is
strategically important, as being placed at the junction of the roads
from Kashgar and Yarkand, which lead by the bed of the Yarkand river to
Kucha. But it possesses greater interest for us, as being the chief
town of the district inhabited by the extraordinary tribe of the Dolans.
These people are in the most backward state of intelligence that it is
possible to imagine human beings to be capable of. In physical strength
and stature they are, perhaps, the most miserable objects on the face of
the earth, but their social position is still more deplorable. Some of
their customs are of the most disgusting character, and their dwellings,
such as they are, are of the rudest kind and subterranean. Travellers
who have seen them in the larger cities, say that all the rumours that
have been circulated about them do not exaggerate the true facts of the
case; and the most pitiable part of the matter is, that they have become
so resigned to their degraded position, that they are averse to any
measure calculated to improve their existence. They have been compared
to the Bhots of Tibet, but these latter are quite superior beings in
comparison with them. They are treated with contempt and derision by all
the neighbouring peoples.
Kucha is, or rather was, another very flourishing city which has never
recovered the loss of Chinese wealth, and the subsequent disturbances
during the Tungan wars. At one time Kucha had at the least 50,000
people, and it was not less famed than Aksu for the resources and
ingenuity of its people. But now it is almost a deserted city. The
greater part of the old town is a mass of ruins, and during the nine
years that have elapsed since the Tungani were crushed by the Athalik
Ghazi, scarcely anything has been done to repair the damage caused in
those very destructive wars.
Korla, Kouralia, or Kouroungli, as it has been named, and Karashar, two
towns which lie to the east of Kucha, have likewise never revived from
the period of anarchy and bloodshed, through which the whole of this
district has passed; but even the state of these places contrasts
favourably with the far worse ruin wrought at Turfan. Turfan, perhaps
more than any other, profited by the trade with China, for, although it
may not itself have been as rich as either Aksu or Kucha, it derived a
certain source of income as the rendezvous of all the caravans
proceeding either east or west, or north to Urumtsi and Chuguchak. Very
often a delay of several weeks took place, before merchants had arranged
all the details for crossing the Tian Shan to Guchen, or for proceeding
on to Hamil through the desert, and Turfan flourished greatly thereby.
Now its streets are desolate, the whole country round it is represented
to be a desert, and all its former activity and brightness have
completely disappeared. Yakoob Beg had extended his rule a short
distance east of Turfan, to a place called Chightam, but Turfan may be
styled his most eastern possession.
We have now given a somewhat detailed description of the chief cities of
Kashgaria, and in doing so we have distinctly intended thereby to convey
the impression to the reader that it is only these and their suburbs
that were at all productive under the late _regime_. To those who have
been to Kashgar, nothing has remained more vividly impressed on their
mind, than the exceedingly prosperous appearance of the farms in the
belt of country from Yarkand to Kashgar; but at the same time this
wealth of foliage and of blossom has only made the barrenness of the
intervening and surrounding country more palpable. The farms are
certainly not small in extent, but rather isolated from each other, and
surrounded by orchards of plums, apples, and other fruit trees, in which
they are completely embowered. A Kashgarian village is not a main
street with a line of cottages and a few large farms; but it is a
conglomeration of farmsteads covering a very extensive area of country,
and presenting to the eye of a stranger rather a thinly peopled district
than a community of villagers. Again, although the soil is naturally
fertile, the system of agriculture is of an exhaustive character, and it
seems probable that only a small portion of the land on each farm is at
all productive. But these settlements, which present an exterior of
rural happiness and simplicity, are but oases in an enormous extent
of barren country. If each proprietor seems to possess more land than
he can require, and if the fertile soil produces bountifully that
which is unskilfully sown therein, the total amount of land under
cultivation is still very limited indeed. Worse still, the soil is
gradually exhausted, and as the system of sowing but one kind of grain
seems to have taken deep root among the people, it is to be feared that
it may be perpetuated without hope of recovery. There is a constant
difficulty to be overcome, too, on account of the meagre supply of
water. The general aspect of the region is barren, a bleak expanse
stretches in all directions, and in the distance on three sides the
outlines of lofty ranges complete the panorama. The scarcely marked
bridle track that supplies the place of a highway in every direction
except where the Chinese have left permanent tokens of their presence,
offers little inducement to travellers to come thither; nor must these
when they do come expect anything but the most imperfect modes of
communication and of supply that a backward Asiatic district can
furnish. If we wish to imagine the scene along the road from Sanju to
Yarkand, we have only to visit some of the wilder of the Sussex Wealds
to have it before us in miniature. The spare dried-up herbage may be
still more spare, and the limestone may be more protruding on the
Central Asian plain; and the wind will certainly remind you that it
comes either from the desert or from the mountain regions; but you have
the same undulating, dreary expanse that you have above Crowborough. The
miserable sheep watched by some nomad Kirghiz will alone forcibly remind
you that you are far away from the heights of the South Downs. In the
far distance you will see the cloud-crested pinnacles of the Sanju Devan
or of the Guoharbrum, and then the traveller cannot but remember that he
is in one of the most inaccessible regions in the world. But if these
southern roads are scarcely worthy of the name, the great high road from
Kashgar to Aksu, Kucha, Korla, Karashar, and Turfan is a masterpiece of
engineering construction. It need not fear to brave comparison with
those of imperial Rome herself, and remains an enduring monument to
Chinese perseverance, skill, and capacity for government. In China
itself there are many great and important highways, but there the task
was facilitated by the possession of great and navigable rivers. In
Eastern Turkestan no such assistance was to be found, and consequently
this road, along which was conducted all the traffic that passed from
China to Jungaria, Kashgar, Khokand, and Bokhara, had to be maintained
in the highest state of efficiency. To do this we cannot doubt was a
most expensive undertaking, and, not mentioning such an exceptional work
as the Muzart Pass, one that required a very perfect organization to
accomplish with the success that for more than a century marked it.
The great drawback in the geographical position of Kashgar, is the want
of a cheap and convenient outlet by water. The country itself suffers in
a less degree from the same cause, but with a more perfect system of
irrigation, the rivers, such as the Artosh, &c., which in spring carry
down the mountain snows, might be made to give a more extended supply
throughout western Kashgar at all events. The climate is equable, and
the people suffer from no very prevalent disease, except in the more
mountainous parts, and in Yarkand, where goitre is of frequent
occurrence. The people themselves seem to be frugal and honest, but
indeed there are so many races to be met with in this "middle land,"
that no general description can be given of them all. The Andijanis, or
Khokandian merchants, are the most prosperous class in the community,
and they appear to be, from all accounts, possessed of more than an
average amount of business capacity in the arts of buying and selling.
The Tarantchis are the descendants of Kashgarian labourers imported by
the Chinese into Kuldja in 1762, and there is still both in the army and
in the state a large number of Khitay remaining, who were permitted to
pursue in secret the observances of their religion. The other races are
ill disposed towards them, and attribute all the vices they can think of
to their doors. But these Khitay managed to efface themselves in the
country, and although they formed a very important minority among the
males, they never appear to have been regarded in the light of a
possible danger when their brethren from China should draw near. In
addition to the native Kashgari, and these two important elements just
mentioned, there are numerous immigrants from the border states,
particularly from Khokand, to the people of whom Yakoob Beg naturally
manifested especial favour. We have now given at some length a
description of the geographical features of Kashgar, and are about to
follow it up with an ethnological description as well as a historical
statement of the past features of the same region. It is hoped that
these preliminary chapters will clear the way from some obscurity for a
correct appreciation of the career of the late Athalik Ghazi.
Kashgaria may be said to be a portion of Asia which possesses some great
advantages of position and very considerable resources, but by a
singularly hard fortune, except for the brief period of Chinese rule in
modern times, it has been so distracted by intestine disturbances that
it has retrograded further and further with each year. It is quite
possible that its natural wealth has been too hastily taken for granted,
and that it does not possess the necessary means of restoring itself in
some degree to its former position. This is quite possible, but the best
authorities at our disposal seem to point to a more promising
conclusion, and to justify us in assuming that the position, natural
resources, and general condition of Kashgar will enable a strong and
settled rule to raise it into a really important and flourishing
confederacy.
CHAPTER II.
ETHNOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF KASHGAR.
In the extensive region stretching from the Caspian and Black Seas to
the Kizil Yart and Pamir plateaus, and from the Persian Gulf to Siberia,
the two great families, the Aryan and the Turanian, have in past
centuries striven for supremacy. The latter, embracing in its bosom in
this part of the world the more turbulent and warlike tribes, succeeded
in subjecting those who claimed the same parent stock as European
nations. The Tajik or Persian is the chief representative in this region
of the Aryan family, and he has now for many centuries been the subject
of the Turk rulers of the various divisions of Western Turkestan. These
latter are the personifiers of Turanian traditions. The Tajik appears to
have been subdued, not so much by the superiority of his conqueror in
the art of war, as by his own inclination to lead a peaceful and
harmless life. The pure Tajik, hardly to be met with now anywhere in
Asia, except in the mountainous districts of the Hindoo Koosh, is
represented to us to have been of an imposing presence, with a long
flowing beard, aquiline nose, and large eyes. He is generally tall and
graceful; yet in Khokand and Bokhara the Tajik is at present viewed much
as the Saxons were by the Normans. In those states, too, a man is spoken
of by his race. He is an Usbeg, a Kipchak, a Kirghiz, or a Tajik, as the
case may be, and by this means the rivalry of past ages is to some
extent preserved down to the present time. It is the dissension spread,
or rather the destruction of any sympathy between the various races
caused, by these outward tokens of diversity in origin, that has made
Western Turkestan the familiar home of intestine disturbance, which has
in its turn led up to the easy dismemberment of the various Khanates by
Russian intrigue and by Russian force. In Eastern Turkestan the rivalry
of races has become less bitter, and in nothing is this better
manifested than in the fact that there a man is described by his native
town. He may be a Tajik, or an Usbeg, or a Kirghiz, or a Kipchak, too,
but he is only known as a Yarkandi, or a Kashgari. And while we are at
once struck by this broad and salient difference in popular custom, and
consequently in popular sentiment also, between the Western and Eastern
divisions of Turkestan, a slight inquiry is sufficient to show that the
antipathies of the various races towards each other have become much
more a thing of the past in Kashgaria than they have in the Khanates of
Khokand and its neighbours. At all events, the antipathies that still
prevail in that state are clearly traceable to other causes than
Aryan-Turanian hostility, and are undoubtedly produced either by
religious fanaticism, motives of personal ambition, or the hatred roused
by Chinese pretensions on the one hand, and Khokandian on the other, to
the supreme control of Kashgaria. Bearing these facts clearly in mind,
it is evident that ethnographical descriptions will not make the
political relations of the peoples of the state more easily
intelligible; yet, as matter of historical import, these cannot be
altogether passed over in silence.
The inhabitants of the little known regions now variously known as
Jungaria and Eastern Turkestan were, until recent years, considered to
be of pure Tartar origin, and consequently members of the Turanian
family. There are some still who believe that this definition is the
most accurate. Others dispute it on various grounds, and with much
plausibility. There is no question that the original inhabitants,
historically speaking, were the Oigurs, or Uigurs, and these people
were certainly Tartars. But frequently the Tajik merchants who traded
with Kashgar in the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages, took up their
abode in the country, and by degrees a large colony of Tajik immigrants
was formed on the foundation of the original Oigur stock. These Tajiks
gradually became Tartarised, but they still retained the unmistakable
characteristics of the Aryan family. The two brothers Schlagintweit, and
Mr. Shaw following in their footsteps, were the first to maintain this
view, which is becoming generally accepted. We have, therefore, in
Kashgar the strange spectacle of a Tajik people becoming not only
unidentifiable from the Turanian stock with which it has been
intermingled; but we have also a race tolerance that is unknown in any
other portion of Asia. Undoubtedly the hostility of the settled and
peaceful Andijani immigrant and Kashgari resident to the irreclaimable
Kirghiz is deep-rooted, and, so long as the latter continues a source of
danger to all peaceful communities, abiding; but even this sentiment,
and the religious hatred that has at various epochs marked the political
intercourse of Buddhist and Mahomedan, are probably less durable, and
susceptible of greater improvement in the future, than the race
antipathies that seem perennially vital among the tribes of Western
Asia. The vast majority of the inhabitants of Alty Shahr are of Tajik
descent. In the course of centuries the purity of their lineage has been
leavened by much intermingling with Tartar blood, both at the time of
the Mongol subjection and of the Chinese. In addition to these two great
divisions, there are many Afghan and Badakshi settlers, who have flocked
to Kashgar whenever the progress of events seemed to justify the
expectation that military service in that state would prove a
remunerative engagement. Many of these remained, and they have also left
a clear impression on the features of the inhabitants. It is, however,
to pre-historic times, or certainly to a period lost in the mist of
history, that we must refer for that general exodus of the Aryan family
from the Hindoo Koosh and the plains of Western Asia into the more
secluded prairies of Kashgar, which took place when the Turanian nations
first spread like destroying locusts over the face of that continent. It
was at this period that Khoten, which in its name shows its Aryan
origin, was founded.
The great nomadic tribe of the Kirghiz, or Kara Kirghiz, as the Russians
call them, to distinguish them from the Kirghiz of the various hordes
who, by the way, are not true Kirghiz at all, has at all times played a
fitful, yet important part in the histories of Khokand, Jungaria, and
Eastern Turkestan. Preserving their independence in the inaccessible
region lying west of Lake Issik Kul, and along the Kizil Yart plateau
and range, this tribe has always been a source of trouble to its
neighbours, whosoever they might be. On various occasions, too, they
have joined the career of conquest to their usual avocation of plunder,
and under the few great leaders that have arisen amongst them they have
appeared as conquerors, both of Eastern and Western Turkestan. But their
achievements have never been of a permanent nature. Like the irregular
undisciplined mass of horsemen which constitute their fighting force,
their chief strength lay in a sharp and decisive attack. They had not
the organization or the resources necessary for the accomplishment of
any conquest of a permanent kind. Their incursions, even when most
formidable and most sweeping, were essentially mere marauding
onslaughts. Their object was plunder, not empire; and having secured the
former, they recked little of the value of the latter. At one time they
were able to carry their raids in almost any direction with perfect
impunity; but as settled governments arose around their fastnesses, and
curtailed their field of operations, what had been a life of adventure
through simple love of excitement, became a struggle for sheer
existence. The region where they dwelt was far too barren to support
throughout the year even the limited numbers of the Kirghiz, and yearly
they had to issue forth against prepared and disciplined enemies in
search of the sustenance that, to preserve their existence, had to be
obtained. But for the intestine quarrels that were sapping the life
strength of the Asiatic states slowly away, there is no doubt that the
Kirghiz would have been gradually exterminated. Soon, however, they had
the skill to avail themselves of these disagreements to sell their
services as soldiers to the highest bidders; and although they were not
equal to the Kipchak tribes in valour, their alliance was considered of
importance, and on many a dubious occasion sufficed to turn the fortune
of the day. By such measures of policy their existence has been
preserved, and at the present time they perform much the same functions,
and are regarded in much the same manner by their neighbours, as in the
past.
The Kipchaks, another great tribe, who however are scarcely represented
at all in Kashgaria, pride themselves on being the most select of all
the Usbegs, but their day of power has passed by, for the present at all
events. Thirty years ago they were at the height of their success, but
they incurred the jealousy of other Usbeg tribes and of the Kirghiz.
Owing to the abilities of their great chief, Mussulman Kuli, they
succeeded in erecting in Khokand a powerful state, which was able to
restrain the encroachments of Bokhara, at that time the great enemy of
the former Khanate. But the plots that broke out against them in 1853,
in conjunction with the advance of Russia on the Syr Darya, were crowned
with success, and with the execution of Mussulman Kuli the Kipchak power
was completely broken. Since that date, however, several of the more
distinguished leaders who have appeared on the scene, such as Alim Kuli
and Abdurrahman Aftobatcha, have been members of this clan. The eastern
portion of the dominion of Yakoob Beg is almost exclusively inhabited
by Calmucks, or tribes of Calmuck descent. The great majority of the
inhabitants of Manchuria and Jungaria are of Calmuck descent, and even
in Russia in Europe there are many settlements of this tribe along the
Volga and the Don. None of these, however, possess any political
importance except those who inhabit the country north of Gobi and
between Eastern Turkestan and China, and the chief of these are the
Khalkas. The Calmucks are attached by old associations to the Government
of Pekin; and, although they have sometimes revolted against, and often
caused trouble to, the Central Government, they have generally
acknowledged their culpability and submitted to the Chinese authorities.
In the revolt of the Tungani the Calmucks remained true to China, and
performed very opportune service on various occasions. The Chinese army
in Eastern Turkestan was mainly recruited from among these tribes, who
became distinguished from the Tungani by their religion and fidelity.
The origin of the Tungani, or Dungans, as the Russians call them, is
much in dispute; and as they played so important a part in the loss of
Kashgar and Ili by China, as well as in the history of the rule of
Yakoob Beg, it may be as well to put the facts as they stand at some
length before the reader. There is no question, we believe, that the
Chinese in applying the term Tungani attach the meaning thereto of
Mahomedan. There is equal reason for supposing that the term Khitay,
literally meaning simply Chinese, has been applied to the Buddhists by
general usage. If we acknowledge the validity of these two
assumptions--and, so far as we have been able to ascertain, the best
authorities have adopted them--there would be little difficulty in
explaining who the Tungani were. Granting these, they would simply be
the Mahomedan subjects in the eastern portions of China. But others
believe that the Tungani are a distinct race, presenting peculiar
ethnological features. According to this version, the tribe of the
Tungani can be traced back as a distinct community to the fifth and
sixth centuries, when they were seated along the Tian Shan range, with
their capital at Karashar. The most recent investigations, under Colonel
Prjevalsky, are believed to show no signs of there having been any
important cities in this quarter. It may be convenient to mention here,
that at that time they were Buddhists; but when Islamism broke over Asia
in the eighth century, they were among the first to adopt the new
tenets. This defection from the religion of China brought them into
collision with the Emperors of Pekin, and many of these Tungani were
deported into Kansuh and Shensi, where we are to suppose they continued
a race apart, with their own religion and their own code of morality,
for more than ten centuries. Even granting the possibility of such a
consistency to a new religion, which history informs us was thrust upon
them at the point of the sword, it seems scarcely credible that we
should not hear more of this troublesome tribe in Chinese history.
Frequent allusions are made in imperial edicts and other official
proclamations to the Tungani, but always in reference to their religion,
and not in any way as if they were any other but heretic Chinamen.
Besides, even in this way little is heard of the Tungani until the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when very sharp measures were taken
against them by the emperors, solely because religious propagandists
from their ranks were appearing as enemies of a Buddhist Government. The
theory that the Tungani were a people and not a sect is new, but it is
possible that it may be a true discovery. On the other hand, it is far
more probable that it is only an ingenious attempt at elucidating what
appears on the face of it to be a simple matter enough. The reader must
decide for himself between the two versions. If the Tungani are to be
considered a distinct race, then the majority of the inhabitants of
Eastern Turkestan are not Calmucks, but Tungani; if the view taken here
is adopted, then they are Calmucks who have at various times adopted
Mahomedanism. These are the chief tribes of this portion of Central
Asia; and in the following pages it may be as well to bear in mind that
Khitay is applied exclusively to the Buddhist or governing class, and
Tungani to the Mahomedan or subject race in Kansuh and its outlying
dependencies. As race antipathies have not entered during recent times
so much into the contests of the people of the regions immediately under
consideration as religions, the difference as to the true significance
of the term Tungani does not materially affect one's view of the general
question.
CHAPTER III.
HISTORY OF KASHGAR.
The great difficulty encountered in giving a description of the past
history of Kashgar is to evolve, out of the series of successive
conquests and subjections that have marked the existence of that state
for almost two thousand years, a narrative which shall, without
confusing the reader with a mere repetition of names that convey little
meaning, place the chief features of its history before us in a light
that may make its more recent condition intelligible to us. We may say
in commencement, that those who desire a historical account in all its
fulness of Kashgar must turn to that contributed by Dr. Bellew to the
Official Report of Sir Douglas Forsyth on his embassy to Yarkand. They
will there find ample details of the events that took place in this
region of Central Asia from the commencement of our era; but a mere
reiteration of the various calamities, with brief and intermittent
periods of prosperity, each wave of which bore so striking a similarity
to its predecessor, would not serve the purpose we have at present in
view--viz., of considering its own history, for the purpose of better
understanding its relations with its neighbours and with China, and how
the state consolidated by the Athalik Ghazi was constructed on ruins
handed down by an almost indistinguishable antiquity.
For a considerable number of years anterior to the ninth century, the
Chinese Empire extended to the borders of Khokand and Cashmere. But the
dissensions that marked the latter years of the Tang dynasty were not
long in producing such weakness at the extremity of this vast empire
that the subject races and their proper ruling families were enabled to
obtain either their personal liberty or their lost positions once more,
unhappily without in any case achieving with the severance of their
connection with China any perceptible amelioration in their lot--indeed,
on almost every occasion only binding themselves with harder fetters,
and sinking into a deeper state of servitude. When the petty princelets
of Kashgar, Yarkand, Turfan, and the rest broke away from their
allegiance to Pekin, and when the imperial resources were unable to
coerce their rebellious subjects, the whole country passed under the
hands of their feudatories, who split up into innumerable factions,
waged continuous war, and sacrificed the happiness and welfare of the
subject people to a desire to promote their own individual interests. As
the barons and counts of Italy in the Middle Ages devastated some of the
fairest provinces of Europe, so these Oigur princes fought for their own
hand in the valleys of the Artosh and the Ili. It is very possible that
this state of things would have continued until China became
sufficiently strong and settled to reassert once more her dormant rights
over her lost provinces, but that a new force appeared on the western
frontiers of Kashgar. As early as 676 the Arabs, under Abdulla Zizad,
had crossed over from Persia, and were carrying destruction and terror
in their course along the banks of the Oxus. At that moment a beautiful
and gifted queen, named Khaton, ruled for her son in Bokhara. She had
not long been left a widow when her country was threatened by this
unexpected and terrible invasion. Although assistance came to the queen
from all the neighbouring States, including Kashgar, she was defeated
twice in the open field, and compelled to seek safety within the walls
of her capital. But the Arab leader was unable to take the city by
storm, and slowly retired, with a large number of captives and an
immense quantity of booty, back to Persia. Some years later the Arabs
again returned, but withdrew on the payment of a heavy indemnity.
Another chief, Kutaiba, was still more successful, for on one occasion
he carried fire and sword through Kashgar to beyond Kucha. This was the
first occasion on which the doctrines of Mahomed had been carried into
the realms of China, and with so cogent an argument as the sword it is
not wonderful that some hold was secured on the country. Subsequent
expeditions in the next few centuries strengthened this beginning, and
it was not long before the ruling classes of Kashgar became infected
with the new doctrine.
In the tenth century, Satuk Bughra Khan, the ruling prince of Kashgar,
who had been converted to Islam, forced his people to adopt that
religion, although it is tolerably clear that up to this time there had
been no acknowledgment of supremacy to the representative of Mahomed on
earth. A disunited state, which had on several occasions felt the heavy
hand of the authority of its generals, and at whose very gates its power
was consolidated, could not but be in some sort of dependence to the
stronger power, as there was no ally to be found sufficiently powerful
to protect it, now that the Chinese had retrogressed into Kansuh.
Towards the end of the tenth century the Mahomedans met with a series of
reverses from the Manchoo and Khoten troops, who still preserved their
relations, political and commercial, with China. It was in the
neighbourhood of Yangy Hissar that their general, Khalkhalu, inflicted
the most serious defeat on the Mahomedan rulers of Kashgar, but within
the next twenty years, assistance having come from Khokand, these
defeats were retrieved, and Khoten itself for the first time passed
under the rule of Islam. The family of Bughra Khan was now firmly
established as rulers of Eastern Turkestan, and their limits were almost
identical with those of the late Yakoob Beg.
The Kara Khitay, who had migrated from the country bordering on the
Amoor and the north of China, after long wanderings, had settled in the
western parts of Jungaria, and, having founded the city of Ili, in
course of time formed, in union with some Turkish tribes, a powerful and
cohesive administration. Their chief was styled Gorkhan, Lord of Lords,
and their religion was Buddhism. It was of this tribe, according to
some, that the celebrated Prester John, or King John, was supposed to be
the chief in the Middle Ages. Some neighbours who had been harassed by
predatory tribes came to Gorkhan for assistance, which was willingly
conceded; but, having successfully repulsed the Kipchaks and other
tribes, this leader did not withdraw from the country he had occupied as
a friend and ally. Not only did he then annex Kashgar and Khoten, but he
crossed the Pamir into the province of Ferghana, and in a short period
brought Bokhara, Samarcand, and Tashkent under his dominion. This
extensive empire was of very brief duration however, and civil war was
waged for more than half a century after the first successes of Gorkhan,
in which Khiva, or Khwaresm, and the Kara Khitay fought for supremacy. A
chief of the Naiman tribe of Christians, Koshluk by name, then entered
the lists against the aged Gorkhan, who was, after some hard fighting,
defeated and captured. This was in the year 1214. Koshluk's triumph was
also, however, of very brief duration, for he now came into contact with
one of the most formidable antagonists that the soil of Asia has ever
produced, Genghis Khan.
The Mongols or Mughols began to appear as a distinct tribe about the
same time that the Kara Khitay migrated to Jungaria, and as early as the
commencement of the twelfth century they had carried destruction into
the Chinese provinces of Shensi and Kansuh. When Genghis Khan appeared
upon the scene he found the tribe which he was destined to lead to such
great triumphs in a state of singular strength, and its neighbours
either at discord among themselves or only just recovering from a long
period of anarchy. The Chinese were particularly divided at that moment,
and Genghis Khan, who had family connections in that empire, soon found
it an easy task to lead successful inroads into the heart of his rich
but defenceless neighbour. Genghis Khan was born at Dylon Yulduc, in the
year 1154. His father, Mysoka Bahadur, was a great warrior, and waged
several successful wars with the Tartars. The earlier years of Genghis
Khan were occupied exclusively in overcoming the difficulties of his own
position. His tribe, divided into several distinct bodies, formed only
one confederacy when a foe had to be encountered in the field. It
required years to remove the dislike they experienced at submission to a
distinct authority; and it was only when the renown of his military
achievements threw a halo over his name that these tribes could be
induced to acknowledge a supremacy which they had become powerless to
resist. But during these years, when he led a life unknown and
insignificant as the chief of a small nomad clan, he was all the time
preparing for a wider career, and for a more extended authority. It was
while he was residing in the remote district round the salt springs of
Baljuna that he drew up the code on which his administrative system was
founded. It was based on the fundamental principle of obedience to the
head, on the maintenance of order and sobriety in the ranks of the
warriors, and on the equal participation in the spoils of battle by all;
but its regulations were so strict on the former points, and the gain of
the individual had to be so completely sacrificed for the advantage of
the many, that at first the establishment of this code of order had
rather the effect of driving his followers from him, than of attracting
to his standard zealots capable of the conquest of a world. It was not
until the year 1203, when he was nearly forty-nine years of age, that
Genghis Khan succeeded in bringing all the Mongol tribes under his
leadership. No sooner had he accomplished this much than he embarked on
military enterprises, which, in the course of a very few years, placed
the greater part of Asia at his disposal. Having subjugated various
Tartar and Tangut tribes, he included them in his military organization,
and by making them embrace his system of compulsory service in the army,
he found himself in the possession of an enormous following. Genghis
Khan therefore ruled at the time we have specified over Kashgar,
including Khoten, Jungaria, and the Tangut country; and there was no
force capable of opposing his except, in the east China, and in the west
the government of Khiva, at this period omnipotent in Western Turkestan.
The rumours which reached the Shah of Khwaresm of the formation of this
new confederacy in Mugholistan induced him to send an embassy to
discover the true facts of the case, and accordingly, while Genghis Khan
was prosecuting a war against the Chinese, there arrived in his camp the
emissaries of Western Asia. Haughty and imperious as this conqueror
undoubtedly was, he received the embassy affably, and with expressions
of the deepest friendship. He sent them back with rich presents and the
following characteristic message:--"I am King of the East. Thou art King
of the West. Let merchants come and go between us and exchange the
products of our countries." In furtherance of this wish he sent a
mission composed of merchants and officials to represent the advantages
that would be derived from mutual intercourse. But the Shah of Khiva,
either incredulous of the formidableness of the adversary with whom he
had to deal, or mistaking his own strength, did not reciprocate the
amicable expressions of Genghis Khan, nor, when the merchants who had
been despatched to his country were murdered, did he make any offer of
reparation. Such treatment would not be tolerated by any civilized ruler
of the nineteenth century, much less was it brooked by an irresponsible
conqueror, whose will was his sole law, in the thirteenth. As soon as
his campaign with China had closed with success, Genghis Khan made
every preparation for the punishment of this act of treachery. It was
then that Genghis Khan, with an armed horde of many hundred thousands,
burst upon the astonished peoples of Western Asia like a meteor from the
east. It was then that some of the fairest regions of the earth were
given over to a soldiery to devastate, a soldiery who had raised the
work of destruction to the level of one of the fine arts; and whose
handiwork in Bokhara, Balkh, Samarcand, Khiva and the lost cities of the
desert, is to be seen clearly imprinted in the ruins which mark the site
of ancient capitals, even at the present moment, 700 years after the
Tartar conqueror swept all resistance from his path. Afghanistan, and
the mountain ranges which are now considered to be impassable by
Russians, did not retard the progress of this "Scourge of God." Cabul,
Candahar, Ghizni fell to the warriors of far distant Mongolia, as they
fell not forty years ago to British valour, and as they must again fall
when the onset shall be made with equal intrepidity and with equal
discipline. And not content with having defaced the map of Asia, with
having converted rich and populous cities into masses of ruins, and with
having depopulated regions once prolific in all that makes life
enjoyable, Genghis Khan carried the terror of his name into the most
remote recesses of the Hindoo Koosh. He wintered in the district of Swat
on our north-west frontier, a territory which is quite unknown to us
except by hearsay, and which has only been occupied by the Mongol and
Macedonian conquerors. From his headquarters on the banks of the
Panjkora he sent messengers to Delhi; and it is uncertain whether he did
not meditate the addition of an Indian triumph to those already
obtained.
A rebellion in the far eastern portion of his dominions distracted his
attention from the Indus, and he was compelled to hasten with all speed
to quell in person the rising that was jeopardising his position in the
seat of his power. He hastily broke up from his quarters in Swat, and,
by the valley of the Kunar and Chitral, he entered Kashgar, through the
Baroghil Pass. Although he suffered much loss from a journey across
mountain roads, which were scarcely practicable in the early spring, he
succeeded in reaching Yarkand, with his main body, and hastening across
Turkestan arrived at Karakoram, his capital, in time to quell the
disturbance. After this his life was spent in conquering China, a feat
which he never accomplished. But in several campaigns, extending over a
period of about twenty years, he worsted the Imperial troops so
continually, that before his death, in 1227, he had occupied all the
northern provinces of that empire, with Pekin, and left to his son and
successor, Ogdai Khan, the task of completing the work which he had
commenced. On the death of Genghis Khan, his vast possessions were
divided amongst his children, and Kashgar, including Jungaria, Khwaresm,
and Afghanistan, fell to the lot of Chaghtai Khan. This ruler was able
to hold during his life the extensive territory he had succeeded to; but
on his death dissensions broke out in all quarters of the country, and
produced a fresh distribution of the various provinces. It may be
mentioned that, although Chaghtai was a fanatical Buddhist and a
confirmed debauchee, he was a prudent and sagacious ruler, and no
unworthy successor to his distinguished father. The dissensions that
broke out on his decease continued, with more or less violence, for a
period of almost 100 years after that event took place, and they finally
only received a momentary solution in the formation of a new kingdom of
Mugholistan, or Jattah Ulus, as it was more specifically called, under
one of Chaghtai's descendants.
As briefly and as clearly as possible, we will endeavour to lay before
the reader the chief events of this troubled epoch, when the numerous
progeny of Genghis Khan warred throughout the whole extent of Central
Asia, and a term was only at last placed to their restlessness by their
disappearance. In the first place, it may be as well to mention, that
the religions of Christ, Buddha, and Mahomed, were equally tolerated in
Eastern Turkestan during the greater part of this period. The Arab
invasion and the advance of Islam, had been hurled back beyond Bokhara
"the Holy," by the victorious arms of the great Buddhist conqueror,
Genghis Khan; and for a long period after the Mongol conquests, little
was heard of attempts at conversion to the tenets of the "true Prophet."
But it must not be supposed that, although Genghis Khan, in the sack of
Bokhara, had almost exterminated the race of Mahomedan priests, he was
disposed to stamp out the new heresy from his realms. Having crushed its
power in the field, he was quite content to let it live on or die out,
so long as his imperial or personal interests were not affected. So we
have the strange picture before us, of the three great doctrines of the
earth flourishing side by side in Eastern Turkestan in the fourteenth
century. The Nestorian Christians of Kashgar, who in the time of Marco
Polo were rich and flourishing, were obliged later on to succumb to the
violent measures of the other members of the community, and have
entirely disappeared for many centuries.
Shortly after the death of Chaghtai Khan, Kaidu, a great-grandson of
Genghis, obtained the throne of Kashgar and Yarkand; and a few years
later on, by a skilful piece of diplomacy, backed up by force, added
thereto the greater part of Khokand and Bokhara. His triumph was,
however, of brief duration, and he was displaced by other competitors.
Dava Khan, the son of Burac, the great-grandson of Chaghtai, had been
appointed governor of Khoten, but his ambition was not satisfied with
less than the throne of Western Turkestan also. He eventually obtained
his desire; but in a rash moment he threw himself in the path of the
Chinese Emperor, Timour Khan, who was returning from a raid carried
almost to the gates of Lahore. He was defeated somewhere in the
neighbourhood of Maralbashi, and was compelled to acknowledge the
supremacy of China. He is of some note to us, as having been the father
of Azmill Khoja, who was selected as ruler by the people themselves,
about the year 1310, and from whom descend that line of Khoja kings of
Kashgar, who have clung to their hereditary claims for a longer time
than any other royal Central Asian house. The last of the Chaghtai Khans
who held the sceptre with any effective purpose, was Kazan Ameer. On his
death another period of trouble broke out, and military governors and
rival princelets of dubious titles advanced their pretensions to the
vacant seat. Up to this all the rulers had, however, been Buddhists.
Toghluc Timour, one of the few remaining representatives of the Genghis
families, had only been saved by the pity of a leading man in Kashgar,
from one of the most extensive massacres of his kinsmen, and for years
he was obliged to lead an uncertain existence in the mountains or
deserts bordering on the state. His associations were all Buddhist; but
one day he was so struck by the definition of the "true faith" given by
the descendant of a Mahomedan priest, spared by Genghis Khan at the
destruction of Bokhara, that he made a vow to become a Mussulman when he
had regained his rights. Not long after this the turn of events in
Kashgar made people seek for some person with recognized claims to be
their ruler, and none in this respect surpassed Toghluc Timour. He, on
succeeding to the throne, openly owned his conversion to Islam, and in a
few years he was gradually imitated by all the leading chiefs of
Turkestan. From this time downwards to the present day, the religion of
the majority in this state has been Mahomedanism, except perhaps during
the Chinese rule, when the number of Chinese merchants, officials, and
soldiers, put the minority of the followers of Buddha on a par with
those of the rival religion. Toghluc died in 1362.
It was about this time that the second great conqueror of Asia appeared
upon the scene. Timour was born in 1333 in the Shahrisebz suburb of
Kish. He was the son of Turghay, governor of that district and chief of
the Birlas tribe, and on the death of his father he himself became
governor of Kish also. During his earlier years he was hospitably
received at the Court of Kazan Ameer, and that ruler, in addition to
giving him several high and distinguished appointments, married him to
his beautiful granddaughter Olja Turkan Khaton. Timour did not continue
long in favour at Court. His restless spirit impelled him to fields of
greater activity than any the Ameer could, or indeed felt disposed to,
place at his disposal. He openly mutinied against the central authority
in his government of Kish, and on being overthrown by the troops of the
state, he sought safety with his wife among the Turcomans of the Khivan
desert. Among these uncertain nomads he felt scarcely secure, and
collecting round him a small band of desperadoes, he entered upon a more
ambitious enterprise by undertaking a marauding expedition into the
Persian province of Seistan. This was attended with considerable
success, but he himself was wounded in the foot by an arrow. From the
effects of this wound he never completely recovered, and was known
henceforth as Timour Lang, Timour the Lame, whence the well-known name
of Tamerlane. The _eclat_ obtained by this marauding expedition stood
him in good stead, for shortly afterwards he was able to raise a
sufficient force to invade Tashkent. He occupied the whole of what is
now Russian Khokand including Ferghana, and he placed a fresh occupant
on the throne, Kabil Shah, in 1363. In the following years he contended
for supremacy with another chief named Husen, and in 1369 had so far
been victorious that he threw off the mask, and declared himself king.
He made Samarcand his capital, and converted that once populous city
into the wonder and admiration of Western Asia. Having settled his
internal affairs, he commenced operations against the states lying
beyond his border. The mountaineers of Badakshan were the first to incur
his wrath, and after several stubborn battles they were obliged to
acknowledge his supremacy. He then turned his attention to his northern
frontiers, beyond which the Jattah princes reigned in Jungaria. He
overcame their prince, Kamaruddin, in several encounters, but not with
complete success until his final campaign against him in 1390. As he
advanced they retired to the fastnesses east of Lake Issik Kul, and only
reissued from their hiding-places when the invader had withdrawn.
To return to Kashgar, on the death of Toghluc, his son Khize Khoja was
displaced and did not regain possession of his kingdom till 1383, when
he was thirty years of age. He was a stanch Mussulman, and was on terms
of as much amity and as close alliance with Timour as it was possible
for any neighbour, wishing to preserve his independence, to be. Allied
as he was with, yet not participating in the wars of Timour, against the
Jattahs, he suffered in common with those people from the expedition of
1389-90, when both sides of the Tian Shan were ravaged by the armies of
that ruler. Although for the next fifteen years they maintained friendly
relations, it can easily be imagined that Khize Khoja was not very
comfortable with so formidable a suzerain just over his frontiers. The
irksomeness of the position is well illustrated by the orders
transmitted to Khize Khoja by Timour, to have corn planted and cattle
collected at certain places for the immense army which he was levying
for the invasion of China. It was while engaged in fulfilling these
commands, that news reached the ruler of Kashgar that this "Scourge of
God" had died suddenly on the 5th of February, 1405. Khize Khoja himself
survived but a short time afterwards. For the second time within the
short space of 150 years had the possessions of a great conqueror to
undergo the process of redistribution. In Timour's case it was simpler
than it had been in that of Genghis Khan, for the former ruler left no
worthy representative of his cause as the Mongol conqueror had in Ogdai
and Chaghtai. The branches of the great family of Genghis struck root so
deeply, that down to modern times he has had descendants who perpetuate
his name, but Timour left none such. With the death of his favourite son
Jehangir, his hopes of having a worthy successor expired.
Kashgar was in particular the scene of confusion and trouble, and it was
not until about 1445 that any settled government was attained, when
Seyyid Ali, grandson of the aged and patriotic minister Khudadar,
restored some order and cohesion to the distracted country for a short
period. He died in 1457. During these years Yunus, king of Jungaria,
played a very prominent part in all the disturbances that were occurring
on his borders. He is represented to have been a very enlightened
prince, and emissaries from foreign nations returned from his court
relating with surprise how they had found a courteous and refined man
where they expected to have seen a coarse and savage Mongol. While Yunus
ruled in Jungaria another striking individual was predominant in
Kashgar. Ababakar, son of Saniz, who was the son of Seyyid Ali, ruler of
Kashgar, was one of the few sovereigns of that state whose acts entitle
them to consideration. During a long and troubled tenure of power he had
the good fortune to overcome many difficulties, and although his career
was to become clouded before his death, the brilliant years that
preceded the catastrophe justify us in considering his career for a
little while. He was a great athlete, hunter and soldier, and was so
favoured by his mother on that account that he distanced his brethren in
the race for supremacy. As governor of Khoten he soon absorbed Yarkand,
and long and furious were the wars he waged with Hydar, the ruler of
Kashgar, who was assisted by Yunus of Jungaria. Nor, although successful
on several occasions in the field against the allied forces, could
Ababakar hope to overcome the huge armies at the disposal of Yunus; and
it was not until Hydar himself foolishly broke off from Yunus, that
Ababakar succeeded in asserting his claim to all Eastern Turkestan. War
then broke out between Hydar and Yunus, and the latter with the
assistance of large reinforcements from Jungaria overthrew and captured
his former ally. But these dissensions favoured the cause of Ababakar,
and on the death of Yunus in 1486, his possession of Kashgar became
undisputed. The first serious danger with which he was menaced after his
complete possession of Kashgar, was in 1499, when Ahmad, the son of
Yunus, or Alaja the "slayer," as he was generally called, invaded his
territory at the head of the Jattah Mongols. The campaign was in the
commencement indecisive, but Ababakar before long triumphed over his
northern invader.
During the next fifteen years Ababakar ruled in peace and prosperity in
Kashgar, accumulating great riches and presenting an object of
attraction to his covetous neighbours. During these years the country,
although ruled in an arbitrary way, flourished, and, as one of the
native chronicles put it, "A traveller could go from Andijan to Hamil on
the borders of China without fear of molestation, and without having to
make an extra long march in order to find a place wherein to rest and
obtain refreshment." But in 1513 a storm broke upon his country that
resulted in his complete overthrow. Said, son of Ahmad and brother of
Mansur, who was ruling in Jungaria, undertook the invasion of Kashgar in
that year, and it was not long before he occupied Kashgar, which,
however, Ababakar left but a heap of ruins. His advance on Yangy Hissar
was opposed, but, having defeated the army of Kashgar before that city,
he occupied it without any further opposition, and thus secured what
has been called the key of Yarkand as well as of Kashgar. For some
months Ababakar remained shut up in Yarkand, but on the approach of
Said's army he abandoned that position and fled to Khoten. But not long
afterwards he retired still further into the mountainous country
south-east of Kashgar, and halted some time at Karanghotagh. But being
first plundered and then deserted by his attendants, he withdrew into
the valleys and deserts of the Tibetan table-land. For many months he
wandered, half-starved and solitary, in this deserted region, and at
last it was reported that he had been found murdered by some of the
mountaineers. Such was the end of the once magnificent Ababakar, a
prince who in his fortunes reminds us very much of the great Darius.
That he was avaricious is clear to those who read of the great treasures
he had stored away; that he was bloodthirsty and cruel is impossible of
denial; but that he possessed in his earlier years many of the virtues,
with some of the vices, of a great ruler is equally incontestable. His
son Jehangir, whom he had left in command at Yarkand, on the approach of
the army of Said fled to Sanju, and was in a few months captured and
executed. About this epoch the third great Asiatic conqueror was
appearing on the scene. Babur was born in 1481, and was chosen to
succeed his father Uman Sheikh on the throne of Khokand, by the nobles
of that state, when he was only twelve years of age. This conqueror of
India influenced but indirectly the fortunes or Kashgar. His career was
in another sphere, and it is not necessary here to enter into any
description of his life, such as has been given of his predecessors
Genghis Khan and Timour.
Said, having overcome Ababakar, employed himself in extending his rule
over the neighbouring states. He was seized with the desire of occupying
that mountainous region, which is divided into almost as many petty
states as it contains mountain chains, lying between our Indian
frontier and the Pamir and Badakshan. But although he employed all his
resources in endeavouring to subject the Kafirs of Bolor, or Kafiristan
as it is now called, he was unable to make any permanent additions in
this direction. In other years he carried fire and sword into Tibet and
Cashmere; and it was when returning from one of these expeditions, in
the year 1532, that he expired from the effects of the rarefied
atmosphere, near the Karakoram pass. His death was the signal for the
outbreak of fresh disturbances. His legitimate sons were ousted by
Rashid, the son of Said by a slave, who had already distinguished
himself as a general in the wars against Kafiristan and Tibet, and on
the death of Rashid after a brief reign, the confusion became, if
possible, worse confounded. It would be tedious in the extreme to follow
the variations that now took place. Benedict Goes, a Portuguese
missionary and traveller, found a ruler named Mahomed Khan on the throne
in 1603, by whom he was hospitably received; but as he had placed the
sister of the Khan, when returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca, under an
obligation to him, this is scarcely a fair criterion either of the
personal merits of this ruler, or of the state of civilization to which
the country had attained.
It was now that the Khoja family appeared prominently upon the scene.
Two factions were playing the parts of Montagu and Capulet in Eastern
Turkestan in the earlier years of the seventeenth century. They were
known as the Aktaghluc and Karataghluc, and in the course of their
strife the leader of the former called in to his aid the Khoja Kalar of
Khodjent, a descendant of Azmill before mentioned. It was in the year
1618 that this Khoja first came to Kashgar, and his grandson,
Hadayatulla, was the chief means of attracting the affections of the
people to this family. That veneration has not disappeared to-day, and
the Hazrat Afak, as he is generally spoken of, is scarcely inferior in
the eyes of the people to Mahomed himself. The great miracles he is
reported to have wrought, and the peculiar sanctity which attached to
him during his life, gave him complete ascendancy throughout the
country, and before his death he was entrusted with the supreme
authority. His son, Yahya or Khan Khoja, succeeded him during his
lifetime, but was murdered in a riot a few months after the death of
Hadayatulla. Then recommenced with fresh vigour the old series of
disturbances. Aspirant after aspirant appeared in the political arena,
but, as each had little claim to lead on account of original merit, a
successful rival always was forthcoming, and so this wearying cycle
continued until 1720.
The course of the history of Kashgar has now been brought down to the
commencement of the eighteenth century, during which a fresh change
occurred in the history of the country by the Chinese conquest. It may
be well, therefore, before narrating that event and the causes which
immediately produced it, to consider the chief lessons taught us by the
history of Eastern Turkestan, as revealed in the preceding pages. The
most cursory reader must have been struck by the fact, that only twice
in the course of eight centuries did the country secure a firm and
settled government, and they were when two conquerors, Genghis Khan and
Tamerlane, reduced every semblance of authority to one bare level of
subjection. At fitful moments there arose, indeed, some leader, Yunus,
Ababakar, or the first Khojas, capable of preserving for a few years his
frontiers against the inroads of hostile neighbours, and of maintaining
an outward show of prosperity and tranquillity to foreign travellers;
but even such gleams of sunshine as these were transitory on the dark
horizon of the condition of mankind in Central Asia. With the fall of
each pretender, too, hopes of an improvement became fainter in the
breasts of the people; and when the successors of the Khoja saint showed
themselves not less amenable to the errors and frailties of their
predecessors than any past ruler had been, it was to some extraneous
circumstance, we may feel sure, that the people looked for aid. There is
an old saying in this part of the world, that when "the people's tithe
of bricks is full, then comes a Moses in the land;" and it cannot be
doubted that in the year 1720 the people of Kashgar had suffered much
and for so long, that relief, so that it came effectually from some
quarter or another, could not be otherwise than welcome. But the Moses
who had been, for centuries almost, expected, had as yet not proved
forthcoming, and as "hope deferred maketh the heart sick," so had the
Kashgari lost the courage even to look forward to a period when their
life of misery, under oppressive tyrants and exorbitant taxation,
aggravated by every form of peculation in its levy, might be changed for
a more favourable state of being. There can be no doubt that if the
chaos which reigned throughout Jungaria and Kashgar had continued much
longer those vast regions would have been completely exhausted. As it
was the population decreased in alarming proportions, and the wealth and
general resources of the country disappeared with no apparent means of
supplying the gap. What is, perhaps, most surprising of all is that all
these later rulers seem to have lived in a sort of fools' paradise with
regard to the resources of their state. The thought never seems to have
occurred to them that there must be an end some day or other to a realm
distracted by continual wars and sedition, and that subjects who have
been tyrannised over for centuries will at last rise up in arms and
teach their tyrants, in the words of the poet, "how much the wretched
dare." These Khans or Ameers of Central Asia are not worthy of one
moment's consideration for their own sake; but, as some account of them
is a proper preparation for the modern history of Kashgar, they have
been described in this chapter. From the disappearance of Chinese
authority in Central and Western Asia in the eighth and ninth
centuries, down to the commencement of the eighteenth century, the
history of Kashgar, in common with that of its neighbours, was a series
of misfortunes. There is nothing to attract our sympathies in any of the
rulers, with the exception perhaps of Yunus; and all our commiseration
is monopolised for the unhappy races who peopled that region. We
therefore have arrived at this crisis in a fit state to appreciate the
feelings of the Kashgari at the changes that occurred in the eighteenth
century; and before we consider, in a fresh chapter, those alterations
we may close this without regret at the disappearance of a long line of
Central Asian Khans, who possessed scarcely one redeeming quality among
many vices.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CONQUEST OF KASHGAR BY CHINA.
Before continuing the narrative of the events that took place in Kashgar
after the year 1720, until it fell into the hands of the Chinese in
1760, it may be as well to consider briefly the history of China, in
order that it may be intelligible to us how that power was induced to
undertake such far distant enterprises, and how, moreover, it was able
to accomplish them successfully. In the earlier years of the seventeenth
century the dynasty of Ming was seated on the throne of Pekin, but its
power had been shaken to its foundations by repeated disasters in wars
with the Mantchoo Tartars, who had wrested the province of Leaou Tung
from the Emperor Wan-leh, before his death in 1620. The Mantchoos are
said to have been the descendants of the Mongol conquerors of the
thirteenth century, who had been forced to take refuge in the wilds
north of China when the native Chinese rose up and destroyed their
power. Whether this very plausible suggestion be true or not, or
whether, as some affirm, these were a new race issuing from the frozen
regions of Kamschatka and driven south by the necessity for obtaining
sustenance for their increasing numbers, matters little for our present
purpose. It is certain that they were a warlike people at this time, and
that they could bring considerable numbers into the field, and it is
very probable that, when they had obtained some success, their ranks
were swollen by recruits from their Tartar kinsmen of Eastern Jungaria.
On the death of the Chinese Emperor Wan-leh, dissensions broke out in
China as to his successor, and in the struggle that ensued the Mantchoos
were invited in to support the cause of one of the claimants. Their aid
turned the scale in his favour; but when the fortunes of war had been
clearly manifested, the Mantchoos showed no disposition to take their
departure as had been stipulated. As the Saxons in our own history, and
the Mongols in the Chinese had acted, so now did the Mantchoos, and in
1644 their first Emperor Chuntche was installed in the imperial
dignities, as the first of the present ruling dynasty of Tatsing, or
"sublimely pure," When Chuntche was crowned by his victorious soldiery,
it must not be supposed that he had conquered the whole of China. During
the seventeen years of his reign he was constantly engaged in warring
with the native Chinese forces; but always with invariable success. In
1661 Kanghi, his son, ascended the throne, and by a series of judicious
measures and successful enterprises, firmly maintained the position won
in China by his father. It was during this brilliant reign that Tibet
was annexed to the Chinese Empire, and from Cochin-China and the
frontiers of Birma to the River Amoor there was none to question the
power of the Mantchoo Government. It cannot be doubted that the conquest
of Tibet opened up fresh ideas in the minds of the Chinese as to their
right to rule in Eastern Turkestan; and with the re-assertion of their
old suzerainty over the Tibetan table-land, the remembrance of a similar
claim, at a far distant epoch, over Jungaria and Turkestan would be
forced on the minds of the Chinese people, until some ambitious ruler or
viceroy might avail himself of the opportunity of distinction by
acquiescing in, and giving effect to, the popular desire. Kanghi was too
prudent to jeopardize his recently consolidated state by expeditions
either into Jungaria or Turkestan; and was quite satisfied with the
respect shown to his empire by the Eleuthian princes of those regions.
On Kanghi's death, in 1721, his son, Yung-Ching, came to the throne,
and during his short reign, the example of his two predecessors not to
interfere in the troubles of the states lying beyond Kansuh, was closely
followed. Yung-Ching died in 1735, and thus made way for his ambitious
and warlike son, Keen-Lung. When Keen-Lung first commenced to reign for
himself he found that he was irresponsible ruler of a most powerful
empire, at peace within itself, and satisfied to all outward seeming
with its _de facto_ government. His treasury was full; the country was,
perhaps, at its very highest point of prosperity, and the sovereign had
only to maintain in this wealth and vigour the nation which had been
brought to such a pitch by the wisdom of his predecessors. To a warlike
monarch, however, the career of ruler of a thriving, peace-loving, and
domestic people, has never been a palatable one, and Keen-Lung thought,
as have many other great sovereigns of our own age, that the only use of
a wealthy and numerous subject race was to enable the ruler to undertake
high-sounding enterprises, and to spread the terror of his name through
distant regions. The reputation and the real strength of the Chinese
Empire were so great at this time in Asia, that no single power, or even
any possible confederacy, would have thought of entering the lists
against it. Keen-Lung had, therefore, no just cause for hostilities with
the neighbouring states, as they were always too willing to offer the
amplest reparation for any cause of offence to the Imperial dignity. The
conquest of Turkestan was therefore an object with which he would
heartily sympathise; and when we remember his warlike disposition, and
the exact condition of China at the time, possessing a superabundance of
wealth, and of numbers sufficient to achieve far more difficult
enterprises than the one in question, it is easier to understand the
eagerness with which Keen-Lung intervened in the affairs of Jungaria,
when the following opportunity, which we are about to narrate, offered
for so doing.
It is now time to return to Kashgar and narrate the events that were
happening in that troubled district. The feud between the Aktaghluc and
Karataghluc factions reached its height when Afak, who had been placed
on the throne of Yarkand by the Calmucks, under Galdan, the chief
representative of the Aktaghluc, succeeded in expelling all the
prominent supporters of the rival clan. Afak ruled for some years, but
with difficulty maintained himself in some parts of Kashgar, against the
Calmucks, Kirghiz, and Kipchak. His sons had no better fortune, and the
state was finally divided between a Kipchak and a Kirghiz leader. These
quarrelled between themselves, but happily they each expired in the
first encounter. Acbash, one of the sons of Afak, was executed at Yangy
Hissar in the course of this contention; but he had previously called in
to his assistance from Khodjent, in Khokand, a Khoja, Danyal, of the
rival Karataghluc faction. This roused the enmity of the more bitter
among the Aktaghluc, and, on this, Khoja Ahmad was brought in to
represent their interests. Danyal was besieged in Yarkand, but, with the
assistance of a contingent of Kirghiz, he was able to repulse his
assailants. But, although successful in the field, Danyal was compelled
shortly afterwards to flee, and leave his rival in possession of the
state. He fled to the Calmucks, in Jungaria, and pleaded so well, that
an army was lent him to regain Kashgar. Victory attended this
expedition, but the Calmuck leader, who had captured Ahmad at the siege
of Kashgar, instead of placing Danyal in power, took both him and his
rival as prisoners to his capital of Ili. With so forcible a settlement
of the question, little room was left for useless complaining to the
ambitious Danyal, and from this time down to the Chinese conquest, the
Calmuck rulers of Ili asserted their right to supremacy over Eastern
Turkestan. Danyal, himself, was appointed, some years later on, governor
of Kashgar, now called Alty Shahr, or six cities; but, under him, there
was a local governor for each town, appointed by the Calmucks
themselves. His power was more apparent than real. His eldest son was
kept at Ili as a hostage for the good behaviour of his father, and
Danyal, himself, had frequently to proceed to Ili to make his report on
the state of affairs in Kashgar. Such was the condition of Kashgar, as a
subject province of the Calmuck rulers of Ili, governed by Danyal, a
member of the Karataghluc party, in the year 1740. On the death of
Galdan, the son of Arabdan Khan of Jungaria, in 1745, two chiefs,
Amursana and Davatsi, or Tawats, seized the governing power, and for a
time they divided the authority fairly between them; but it was not long
before they fell out, and resolved to advance their own interests at the
expense of each other. Amursana was unable to cope with the armies of
his rival, Davatsi, and, having been defeated in several encounters,
fled from Jungaria to China. On his arrival at Lanchefoo he demanded
permission to proceed to Pekin to lay his grievances at the feet of the
Emperor, and to offer in his name, and in that of many of his
compatriots, the districts of Ili and of Kashgar to his omnipotent
majesty.
The request was granted, and Keen-Lung received him with favour,
promised to consider what he had stated, and, in the meanwhile, gave him
titles and revenues within the Chinese Empire. Amursana's address was so
insinuating, and he played so skilfully on the king's ambition and love
for military renown, that at last Keen-Lung consented to lend him the
forces, which he had been so lavish of promises to secure. In 1753, the
Chinese army, under Amursana, appeared in Jungaria, and, after several
desperate encounters, Davatsi was driven out of that state, and,
according to one account, was delivered up to the Chinese by Khojam Beg,
the governor of Ush Turfan. According to another version, he was
captured in the field; but both agree that he was taken to Pekin and
there executed. Amursana, having regained his position in Jungaria, now
turned his attention to the conquest of its dependency, Kashgar. He was
now supreme in Jungaria, with his capital at Ili; but his army, which
maintained him in his position, was a Khitay force, owing allegiance
solely to the Emperor of Pekin, and only obeying the instructions issued
by his general accompanying the Eleuth prince Amursana. At this epoch
Yusuf, a son of Galdan, had seized the chief authority in Kashgar, and,
raising a cry that the true religion of Islam was in danger from the
advance of the Khitay, endeavoured to rally to his cause in the struggle
that he saw was approaching the Mahomedan governments of Khokand and
Bokhara. Amursana, on the northern frontiers of Kashgar, was eagerly
watching for the opportunity to arise for an active interference in that
state, and Yusuf was prudent in seeking beyond his frontiers for allies
that were able to assist him against the machinations of his foes. Yusuf
had made himself the leader and representative of the Karataghluc party
in the state, and Amursana accordingly resolved to put forward the
pretensions of the rival Aktaghluc faction. In this design the Chinese
general acquiesced, and, with the assistance of the Calmuck governors of
Ush Turfan, and Aksu, no delay interfered with its prompt realization.
The descendants of the ancient Khojas were consequently sought out, and
Barhanuddin, son of Ahmad, was selected for the purpose. He, at the head
of a mixed following, promptly seized Ush Turfan, and was there received
with acclamation, and several of the minor tribes joined him at once.
Yusuf was, however, hurrying up with a large force from Yarkand, and
Barhanuddin's chances seemed to be more than doubtful, when Yusuf died
on the way. His son Abdulla, who took the name of Khoja Padshah,
hastened on, however, and besieged Barhanuddin in Ush Turfan. Abdulla
then endeavoured to come to terms with Barhanuddin, and made overtures
for the reconciliation of the Karataghluc and Aktaghluc parties to be
cemented in a crusade against the invading Khitay. Barhanuddin, a true
Mussulman, was personally inclined to accept the arrangement offered,
but, as he was surrounded by Chinese officials and their allies, he was
constrained to give instead the advice that Abdulla should surrender to
the Chinese and acknowledge their supremacy. Abdulla was not at all
willing to forfeit his independence without some struggle, and the siege
of Ush Turfan was pressed on. In the camp of the besieging forces there
were some who favoured the pretensions of Barhanuddin, and these
deserting from the Karataghluc cause, the remaining forces of Abdulla
were compelled to retreat with precipitation. Barhanuddin immediately
advanced on Kashgar, where he was received with open arms. Yarkand soon
afterwards fell into his possession, and the conquest of Kashgar by the
descendant of the Khojas and the triumph of the Aktaghluc party were
complete.
So far the Chinese had been merely spectators of the progress of events
in Kashgar. Amursana had induced them to approve of this enterprise of
Barhanuddin, and they had given general support in the war with Yusuf
and his son; and it was not until Barhanuddin, elated with his success,
set their wishes at defiance, that they resolved to occupy the country.
But before that, Amursana's career had been cut short. Although escorted
by a large force of native Chinese troops, he had aspired, in 1757, to
establish himself as an independent prince in Jungaria, and had broken
loose from Chinese control. The forces he raised were, however, defeated
with remarkable ease by the Chinese, and Amursana was compelled to flee
once more from his home--this time with no certain refuge, as he had
before in Pekin. The Russians were then in possession of Siberia, but
their influence for good or for ill beyond their desert and almost
impenetrable stations was practically _nil_; but, such as it was, it
seemed to Amursana the only place affording any prospect of security.
He died at Tobolsk, in 1757, soon after he arrived there; but the
implacable Chinese haughtily demanded from the Russians his body as a
proof of his decease, and the Russian government sent it to Kiachta for
surrender to them. Such was the career of the ill-fated, but ambitious,
Amursana, who was the immediate cause of the introduction of Chinese
power into Eastern Turkestan.
With so unmistakable a proof before his eyes of the power of the
Chinese, it is strange to find Barhanuddin also proving contumacious in
Kashgar, but so it was. In 1758, the very next year after the death of
Amursana, this ruler and his brother Khan Khoja broke out in open mutiny
to the Chinese. At Ili some Khitay officers were maltreated, and
outspoken contempt was shown for Chinese commands. Such attitude could
not be brooked by any established rule, and, to do the Chinese simple
justice, never had been tolerated by them on any occasion; and
accordingly a Chinese army was despatched from Ili to chastise this
recalcitrant ruler, and to remind him that the arm of Chinese power was
terribly long. Barhanuddin and his brother were defeated in several
pitched battles, city after city opened its gates to the dreaded
invader, and the last representatives of the Khojas were compelled to
seek refuge in the isolated region of Badakshan. But even here they were
not safe. The terror of the Chinese name had gone before them, and the
sovereign of Badakshan, eager to propitiate the conqueror, sent the
heads of the two brothers to the Chinese general, who was advancing from
Yarkand. Only one of the numerous sons of Barhanuddin escaped the
destruction wrought in the family of the Khojas by the victorious
Chinese: his name was Khoja Sarimsak. The Chinese had now completely
annexed all the territory north of the Karakoram and east of the Pamir
and Khokand, and it does not appear that in doing so they had suffered
any great loss. By availing themselves of Amursana's claims in Jungaria
they had obtained a firm foothold in that state, and then by an equally
skilful manipulation of the rival parties of Aktaghluc and Karataghluc,
they had extended their authority over Kashgar as well. When their
puppets, Amursana and Barhanuddin, became restive as Chinese vassals,
and strove for independence, the Chinese forces were called into action
and swept all opposition from their path. All this may seem the most
unjustifiable ambition, nor do we wish to palliate in any way the
terribly harsh repressive measures adopted by the Chinese. There is no
doubt that, so long as there remained the shadow of any opposition to
their rule, they did not temper their power with any exhibition of
mercy. It is computed that almost half a million of people were slain
during the wars of these two or three years, and that the great majority
of these were the innocent inhabitants, who had been massacred. Nor,
although we should be disposed to think that this is a greatly
exaggerated number, have we any reason to doubt that the sword of the
Chinese was called into use whenever any resistance was offered to their
advance, and that the feelings of the soldiers were embittered to a
great extent by religious fervour, in their encounters with the
Mussulmans. The Chinese, having conquered Kashgar, turned their arms
against Khokand, and entered Tashkent and the city of Khokand in
triumph. As the year 1760 was drawing to a close, quite a panic was
spreading through Western Asia at the advance of the Chinese.
Afghanistan, then as now the only formidable Mahomedan territory left
intact from foreign conquest, was implored by the suffering Islamites to
check the Chinese advance. Then, as recently on a somewhat similar
occasion, Afghanistan thought prudence the better part of valour, and
confined her action to the invasion of Badakshan, which she coveted, in
order to punish its ruler for the murder of the fugitive Khojas. But,
having terrified Khokand, the Chinese wisely retired to the proper
frontier of Kashgar, and then set about consolidating their rule there
by an energy and administrative capacity which must excite the
admiration of every governing nation.
It was some years, however, before the conquest of Kashgar, which had
been so rapidly accomplished, could be considered to have been
altogether completed. Fresh troops had to be summoned from Kansuh, and
military settlers imported in large numbers from Shensi and other
Chinese provinces, to supply the place of the massacred Kashgari.
Settlers were also brought from the neighbourhood of Urumtsi and Hamil;
and with these and imperial troops sent from Pekin, the Chinese felt
complete masters of the situation. It was only then that the Chinese
viceroy considered himself sufficiently strong to place his army in
detachments in the various cities. Up to that time it had been kept
mobilised in one, or at most two or three stations, ready for instant
action. When the Chinese withdrew from Khokand they imposed a tribute on
that state, and then they turned their arms against the nomad tribes on
the north of the Jungarian frontier. The various hordes of the Kirghiz
nomads sent in their submission one after the other, and the Chinese
invariably accepted their fealty, and as a rule rewarded their duteous
behaviour with Chinese titles and rank Thus Ablai, Chief of the Middle
Horde, was made Prince in 1766, and Nur Ali, of the Little Horde, went
so far as to send special emissaries to Pekin, where they were
favourably received, and returned with recompenses for the fidelity of
their master. The Chinese had thus secured their position in Jungaria
and Kashgar before the dose of 1765, and by their possession of Khoten,
they had opened up communications with their province of Tibet. On the
south they possessed an admirable frontier, and it was only in the
south-west that any check seemed to be put upon their advance. As
already mentioned, the Ameer of Afghanistan had overran Badakshan, in
chastisement for the murders of Barhanuddin and his brother; and he was
continually receiving applications to declare an open war against the
Chinese. His own troubles with the rulers of Scinde and Persia were
sufficient to keep his religions sympathies within due bounds. But he
sent an embassy to Pekin, to point out that his fellow-religionists were
suffering under the conquering sway of the Chinese forces in Central
Asia; and on its return with an unsatisfactory reply, he appears to have
stationed a large body of troops in Badakshan. The proud Durani monarch
was probably eager to oppose the Chinese, but, wiser than his
contemporaries in Turkestan and Jungaria, he accurately reckoned up the
risks of the enterprise, and contented himself with the maintenance of
the powerful empire he had erected on the ruins of the conquests of
Nadir Shah. When the Afghans had done so much, and given promises of aid
in the defence of Samarcand, it is not to be wondered at if the people
of Kashgar thought they would do more, and risings took place in several
parts of the state, notably at Ush Turfan. The Chinese measures were
prompt and effectual; the rebellion was suppressed, the inhabitants
massacred, and the town destroyed. This failure struck so complete a
panic into the hearts of the people, that no inducements, for more than
half a century, could encourage them to rise against the Chinese. The
Chinese conquest of Kashgar gave an effectual solution to the rivalries
of the numerous claimants to its sovereignty, and among other
competitors to the Khojas, that is, to the descendants of that Sarimsak
who alone survived the massacre of his family in 1760. While very
possibly the people may have suffered that mental depression which must
accompany the installation of a foreign rule, and despite the very harsh
and unmistakable evidences given by the Chinese of their intolerance of
opposition, there was some prospect, notwithstanding these, that the
Chinese would prove permanent masters, and that their rule would
consequently become milder and milder every year. It was this feeling,
that things could not become much worse, that rendered the Kashgari
apathetic in their resistance to the Chinese. They did not dare to
expect much improvement in their lot; but at all events they might
suppose that Chinese massacres would cease with the disappearance of
resistance, whereas massacres by their own countrymen and tyrants had
been for centuries an every-day occurrence.
Before considering the Chinese occupation of Kashgar, it may be useful
to give some description of the Aktaghluc and Karataghluc parties, of
whose rivalry the history of Kashgar in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and
eighteenth centuries is so full. It may be remembered that in 1533,
Reshid, the younger son of Said, who had distinguished himself in his
father's wars, seized the state from his brothers, to whom he was
inferior both in age and in birth on his mother's side. In effecting
this he availed himself of the alliance of the Usbeg rulers west of
Pamir, and during the negotiations that were transacted between them,
the distinguished divine, Maulana Khoja Kasani, of Samarcand, visited
him. He was greeted with the most striking marks of Reshid's affection,
and granted a large estate in Kashgar. He married and left two sons in
that state to represent his interests and share his possessions. The
elder son, whose mother was a Samarcand lady, was averse to the younger,
whose mother was a native of Kashgar. In the course of time they each
rose prominently in the service of the state, but they transmitted their
antipathy to their descendants. Khoja Kalan, the elder, whose influence
was greatest in Yarkand and Karatagh, was the founder of the
Karataghluc, or "Black Mountaineers." Khoja Ishac, the younger, whose
influence was greatest in Kashgar and Actagh, another form of Altai,
was the founder of the Aktaghluc, or "White Mountaineers." The
descendants of either of these Khojas, or priests, the sons of the great
divine of Samarcand, claim the title of Khoja, but that must not be
confounded with the more exclusive signification it possesses as
representing the once ruling family.
CHAPTER V.
THE CHINESE RULE IN KASHGAR.
The Chinese conquest of Jungaria and Eastern Turkestan having become an
accomplished fact, what did the new rulers do to justify their forcible
interference in Central Asia? What measures did they adopt to conciliate
the subject peoples, and what to increase the prosperity of a vast
region, naturally fertile, but impoverished by centuries of improvident
government and of civil anarchy and war? Did they follow the precedent
that had been set them by every past ruler of those countries, and leave
the people to their own devices, to starve or to exist as best they
might, so long as the tribute money was forthcoming? Did the Chinese
Viceroys of Ili, or their lieutenants in Kashgar, Yarkand, Aksu, or
Kucha adopt a policy of inaction, and pursue a line of conduct of
unprincipled selfishness in advancing their own personal fortunes, and
thus prove that they were of the same stamp as all other Asiatic
despots, careless of the day and utterly regardless of the morrow? The
best way to see how they acted, what they did, and what they did not
that was possible, is to follow their rule in Kashgar with some
attention. In itself this may be found to be no uninstructive lesson for
us, who are also a great governing people; and from the perusal of what
the Chinese administrators did in Central Asia we may arise willing to
accord them high praise, because we are better able than other nations
to appreciate the difficulties of their task.
After the fall of Amursana, the Chinese, in the first place, organized
their administrative system upon the following basis:--The supreme
authority was vested in the hands of the Viceroy of Ili. Under him an
amban, or lieutenant-governor, administered affairs in Kashgar. His
place of abode was Yarkand. In internal matters the Yarkand Amban was
without a superior south of the Tian Shan, but in external affairs he
only acted in subordination to the Viceroy of Ili, who alone was in
communication with Pekin. Under each of these potentates there were the
usual deputy-ambans and Tay Dalays, or military commanders. All the
cities had Gulbaghs constructed outside of them, and these forts were
held by Chinese troops--that is, by a mixture of Khitay and Tungani. It
is computed that 20,000 troops used to garrison Kashgar and the
neighbourhood alone. The military posts were restricted to Chinamen, and
the higher judicial and administrative offices were also withheld from
the subjected race. But these were the only privileges retained by the
Chinese.
The Khan, or chief Amban, who resided in Yarkand, made all the
appointments to the minor offices, which were filled almost exclusively
by Mahomedans. The only precaution the Chinese seem to have taken was to
refuse employment to a Kashgari in his native town, so that a Yarkandi
would have to go to Aksu, or some other place away from his home, if he
desired to participate in the government of his country. But beyond this
there was no restriction, and nominally the Hakim Beg, the highest
Mussulman officer, ranked on an equality with the Chinese amban. His
subordinates were all Mahomedans, with the exception of his personal
guard of Khitay troops. In the hands of these natives of the country lay
all the administration of justice among their co-religionists, the
collection of the revenue, and the levying of customs dues on the
frontier and of trade taxes in the cities. It was only when cause for
litigation arose between a Buddhist and a Mussulman that the amban
interfered. We have therefore the instructive spectacle before us of a
Buddhist conquest becoming harmonized with Mussulman institutions, and
Chinese arrogance not content with tolerating, but absolutely fostering,
a regime to which its hostility was scarcely concealed. This is the only
instance of the Chinese exhibiting such more than Asiatic restraint
towards Mahomedans; for their dealings with Tibet, a country of peculiar
sanctity and Buddhist as well, is not a case in point. The scheme worked
well, however. Chinese strength was husbanded by being employed only
when absolutely necessary to be called into play, and the people, to a
great degree their own masters, did not realise the fact of their being
a subjected nation. Their first anxiety was the payment of their
taxes--far from exorbitant, as it had been under their own rulers; but
that task accomplished, they could free their minds from care.
Very often their own countryman, the Hakim Beg, was a greater tyrant
than the Chinese amban in the fort outside their gates; but against his
exactions they could obtain speedy redress. When their Hakims, or Wangs
as the Chinese called them, became unpopular in a district, the amban
promptly removed them; even if he considered they were not much to
blame, he always transferred them to some other district. The first
object in the eyes of the amban was the maintenance of order, and he
knew well enough that order could not be maintained, unless he resorted
to force, which he studiously avoided, if the people were discontented.
The people therefore could repose implicit trust in the Chinese amban
securing a fair hearing and justice for them in their disagreements with
their own leaders; and the Mussulman Wangs, who were the old ruling
class, saw the unfortunate tax-payer at last secure from their tyranny
through the clemency of a Buddhist conqueror. We are justified in
assuming that the population saw the force of these patent facts, and
that, if not perfectly to be relied on in any emergency, the Chinese had
no danger to expect from the tax-producing and patient Kashgari.
So long as the Chinese rule remained vigorous--that is, for about the
first fifty years--the Ambans worked in perfect concord with the Wangs,
and through them with the people. But the internal relations between
these various personages became more complicated and less cordial
through the importation, about the beginning of this century, of a fresh
factor into the question. The Chinese had granted the cities west of,
and including, Aksu very considerable privileges in carrying on trade
with Khokand; and in the course of commercial intercourse a Khokandian
element was slowly imported into these cities, when it became a people
within a people, enjoying the prosperity to be derived from the Chinese
Empire, but not experiencing any sentiment of gratitude towards those by
whom the favours were conferred. After some years, when these Khokandian
immigrants had become numerous, the Chinese acquiesced in their
selecting a responsible head for each community, and this head, or
Aksakal, was nominated by the Khan of Khokand, the only temporal
sovereign these people recognized. The creation of this third power in
the state, which was first sanctioned as a matter of convenience, was to
be fraught with the direst consequences for the Chinese. The Khitay
would be justified in saying that the Aksakals were "the cause of all
their woe," in Kashgar at all events. The Aksakals were far too prudent
to challenge the supremacy of the Chinese officials, and their first
object was rather to make themselves independent of the Wangs than to
compete with the Ambans. In this they were successful, for the Chinese
neglected to take into account the dangers that might arise from these
same bustling, intriguing, and alien Aksakals. The Wangs had always been
obedient vassals, but the plausibility of the Aksakals put them on a par
with their rivals. The Chinese washed their hands of the quarrel, and
may have imagined that their rule was made more assured by divisions
among the Mussulmans. In this they were mistaken. The Aksakals, who
after a time repudiated their obligations to the Wangs, became the
centre of all the intrigue that marked the last half-century of Chinese
rule, and, puffed up by their triumph over the Wangs, did not hesitate
to challenge the right of the Ambans to exercise jurisdiction over them.
But of this more later on.
While the Chinese adopted these liberal measures in their dealings with
the Mussulman population, they did not neglect those other duties which
belong to the government by right. The greatest benefit they could
confer was of course the preservation of order, and to maintain the
balance impartially between the numerous litigants was the first article
in the creed of the Chinese viceroys. As tranquillity settled down over
these distracted regions, trade revived. The native industries, which
had greatly fallen off, became once more active; and foreign enterprise
was attracted to this quarter, which Chinese power soon made the most
favoured region in Central Asia. But the rulers did not rest content
with the mere preservation of good order. They did not leave it to the
inclination of an indolent people to progress at as tortoise-like a
speed as they would wish; but they themselves set the example which the
rest felt bound to imitate. Not only did the enterprising Khitay
merchant from Kansuh and Szchuen visit the marts of Hamil and Turfan,
but many of this class penetrated into Kashgar proper, where they became
permanent settlers. These invaluable agents supplied the deficiency that
had never before been filled up in the life of the state, for they
brought the highest qualities of enterprise and practical sagacity,
together with capital, as their special characteristics. In the train of
these Khitay merchants came wealth and increased prosperity. Yarkand,
Kashgar, Aksu, and Khoten became cities of the first rank, and the
population of the country in the year 1800 was greater than it had ever
been before.
There was perfect equality too between all the various races in respect
to trade. The Chinese did not demand special immunities for their own
countrymen, as might have been expected. The Khitay, who came all the
way from Lanchefoo in search of a fortune, must be prepared to compete
in an equal race with the Khokandi, the Kashgari, or the Afghan. His
nationality would obtain for him no immunity from being taxed, or could
give him no advantage over the foreign or native traders. The main
portion of the trade of the country remained in the old hands. Khokand
benefited as much as Kashgar by the trade, and China, in a direct
manner, least of the three.
The Chinese have at all times been justly famous for their admirable
measures for irrigating their provinces. The wonderful canals which cut
their way, where there are no great rivers, in China proper are
reproduced even in this outlying dependency. Eastern Turkestan is one of
the worst-watered regions in the world. In fact there is only a belt of
fertile country round the Yarkand river, stretching away eastward along
the slopes of the Tian Shan as far as Hamil. The few small rivers which
are traced here and there across the map are during many months of the
year dried up, and even the Yarkand then becomes an insignificant
stream. To remedy this, and to husband the supply as much as possible,
the Chinese sank dykes in all directions. By this means the cultivated
country was slowly but surely spread over a greater extent of territory,
and the vicinity of the three cities of Kashgar, Yangy Hissar, and
Yarkand became known as the garden of Asia. Corn and fruit grew in
abundance, and from Yarkand to the south of the Tian Shan the traveller
could pass through one endless orchard. On all sides he saw nothing but
plenty and content, peaceful hamlets and smiling inhabitants. These
were the outcome of a Chinese domination.
The Chinese, besides possessing a dual line of communication with their
own country, one north and the other south of the Tian Shan, had also a
caravan route from Khoten to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. There was also
some intercourse with Cashmere by this way. The jade, for which Khoten
was justly, and is still, famous, was exported in immense quantities,
both to Tibet and to China, through Maralbashi. This mineral was held in
high esteem by Chinese ladies, and alone sufficed to make the prosperity
of Khoten assured. Gold, silk, and musk, were other articles included in
the commerce of this flourishing city. There was also, in the Chinese
time, a very extensive manufacture of carpets and cotton goods. The gold
mines, which, with two exceptions, have not been worked since the same
time, are believed to be scarcely touched, and only await a fostering
hand to be put in working order once more.
The Chinese also devoted great attention to the coal mines in the
vicinity of Aksu, and these were worked both by private enterprise and
the Government. Coal was an article of common use in that city, but it
does not appear to have been exported beyond the neighbourhood. It is
known that the Chinese took greater interest in the development of the
internal means of wealth of the country than in inducing foreigners to
enter it. Thus, we see that mines, in a special degree, received state
approval and support. The gold mines of Khoten, the coal of Aksu, and
the zinc of Kucha, are all conspicuous instances of this; as, under all
past, and the recent Mahomedan, rule, they have been most foolishly, but
consistently neglected.
Nor were those special trades for which Kashgar had in prosperous
moments been renowned, neglected. The leather-dressers of Yarkand and
Aksu, the silk-mercers of Kashgar and Khoten, were never so busy as in
the warlike days of Keen-Lung, and the great mass of the people, the
agricultural class in the villages, was equally prosperous and well
governed. Trade was fostered on all sides, and the conquering power was
content to stand aside and witness the steady progress of its subjects
towards hitherto unattained and unattainable prosperity.
Lastly, the Chinese directed their attention to the improvement of the
means of communication between one part of the province and another. It
was absolutely necessary to the security of their rule that there should
be an easy and always open road between Ili and Kashgar. Therefore, a
way was cut, at great expense, through the Tian Shan, north of Aksu, and
this pass was known as the Muzart, or Glacier. So difficult was the
country through which it passed, and such the danger from ice-drifts and
snow-storms, that relays of men had to be kept constantly at work in
order to prevent it getting out of repair for a day. The construction of
this road was, in the first place, most expensive, but, perhaps, the
cost of repairing was much more. This, the most striking engineering
achievement of the Chinese, has become practically useless, through
fifteen years of neglect. If China is to regain Ili, it will, no doubt,
be restored. The passes west of this, by the Narym River to Vernoe, and
through Terek to Khokand, were those selected by Yakoob Beg to supply
its place.
The next object to which the Chinese specially paid attention was the
preservation of their road home to China. Thus the road in Tian Shan Pe
Lu, and the other in Tian Shan Nan Lu, were kept in the most effective
state possible. The former, north of the mountains, passed through Manas
and Urumtsi to Hamil; the latter, south of them, through Aksu and Kucha
to the same place. The alternative route from Kucha to Kashgar and
Yarkand, through Maralbashi, was also much used, more especially,
however, by those who desired to break off at that outpost in the desert
to reach Khoten and Sanju. In each city there was appointed a committee
to superintend the roads in the district, and this Road Board was a
highly important and useful corporation. It was by such measures as
these that the Chinese made their rule a blessing to Kashgar and
Jungaria for more than fifty years. Of course, there was the fiscal side
of these schemes of public utility. Roads could not be opened up and
maintained in order, canals could not be dug, the state could not
administer justice, promote trade, and make itself respected abroad,
without an assured revenue, and this revenue, after the first ten years,
was very productive.
The principal taxes were the tithe on the produce of the land, called
"_ushr_" and the _zakat_ (fortieth), on merchandise and cattle. Then, in
the cities, there was a house tax, which was essentially, like our own
income tax, a war tax, fluctuating in accordance with the military
necessities, caused by foreign or civil war. From the mines, too, the
state derived a large annual sum, which was generally devoted to some
object of public utility. There was also the tribute money from the
Kirghiz nomads, whose flocks and horses were numbered and taxed at a low
rate, in return for which they were taken under the protection of China.
In addition to these great taxes there were several smaller ones, such
as a fee on fuel sold in the market, and another levy on milch-kine kept
in cities. A writer on Kashgar has said that these "proved a ready means
of oppression, and a prolific source of that discontent which left the
rulers without a single helping hand, or sympathising heart, in the hour
of their distress and destruction." But this assumption of cause and
effect is scarcely just.
Of course, all taxes can be made a ready means of oppression by the
tax-gatherer, who, in this case, was a Mussulman and fellow-countryman.
But taxes are absolutely necessary to all good government, and when we
consider what China did with her revenue, with what public spirit her
representatives laid it out in plans for the advantage of the state, can
we pronounce an opinion that she imposed unfair burdens on the
subjected race? Moreover, no one denies the prosperity general
throughout Kashgar in those days, a period looked back to with regret by
the inhabitants during the most favoured years of Yakoob Beg's rule. It
is not in accordance with facts, then, to imply that the Chinese ground
Kashgar under them by severe taxation, and whatever petty tyranny there
was, was carried on not by the Khitay Ambans, but by the Mahomedan
Wangs.
In the hour of distress and destruction the people, indeed, proved
traitorous to their best friends, or, more generally, apathetic; leaving
to the energetic Andijani element within their gates the task of
crossing swords with Buddhist rule, to which the hostility of these
immigrants had always been declared.
The short-sightedness of the Kashgari played the game of the more
fanatical and ambitious people of Khokand; but the rule of China did not
pass out of Eastern Turkestan until the disturbances of forty years had
generated ill-feeling that formerly was not, and had so embittered the
relations of governing and governed, that what had come to be considered
a lenient and impersonal government, assumed all the darker hues of a
military and foreign despotism. Even then China did not fall until there
was dissension within herself, when, split into three hostile camps, her
sword dropped nerveless from her hand in Central Asia, 2,000 miles away
from her natural border. To follow Chinese rule in Kashgar down to 1820,
is to observe the monotonous course of never varying prosperity. From
that year to 1860, the tale is of a different complexion, less
monotonous but also less satisfactory.
In 1758 and 1760 Chinese armies entered Khokand. Tashkent fell in the
former year, and the capital in the latter. The Chinese then withdrew,
after imposing a tribute upon Khokand. During the long reign of
Keen-Lung--that is, down to 1795--the tribute was regularly paid. After
that year, however, the payment became irregular, and border warfare of
frequent occurrence between the two neighbours. At last, in 1812,
Khokand, then under an able prince, refused to pay tribute any longer,
and the Chinese acquiesced in the repudiation. Nor did the change in the
relations between China and Khokand stop here; for, a few years
afterwards, the Chinese found it expedient to pay Khokand an annual sum
to keep the Khoja family, whose representatives were residing in
Khokand, from intriguing against them. The amount of the subsidy was
L3,500 of our money. In addition to this, the Khan of Khokand was
permitted to levy a tax on all Mahomedan merchandise sold in Kashgar
through Andijan merchants. This tax was collected by the Aksakals before
mentioned, and was a very profitable source of income for the
impecunious khans. But even these concessions and perquisites did not
satisfy the Mussulmans of Central Asia, who saw in Chinese moderation an
evidence of weakness and decline. The Aksakals, in these years of
Mahomedan revival, became political agents of the greatest importance.
It was they who gave a point to all the discontent there might be in
Kashgar; it was they who attributed to the Chinese the blame for
whatever evils this world is never wholly free from; and it was they who
agitated for the return of the old Khoja kings, who were always
destined, in their eyes, to bring the most perfect happiness. With such
causes at work both within and without their position, the Chinese had
not to wait long before their authority was more openly challenged.
Sarimsak, the only member of the Khoja family surviving the massacre by
the Chinese, had fled, as a child, into the impenetrable recesses of
Wakhan. From thence, in later years, he had gone to settle in Khokand,
where he married. This prince had three sons--Yusuf, Bahanuddin, and
Jehangir, the youngest and best known. In 1816, the first outbreak
against Chinese authority occurred, when a small rising took place in
Tash Balik, a town to the west of Kashgar. This was speedily put down,
and its leaders executed. It was but the forerunner of the storm.
In 1822, Jehangir resolved to reassert his claims over Kashgar, and,
while his eldest brother continued to reside in retirement at Bokhara,
he joined the Kara Kirghiz. With a party of these, under the command of
their chief, Suranchi Beg, Jehangir raided up to the city of Kashgar. He
was there repulsed in the suburbs, and compelled to flee. He then joined
the Kirghiz of Bolor round Narym, who were nominally feudatories of
China, and, with their aid, commenced a petty sort of border war. A
small Chinese force was despatched against him, and drove the Kirghiz up
as far as Fort Kurtka. On their return from this successful attack, they
were, however, surprised in one of the defiles, and almost all were
destroyed. This was the first reverse the Chinese had ever met with in
the field, and it was at once bruited about through all parts of Central
Asia. It gave a life to the Khoja cause which it had hitherto lacked,
and adventurers from all parts flocked to the standard Jehangir now
raised on the borders of Kashgar. The Khan of Khokand so far assisted
him as to send him a skilled general, Isa Dadkhwah, and extended over
his cause that protection and sanction which Khokand has ever since
thrown over the Khoja family.
In the spring of 1826, Jehangir advanced in force against Kashgar, and
the Chinese, despising their assailant, left their fortifications to
encounter him in the open. A battle then ensued, of which the
particulars have not come down to us, but which resulted in the defeat
of the Chinese. Jehangir entered Kashgar in triumph, was received with
acclamations by the people, urged on by the Aksakals, and proclaimed
himself sovereign of the country, under the style of Seyyid Jehangir
Sultan. His first act--the most significant exposure of the true
sentiment of the Kashgarian people there well could be--was to order
the execution of the Mahomedan Wang of Kashgar, by name Mahomed Seyyid.
The fall of Kashgar was the signal to the Aksakals throughout Altyshahr
to begin that work for which they had been long preparing. In Yangy
Hissar, Yarkand, and Khoten risings at once took place. The Chinese,
surprised and unarmed, were butchered in the streets, and the Gulbaghs,
as the visible token of the foreign rule, were razed with the ground.
The Gulbagh of Kashgar itself alone held out, but it at last fell, after
sustaining a long siege, into the hands of Jehangir. His triumph
completed, he had to concern himself more with his relations with
Khokand than about the Chinese, who were mysteriously quiet. Mahomed Ali
Khan, of Khokand, who thought that Jehangir's success was solely due to
him, laid claim to a certain historical superiority over his vassal of
Kashgar, to which the Khoja prince was not willing to assent. A large
Khokandian army which had been sent to Kashgar returned, after losing
1,000 men before the walls of the Gulbagh, and its withdrawal was the
signal for plots and counterplots to break out in the palace of the new
ruler. These he promptly repressed, reduced the intriguing general, Isa
Dadkhwah, in rank, and had emancipated himself from his thraldom to
Khokand, when the news came that the Chinese were at last returning.
Although the western portion of Altyshahr had fallen away from the
Chinese, Aksu and Maralbashi remained true to their allegiance. The
Chinese still possessed the military keys of the country. Moreover,
their possession of Ili gave them an enormous strategical advantage, and
in the Tungan population they possessed an almost inexhaustible supply
for recruiting "revindicating" armies. It is apropos here to state that
China retained both of these advantages down to the time of Buzurg Khan
and Yakoob Beg, and that, so long as she possessed them, the utmost
Mussulman fanaticism and Khokandian patronage of the Khojas could do
was futile against the arrest of fate. During six months Jehangir ruled
in Kashgar, and during six months the Chinese viceroy made his
preparations at Ili for a thorough revenge. An army of more than 100,000
men, raised from the Tungani, the Calmucks, and the Khitay garrison, was
despatched from Ili, and in January, 1827, entered Aksu. Here all the
brigades were concentrated, and the Viceroy, in conjunction with the
general under him, by name Chang-Lung, drew up the plan of campaign,
which was as follows:--A small army of 12,000 men was sent against
Khoten across the desert through Cay Yoli, while the remainder of the
host advanced on Maralbashi. Here another detachment of 7,000 strong was
directed against Yarkand, while the main body marched on Kashgar by the
banks of the Kizil Su.
Their advance was unopposed until they reached Yangabad, or Yangiawat,
where Jehangir had concentrated an army computed at 50,000 men, but
probably considerably less. When the armies sighted each other they
pitched their camps in preparation for the decisive contest that was at
hand. In accordance with immemorial custom, each side put forward on the
following day its champion. On the part of the Chinese a gigantic
Calmuck archer opposed on the part of Jehangir an equally formidable
Khokandi. The former was armed with his proper weapons, the latter with
a gun of some clumsy and ancient design, and while the Khokandi was
busily engaged with his intricate apparatus, the Chinese archer shot him
dead with an arrow through the breast. Of course, neither army would
have acquiesced in the decree of the God of Battles as shown by the fate
of its champion, but, in this case, it was true that--
"Who spills the foremost foeman's life,
His party conquers in the strife."
After a sharp, but brief, skirmish, the Kashgarian army withdrew in
confusion, and the following day the Chinese surrounded Kashgar on three
sides. During the night the heart of Jehangir misgave him, and he fled
to the Karatakka mountains. But here the snow had rendered the passes
impracticable, and, after hiding for a few days in that difficult
region, he was captured by the Chinese. His fate was that usually met
with by traitors to that empire, for, being sent to Pekin, he was
executed after torture. In this war Ishac Wang, of Ush Turfan, played a
great part against the Khoja prince, and was rewarded for his good
service by being appointed Wang of Kashgar. The Chinese constructed a
fresh fort, Yangyshahr, in the place of the destroyed Gulbagh, and left
a large Khitay garrison under Jah Darin. But Ishac Wang, who was given
some such title as Prince of Kashgar, was soon afterwards deposed and
recalled to China.
The Chinese authority was re-established without difficulty in the three
cities, and peace settled down over Eastern Turkestan. But the
repressive and punitive measures that the Chinese felt compelled to
adopt raised a bitterer sentiment in the minds of the people than had
previously existed. The Chinese were, indeed, only employing the same
weapons that had been used against themselves, but none the less did
these reciprocal atrocities dissipate whatever friendship there had
been. Among other acts the Chinese removed 12,000 Mahomedan families
from Kashgar to Ili, and these, destined to play an important part in
the history of that province, became known as Tarantchis, or Toilers.
The Chinese resolved to punish Khokand as well. They broke off all trade
with that state, and happy would it have been for them if they could
have continued to preserve a closed frontier. But the Khan of that time
was Mahomed Ali Khan, the most ambitious, as he was the ablest, of the
princes of that country. He had just annexed Karategin, and had acquired
some of the outlying provinces of Badakshan, which Mourad Beg, of
Kundus, had absorbed about the same time. It was not probable that he
would put up with the Chinese defiance. He was prudent enough to delay
his advance until the main body of their army had been withdrawn. But,
as soon as he was informed that the Chinese had gone back to Ili,
Mahomed Ali, calling Yusuf, Sarimsak's eldest son, from his retirement
in Bokhara, placed him at the head of an army, under the charge of his
own brother-in-law, Hacc Kuli Beg. The Chinese were worsted at Mingyol,
and all the cities west of Aksu turned against the Chinese, as before,
and proclaimed for Yusuf Khoja. Then the massacres were repeated, and
the invasion of Yusuf was that of Jehangir over again in exact detail.
But Yusuf's triumph was still more brief. Whereas Jehangir had ruled for
nine months, Yusuf only swayed the sceptre for three.
The Chinese movements were delayed by small Mussulman revolts in Barkul
and Shensi until the spring of 1831, but then, when they returned, they
found that Yusuf and the Khokandian army had retreated some months
before. The facts were that the moment Khokand invaded Kashgar, Bokhara
attacked Khokand, and Hacc Kuli Beg had to be recalled to cope with
matters more pressing than Khoja rights. With the general had gone
Yusuf, far from anxious to encounter the Chinese alone. The return of
the Khokandian army sufficed to dispel all danger from Bokhara, and, a
few months after, Mahomed Ali Khan recommenced operations--in the east
this time--against the Kirghiz under Chinese protection. The Chinese
were thoroughly sick of these petty disputes, and made a treaty with
Khokand, by which that state acquired fresh commercial privileges, in
addition to the old ones, and by which the importance of the Aksakals
rather increased than waned. Mahomed Ali Khan had acquired all he
wanted, and discouraged the Khoja party, as, indeed, the terms of this
treaty compelled him to do. The risings under Jehangir and Yusuf were
undoubtedly a great blow to Chinese prestige. To all appearance each had
nearly been successful, and the Chinese, whose prestige was enormous in
Central Asia--quite as great as that of Russia is now--had been, on one
or two occasions, openly defeated. But, after all, this was a little
matter compared to the shock the sentiments, called into being by sixty
happy years, had received. Between Buddhist and Mussulman, between
Chinaman and Central Asiatic, all the old antipathy was revived in the
butcheries of Yarkand and Kashgar. The Kashgari showed that they could
not appreciate the benefits they had received from China, and the
Chinese, enraged at the slaughter of their countrymen, and, perhaps,
also at the ingratitude evinced towards them, retaliated in kind. They
did not appreciate that moderation, which Europeans have not always
shown under similar circumstances, and wrought out their revenge in
their own ancient fashion. It is absolutely necessary that the reader
should remember that the two rapidly succeeding invasions of Jehangir
and Yusuf form a turning-point in the history of the Chinese rule in
Kashgar. Up to that epoch it is difficult to find words sufficient to do
justice to China's beneficent government there; after that year it would
be absurd to employ the same language. For the change the chief blame
must fall upon the fickle and ungrateful Kashgari themselves, and then
on the intriguing Andijanis. The Chinese are justified, at least, in
saying that, having for more than half a century ruled this people with
justice, they only relaxed in their efforts to promote its well-being
when their unarmed countrymen and soldiers had been surprised and
butchered by thousands.
Strange, and almost contradictory, as it may appear, there was a brief
respite during which things seemed to have got into their old groove of
happy prosperity; and the chief credit for this must be given to a
Mahomedan sub-governor of the Chinese viceroy. Zuhuruddin, such was his
name, had raised himself to the high post of Amban in Kashgar, a post
never before held by any other than a Khitay. By birth he was of
Kashgar, but he always represented himself as having been born and
brought up in Khokand, where he had been imprisoned for a political
offence. For seven or eight years he governed Kashgar to the perfect
satisfaction both of the people and of the Chinese, and among some of
his public acts may be mentioned the reconstruction of new forts outside
the cities, in the place of those destroyed in the recent revolts. These
were known now as Yangyshahr instead of Gulbagh. But in 1846
Zuhuruddin's rule was disturbed by hostilities on the part of Khokand
and the Khojas.
In 1845 Khudayar Khan had been called to the throne after the death of
Mahomed Ali, but his authority was not without its rivals. In the state
of confusion that then ensued, Khokandian adventurers urged the Khoja
princes, who were now represented by the sons of Jehangir, to renew
their old attacks against the Chinese. To these advisers the Khojas
turned a willing ear, and preparations were accordingly made for the
enterprise. At that time Khokand was full of adventurers to whom Mahomed
Ali had been able to give constant employment, but who now under the
more peaceful rule of Khudayar idled their time in the cities of that
khanate. Among these and the ever willing Kirghiz, it was not difficult
for the princes of Kashgar to raise an army, formidable in numbers, if
not remarkable for cohesion. At that time there were seven prominent
Khoja princes in Khokand, of whom we may here mention Eshan Khan,
usually called Katti Torah, Buzurg Khan, and Wali Khan. This inroad did
not take its name from any one of these, but from them all combined;
thus it was distinguished as Haft Khojagan, or that of the Seven Khojas.
With his brothers and relations and a considerable following, Katti
Torah advanced upon Kashgar, always the first object of these invaders,
which fell after a siege of thirteen days through treachery. This was
the only success they achieved; the other cities would have nothing to
do with them; and after two months' indulgence in unbridled licence the
Chinese beat them in a fight at Kok Robat, and drove them out of the
country. For the first time there was an air of ridicule thrown over
these Khoja invasions in the eyes of the Kashgari, while the outrages
they had committed during their brief stay had raised bitterer feelings
still. Zuhuruddin, who fell under the displeasure of the Chinese, was
removed from his post, and fresh Ambans, once more Khitay, were
appointed. For nine years the Khojas remained passive, but in 1855 Wali
Khan and his brother Kichik Khan, began to bustle once more on the
Kashgarian frontier. It was not until 1857 that Wali Khan succeeded in
forcing the advanced guard of pickets maintained in the passes by the
Chinese, but having accomplished that his triumph was rapid. Kashgar
fell into his possession by a _coup de main_, and once more a Khoja
prince was seated in the _orda_ at Kashgar. Artosh and Yangy Hissar fell
into his possession, and he threatened Yarkand. But everywhere the
Chinese garrisons remained unconquered in the forts, biding the
exhaustion of their foe and the arrival of reinforcements. After a rule
of nearly four months the armies of Wali Khan having been then defeated
by the Chinese, the Khoja fled to the remote state of Darwas, where he
was surrendered to Khokand by its chief Ismail Shah. This ruler, the
most tyrannical, bloodthirsty, and licentious of all the Khojas, met the
fate which he deserved long afterwards at the hands of Yakoob Beg. His
temporary tenure of power is still remembered with dread by the people,
who consider him to have been the most incarnate monster who ever held
the destinies of their country in his hand. The Chinese were more severe
in their punitive measures after this campaign than they had been after
any other, but, notwithstanding the part Khudayar and his people had
played in Wali Khan's affair, the old relations between "these
incompatible people," as Dr. Bellew aptly calls them, were restored.
After this event there was but one minor disturbance caused by an inroad
of Kirghiz nomads, headed by the sons of one of the principal victims of
Chinese vengeance, but this had no political importance.
The invasion of Wali Khan was the last of those Khoja expeditions which
took place prior to the Tungan revolt. In the thirty-two years that
elapsed from the date of Jehangir's attempt to that of his son, there
had in all been four of them. That of Jehangir himself being the first;
of his elder brother Yusuf, the second; of Yusuf's eldest son, Katti
Torah, the third; and of Jehangir's second son, Wali, the fourth. Not
one of these is in any sense noteworthy, except for the crimes with
which it was attended, and none of them did more than inflict an untold
amount of misery and suffering on their own followers, as well as on the
people they claimed to represent by right divine. It may also be noticed
that with each enterprise there was a decline in moral character. Thus
Jehangir was infinitely the best of them in every sense, and ruled
fairly according to his lights. His brother Yusuf was of a more timid
mind, but evidently not less imbued with some notion as to the sanctity
of his mission. But from these to Katti Torah is a long descent. That
prince seemed to aspire to securing his personal comfort and enjoyment
alone, and disregarded all his subjects' complaints at the arbitrary
rule of his deputies. But Wali Khan, the next of these Khoja kings from
"over the mountains," excelled his cousin in vice, and tyranny, and
utter want of purpose, not to speak of honour, quite as much as Katti
Torah surpassed their sires. Nor can there be much hesitation in saying,
from what Buzurg Khan did during the few months he held power, that, had
not Yakoob Beg clipped his flight, he would have surpassed Wali Khan in
his own peculiar vices. The reader will scarcely be disposed to take
much interest in this irredeemable family, mad with the insanity of
wickedness. But in justice to the Chinese, and to Yakoob Beg, it is only
right that the rivals of the former should be made to appear in their
true colours. All the sanctity that a peculiarly venerable descent from
Hazrat Afak could give; all the stories told of the good deeds of some
of their ancestors; all the affection that naturally attaches to a
native rule, and all the dislike that must undermine a foreign, be it
never so beneficent; all these things were destroyed by the weakness and
ill success that attended the first two Khojas, and by the cruelty,
indifference, and licentiousness that marked the last two. When Buzurg
Khan came he found loyalty to the Khoja the heirloom of a few families,
not of a people.
Had the Chinese restrained their vindictive feelings after the war with
Jehangir, and proclaimed a free pardon to every one save the Khokandis,
and then devoted their attention with the old vigour to peaceful
pursuits, we believe that the Chinese rule would have been permanently
secured. At that moment the Chinese were strong enough to have defied
Khokand, and to have broken off all intercourse with that state. By
dismissing the Aksakals, and severing the connection between the two
states, the Chinese would have dispelled a danger that was for forty
years to be ever before them, and, in the end, when the Tungani also
rose, was to overcome them. Even clemency after Yusuf's inroad, which
was really caused by the Chinese repressions, might not have been wholly
in vain, and would have consolidated their position, when reinvigorated
by Zuhuruddin's tenure of power. But the Chinese did not appreciate the
quality of mercy. They could be just and impartial in the ordinary
avocations of life, but to those who revolted against their authority
they showed no trace of human feeling. For a man to rebel against them
was certain death; for a people, history tells us, the fate was not far
different. Nor in dealing with such did they hesitate to supplement
their military strength by the most despicable of artifices. Garrisons,
accorded honourable terms, ruthlessly butchered; princes, who threw
themselves on their mercy, deported to Pekin to be hanged or tortured
out of life: these are frequent occurrences in the history of China, and
of her career in Central Asia the tale is identical. Yet, while drawing
a veil over these blots on an otherwise brilliant surface, should we not
desire to conceal them wholly from the view. It is necessary that they
should be stated to understand what Chinese domination means as a whole;
of its great benefits there can be no doubt, if the people will remain
quiescent. For fifty years, or for five hundred, China will rule an
unmurmuring people with justice, and lead them into the paths of
prosperity and peace; but if they rebel, if they openly defy authority,
if they invite a hostile stranger within their borders, the punishment
will be as sweeping, as cruel, and, in one and a higher sense, as
wrongfully foolish, whether the association of the races may have been
for fifty years or five centuries, as it was in the case of Kashgar.
There is not much reason for hoping that China will deviate from her
ancient custom, on the occasion now transpiring, of demanding "an eye
for an eye" and "a tooth for a tooth."
CHAPTER VI.
THE BIRTH OF YAKOOB BEG AND CAREER IN THE SERVICE OF KHOKAND.
We have now traced the history of Kashgar and of the neighbouring states
down to the year 1860, immediately before the last Khoja invasion under
Buzurg Khan, and the Kooshbege, Mahomed Yakoob. Before giving an account
of that enterprise it is necessary that the reader should know what the
past career of the future Athalik Ghazi had been. The previous chapters
have, it is hoped, thrown some light on the state of Central Asia, and
will assist the student of the question in comprehending how it was that
Yakoob Beg achieved success, and what claims he may have to be
considered a great ruler, for having done a work that is unique in the
annals of modern Asia.
Mahomed Yakoob was born in or about the year 1820, in the flourishing
little town of Piskent, in the khanate of Khokand. His father, Pur
Mahomed Mirza, had, at various periods of his life, filled positions of
responsibility in the government of the towns in which he resided. Thus,
a native of Dihbid, near Samarcand, he had migrated to Khodjent, in the
reign of Mahomed Ali Khan, with the intention of entering the priestly
order. There, although he enrolled himself as a student in a religious
seminary, for some reason or other, he appears to have changed his mind,
and, instead of entering the Church, turned his attention to secular
affairs. He was soon made Kazi of Kurama, a district and town of
Khokand, and married a lady of that place. By this marriage he had one
son, Mahomed Arif, who has since filled several posts of trust in
Kashgar, notably that of Governor of Sirikul; but of late this
half-brother of Yakoob Beg seems to have been, either for incompetence
or some other reason, under a cloud. Pur Mahomed, or Mahomed Latif, as
he was more usually called, changed his residence from Kurama to
Piskent, about the year 1818, and he shortly after his settlement in his
new abode married again, his second wife being the sister of Sheik
Nizamuddin, the Kazi of Piskent. Yakoob Beg was the issue of this
marriage. The family of Yakoob Beg's father seems originally to have
come from Karategin, on the borders of Badakshan, but in the time of the
Usbeg conquest of that district the father of Mahomed Latif, then an
infant, took refuge in Khokand. It is uncertain whether Mahomed Latif
was born before their arrival at Dihbid or afterwards; and it is now
asserted that he claimed descent from Tamerlane. Whether this was a
claim brought forward when his son was advancing in the world or not, it
is impossible to test its accuracy. The parents of Yakoob Beg were
therefore not without some pretensions, and it would seem that the bad
fortune, from which for some generations they had been suffering, was
beginning to disappear before the ability of Yakoob Beg raised it to a
higher point than ever. In addition to the claims of his father and
grandfather as Kazis of an important community, a sister of Yakoob Beg
married Nar Mahomed Khan, Governor of Tashkent; and, as we shall see
later on, this connection was very instrumental in promoting the
interests of the youthful Yakoob.
Piskent, Pskent, or Bis-kent, as it is sometimes spelt, is still a
flourishing little community, fifty miles south of Tashkent, on the road
to Khodjent. Its inhabitants are a thrifty, good-tempered set of people,
who take great pride in the fact that the great Athalik Ghazi, the
supporter of Islam, and the reputed terror of the Russians, was one of
themselves. In this little settlement there are many Tajiks, and this,
doubtless, with other reasons, induced Mahomed Latif, a Tajik himself,
to take up his abode there. To the east of Piskent the mountains begin
to rise, which stretch onward until they become the Tian Shan and the
Kizilyart ranges, and in these elevated regions the Tajik descendants
muster in strong numbers. The Tajiks are Persian in their origin, and
consequently of the Aryan stock, in contradistinction to the Turk or
Tartar ruling class in Western Turkestan. They have, however, for so
many generations been restricted to a limited career in the organization
of the state, that, quite unjustly as it is, they have come to be
regarded as an inferior race. English writers have fallen into this
mistake, and have accepted as correct the definition given by the Turks
of this subject race. As a matter of fact the contrary holds true, and
the Tajik is superior to any of his masters in point of mental capacity.
They are represented to still retain the fine presence and long flowing
beards which distinguish those of Aryan blood from their Tartar
opposite; and in height and strength they quite eclipse every other race
of Central Asia. It was of this race that Yakoob Beg was the
representative, and, although the greater part of his life was passed in
ruling nations almost exclusively Tartar, some of the more prominent
among his supporters, as well as the flower of his army, boasted that
they, too, represented that master race, whose birth-place was to be
found in the Indian Caucasus. The Tajiks still speak a Persian dialect,
and their Iranian origin is thereby rendered almost indisputable.
Mahomed Yakoob's early years were passed at his home at Piskent, and it
is said that it was intended that he should follow the profession which
his father had repudiated. As a youth he was too wayward to submit to
any check on his impulses, and the design of educating him as a
"mollah," if it was ever seriously entertained, was abandoned long
before he arrived at man's estate. He appears to have passed the first
twenty years of his life in an idle, uneventful manner at Piskent, and
then suddenly to have resolved to seek his fortune as best he might in
the troubled waters of Khokandian politics. In 1845, we find him in the
train of the newly seated khan, Khudayar, as "mahram," or chamberlain,
and shortly afterwards, by the influence of his brother-in-law, the
Governor of Tashkent, nominated a Pansad Bashi, a commander of 500. This
was in 1847, about which year he married a Kipchak lady of Zuelik, a
village in the district of Ak Musjid. He had three sons, of whom we
shall hear more hereafter, by this marriage--Kooda Kul Beg, Kuli Beg,
and Hacc Kuli Beg. Later on, in the year 1847, he was raised to the rank
of Koosh-Bege, or "lord of the family"--more intelligibly described as
vizier--and entrusted with the charge of the important post on the Syr
Darya, called Ak Musjid, "White Mosque." This post he held with credit
for six years, until 1853, when the Russians commenced that forward
movement, of which we have not yet seen the close. At that time, Russia
had not acquired one of the numerous strategic points now in her
possession. The Syr Darya then was as far off from her frontier as the
Oxus is now. Ak Musjid, built in the lower reaches of the river, and
representing a Khokandian outpost of exceptional importance, was the
grand obstacle in the path of the Russians operating from Kazalinsk, at
the mouth of the Syr Darya. It was resolved, therefore, that this post,
which, doubtless, encouraged all the marauders in the neighbourhood to
continue their depredations against the Russian caravans, should be
wrested from the hands of its owners, and either razed to the ground or
converted into a Russian stronghold. General Perovsky was entrusted with
this undertaking. The distance from Kazalinsk, or Fort No. 1, to Ak
Musjid is not much over 200 miles, along the banks of the Syr Darya. Not
many commissariat arrangements were necessary, nor did the distance to
march require much time to delay the Russian officer in beginning his
operations against the fort. The army with which he appeared before the
walls may not have been large in numbers when compared with the armies
of modern times, but, in all that makes a disciplined force formidable,
it was exceptionally well supplied. The artillery was in greater
strength than is usually considered necessary, and the expedition was
still more efficient in engineers and cavalry. The garrison of Ak Musjid
was, on the other hand, ill supplied, both in provisions and in
ammunition, and the fort itself presented, neither in its position nor
in its construction, any feature that an engineer officer would have
considered calculated to make it capable of sustaining the attack of
artillery for twenty-four hours. The Russian lines were constructed in
the most approved method; but twice were their approaches destroyed, and
twice their mines counter-mined. During twenty-six days the Russian
bombardment was fast and furious, and during all that time the
Khokandian defence was stubborn and persistent. But all the efforts of
the garrison to break through the beleaguering lines were unavailing,
and after so long a cannonade little more resistance could be expected
from ramparts which were pierced in several places by wide and gaping
breaches. The resolute commandant, who had done everything required by
the most exacting code of military honour, confessed that there was
nothing to be gained by a continued defence, and as it was known that
the Russians were making preparations for an early assault, a messenger
was despatched without delay to the Russian commander, expressing the
willingness of the garrison to capitulate on honourable terms. General
Perovsky, who had expected an easy triumph here, and possibly some more
extended triumph in farther regions, was indignant at the resistance
opposed to him by a paltry place like Ak Musjid, and received the
messenger from the fort with ill-concealed impatience. Scarcely
bestowing any attention on the letter, couched in humble terms as it
was, of the commandant, General Perovsky petrified the astonished
emissary with the declaration that on the morrow the fort would be taken
by assault. This arbitrary assertion of his power, which was carried
into practice, of course successfully, the next day, on an occasion when
magnanimity ought to have been shown by the successful general, does not
redound to the credit of the officer in question, and throws an
instructive light on the latitude left to Russian generals in their
instructions, and on the opinion felt for Central Asiatics by the
civilizing representatives of the White Czar. To say that General
Perovsky was urged to this act of gratuitous tyranny by a desire to
obtain a cross of either St. Anne or St. George, is, after all, only to
magnify the offence, and that Ak Musjid has taken the name of its
conqueror, Fort Perovsky, is the means of perpetuating, not his fame,
but his infamy, and the courageous conduct of the defenders. In the
winter following its fall Yakoob Beg, with Sahib Khan, brother of the
Khan of Khokand, attempted to retake the fort, but the _coup_ proved
abortive, and the Russians have never receded from their new
acquisition.
Khudayar Khan had been elevated to the throne of Khokand in 1845, by the
energy of Mussulman Kuli, a Kipchak chief, of singular astuteness, and
aptitude for business. During his tenure of the post of Wazir, Khokand
was peacefully and beneficently governed; but, as on every similar
occasion in Central Asia, the ruler soon became jealous of the
popularity acquired by his minister, although his own position was in
reality confirmed by the wise measures of the very man to whom he had
conceived a covert hostility. So with Khudayar Khan, the effeminate, and
his minister, Mussulman Kuli, in the decade of which we are now
speaking; as with Buzurg Khan, the debauchee, but correct representative
of the Khojas, and his general and vizier, the Kooshbege, Mahomed
Yakoob, in the following. In 1858, Mussulman Kuli was seized by order of
Khudayar Khan, and barbarously murdered; and from that occurrence the
decadence of this unfortunate ruler of Khokand can be traced until, at
last, he became a mere pensioner on the bounty of the Russians. Although
Yakoob Beg became, to a certain extent, notorious for his gallant
defence of Ak Musjid, it would appear, from his being styled after that
event simply "Mir," or chief, that he had sunk in grade in his official
status. It is probable that the chief cause of this was his failure to
retake it, and not his ill success in defending it. He was, however,
entrusted with the charge of the Kilaochi fort, a post which he held
down to the murder of Mussulman Kuli.
Khudayar Khan had an elder brother, Mullah Khan, who had been passed
over by Mussulman Kuli, when the state was put in order after the
dissensions that arose on the death of the great ruler, Mahomed Ali.
Now, on the death of Mussulman Kuli, who had given vitality to the
regime of Khudayar, Mullah Khan and his partisans began to intrigue once
more. Several Kipchak and Kirghiz leaders joined his cause, and Yakoob
Beg at once became one of his most active supporters. Khudayar Khan was
deposed, and retired into temporary seclusion. For his services to the
new ruler Yakoob Beg was made Shahawal, an officer corresponding to a
chamberlain or court intendant. He was soon restored to his old rank of
Kooshbege, and appointed governor of the frontier fort of Kurama, the
same place of which his father had been Kazi. And in 1860 he came still
more to the front, when he was summoned to Tashkent to assist Kanaat
Shah, the Nahib of Khokand, in making preparations in case the Russians,
who had for some time seemed to be threatening Khokand, should cross the
frontier. Mullah Khan was murdered at this time, having held the reins
of power but for the brief space of two years, and Khudayar Khan emerged
from his hiding place. He was welcomed both by Kanaat Shah and Yakoob
Beg; and in return for their support he consented to forget the past.
Yakoob Beg, as his reward, received the governorship of Kurama. It was
during these troubles that Alim Kuli, a Kirghiz chieftain, appeared upon
the scene. He possessed many of the attributes that distinguished his
predecessor Mussulman Kuli, and his successor, in the eyes of the
people, Yakoob Beg. He had undoubtedly a great capacity for intrigue,
but was inferior to the former in administrative capacity, and to the
latter in military skill. He now set Shah Murad, grandson of Shere Ali
Khan, up as a claimant to the throne, and was speedily joined by Yakoob
Beg, who once more abandoned the cause of Khudayar Khan, who, it must be
remembered, had always treated Yakoob Beg in a friendly way, and who in
their early days had been his boon companion. This conspiracy was
unsuccessful, and Yakoob Beg, who had yielded up Khodjent, with the
defence of which he had been entrusted by Alim Kuli, on the approach of
the forces of Khudayar Khan, took refuge in Bokhara. Here he was
favourably received, and resided as a noble attached to the court. In
1863 the Ameer of Bokhara, Muzaffur Eddin, marched a large army into
Khokand for the purpose of restoring his brother-in-law, Khudayar, to
the throne, for he had again been deposed by the intrigues of Alim Kuli;
Yakoob Beg accompanied this force, and once more appears, for the last
time, on the troubled arena of Khokandian politics. The Bokhariot army
was soon recalled, and Khudayar Khan was left to face the difficulties
of his position unaided. In a few months an arrangement was come to
between Alim Kuli and Yakoob Beg and other leading nobles against
Khudayar. Sultan Murad, who had first been supported and then murdered
by Alim Kuli, having been thus effectually removed, this king-maker had
set up Sultan Seyyid in his place. Yakoob Beg so far profited by this
new confederacy that he was restored to his old offices and
perquisites, and sent once more to hold his former post as governor of
Kurama. He collected as many allies as he was able, and brought them
with him to assist in the capture of Khodjent. On this important town
being secured the regent Alim Kuli passed through Kurama on his way to
seize and settle the capital, Tashkent. He appointed a connection of his
own, Hydar Kuli, with the title of Hudaychi, as governor of Kurama, and
took Yakoob Beg in his train to Tashkent. Shortly after their arrival at
Tashkent, news came of the Russian occupation of Tchimkent, and the
survivors of the force driven out by Tchernaief soon appeared with a
confirmation of the intelligence. This was in April, 1864, and until
October of that year, when the Russians appeared before the town, Yakoob
Beg was engaged in strengthening the fortifications of the capital. When
the army of General Tchernaief did appear in the neighbourhood, Yakoob
Beg, with a rashness that cannot be too strongly condemned, went forth
to encounter it in the open. As might have been expected, the Russians
were victorious, and Yakoob Beg was compelled to seek refuge with his
shattered forces within the walls of Tashkent. The Russians themselves
had suffered some loss, and either awed by the bold demeanour of their
old antagonist, or, as is more probable, encountering some difficulty in
bringing up supplies, and being unprovided with a siege train, thought
the more prudent policy would be to retire to Tchimkent until
reinforcements and other necessaries should arrive. Alim Kuli, in the
course of a few days after this reverse, arrived at Tashkent in person
with a large body of troops, and employed all his energies in
strengthening the defences before the return of the Russians. It is very
certain that on this occasion, the first on which Yakoob Beg had a
command of any consequence, he permitted his natural impetuosity to get
the better of his discretion, and that it was the height of madness on
his part to enter into an engagement in the open with the disciplined
and formidable forces of Tchernaief, when, by leaving that general to
undertake the siege of Tashkent, he might have had it in his power to
inflict a serious, and for the time conclusive, blow against the
Russians when the reinforcing army of Alim Kuli came up. With half his
army discouraged by defeat, Alim Kuli found himself restricted to a
policy of inaction, through the over-hastiness of his lieutenant. The
Russians did not return until after the departure of Yakoob Beg for
Kashgar, but when they did they found that Alim Kuli had made every
preparation in his power to receive them. On the first occasion they
were again forced to retreat after a skirmish which the Khokandians
claim as a victory; but in 1865 they appeared before the walls in
greater force. Alim Kuli, with a gathering vastly superior in numbers to
the Russians, attacked them a few miles to the north of Tashkent, and
the fortunes of the day hung in the balance, until the fall of Alim
Kuli, who, whilst boldly leading a charge of Kirghiz cavalry, was
pierced in the chest by a musket ball. He was carried from the field by
a faithful officer, and expired that night in Tashkent. Alim Kuli
appears to have been actuated to some extent by a disinterested
patriotism, as much as by more personal motives. With his fall, and the
departure of Yakoob Beg for another sphere of operations, all hope of a
continued state of independence for Khokand was dissipated. After this
severe defeat the Russians laid close siege to Tashkent. The Khokandians
in their distress applied to Bokhara for aid, and the Russians hastened
to occupy Chinaz to intercept it. The Bokhariot army was routed by the
Russian army under General Romanoffski at the battle of Irjar, in May,
1866, eleven months after Tashkent had been occupied by Tchernaief. It
was during this period of anarchy, with a hostile Russian and an allied
Bokhariot force on his soil, that Khudayar Khan once more supplanted the
nominee of Alim Kuli, Sultan Seyyid, and at the close of the campaign
Khudayar was left in possession of the southern portion of Khokand. This
Khan appears to have been of an unambitious nature, for, during his
various exiles, he devoted himself to private business with an energy he
had never shown in the management of the public affairs, and when he at
last sank into private life and became a pensioner of the Russian Court,
on the complete annexation of his state, he is said to have acquired not
only a happiness, but many virtues unknown to him in his more elevated
lot. The unfortunate Sultan Seyyid, after wandering for some years out
of Khokand, was, when he ventured to return in 1871, executed. Many of
the partisans of Seyyid on the defeat by the Russians, and on the
overthrow of his rivals by Khudayar, sought refuge in the mountains of
the Kizilyart, whence they proceeded to join Yakoob Beg in Kashgar,
where they arrived at a most opportune moment as will be seen.
To return to Yakoob Beg. After his defeat before Tashkent he was
employed under Alim Kuli in repairing the defences of that town and
collecting troops from the whole district, but his reputation had been
lowered by that reverse. There was a certain jealousy between the
Kirghiz chief and the Tajik soldier of fortune. Yakoob Beg saw in Alim
Kuli an obstacle to his further promotion, and Alim Kuli recognized in
the Kooshbege a possible rival and successor. Any excuse therefore to
keep Yakoob Beg in the background, or indeed to get rid of him
altogether, would be very welcome to Alim Kuli. We hear little more of
the unsuccessful general until his departure for Kashgar a few months
afterwards. He had to wipe out in other regions and against other foes
the stain he had incurred in his encounters with the Russians.
While these events were in progress at Tashkent, an envoy arrived there
from Sadic Beg, a Kirghiz prince on the frontiers of Ili and Kashgar. He
brought intelligence that his master had availed himself of the
dissensions among the Chinese, to seize the city of Kashgar, and he
requested the Khan of Khokand to send him the heir of the Khojas, in
order that he might place him on the throne. As the facts really stood,
Sadic Beg had only laid siege to Kashgar, and, finding that he was met
with a strenuous resistance, had recourse to the plan of setting up a
Khoja king to strengthen his failing efforts, but of the true state of
affairs in Kashgar it is evident that everybody in Tashkent was
primarily ignorant. The Khokandian policy had always been, however, to
maintain their interests intact in Eastern Turkestan, and to weaken in
every possible way the credit of the Chinese. An envoy bringing news of
a fresh revolt in Kashgar was, therefore, sure of a friendly reception
at Tashkent, even if he did not return with some more striking tokens of
amity. But on this occasion the danger from Russian movements was so
close at hand, and all the efforts of the state were so concentrated in
preparations for defence, that Alim Kuli, whatever he may have thought
of its prospects, and however much he may have sympathized with its
object, was unable to give the Kirghiz emissary any aid in his
enterprise. When, however, Buzurg Khan, the only surviving son of
Jehangir Khan, either of his own free will, or instigated, as some say,
by Yakoob Beg, offered to assert his claims on Kashgar, Alim Kuli
expressed his approval of the design, and gave his moral assistance so
far as was compatible with no active participation therein. He, however,
gave Buzurg Khan the services of Kooshbege Mahomed Yakoob to act as his
commander-in-chief, or Baturbashi. Thus did Alim Kuli free himself from
his troublesome subordinate, and despatched on an errand which seemed
likely to end in disgrace and defeat, but which really led to empire,
the only native whom he dreaded as being capable of supplanting him.
Yakoob Beg had up to this point given little promise of future
distinction. He had, indeed, earned the reputation of being a gallant
soldier, if a not very prudent one; and in the intrigues that had marked
the history of his state for twenty years, he had borne his fair share.
But no one would have dreamt of prognosticating that he possessed the
ability necessary to win campaigns against superior forces, and then to
erect a powerful state on the ruins that fell into his possession. The
most favourable opinion would have been, that he would have died
manfully as a soldier, and as a true Mussulman. When he embarked in the
enterprise of conquering Kashgar, he was no longer in the first flush of
youth, but was a man who covered his fiery spirit and great ambition
with a cloak of religious zeal and diplomatic apathy. Twenty years'
experience in the most intriguing court in Central Asia had placed every
muscle at his complete command, and even in the most disastrous moments
in his career, he is always represented as being calm and
collected--calm in his belief in Kismut, and collected in a persuasion
of his own resources. One fact that will account for the slowness with
which he advanced into notoriety is that he was entirely dependent on
his own capacity for promotion. He had no wealth, no large following,
and in the two leaders, Kipchak and Kirghiz, Mussulman and Alim Kuli, he
had competitors of almost equal merit with himself, while they each
possessed personal power and family connections that placed them far
beyond the reach of the hardy soldier and court chamberlain. Some of his
detractors had availed themselves of his impecuniosity to circulate
stories of his having had dealings with the Russians; but these,
although invested with circumstances originating in non-Russian
quarters, are probably without any truth. The chief charge, to be taken
for what it is worth, is, that the weakness of his defence of the Ak
Musjid district, after the fall of the fort, was owing to his having
received a large bribe from the Russians. Another is, that in 1863,
after his return from Bokhara, he neglected to retard the Russian
movements for a pecuniary consideration. In both cases the sum mentioned
is very large; and besides the apparent falseness of these rumours, we
have only to consider that he was not worth a bribe, and that his
opposition to the Russians was marked by all the want of foresight of
religious zeal. All these considerations make such rumours appear in
their true light; and although we are aware that a follower of Yakoob
Beg confirmed, if he did not originate, these charges, it seems to us
that the Russians, if there had been truth in the report, would long ago
have placed the fact before the peoples of Asia, and required Yakoob Beg
when Ameer of Kashgar to have acted in a more friendly way towards his
former employers. But the simple reason that Yakoob Beg could not have
rendered any service to the Russians worth the thousands of pounds he is
said to have received, ought to demolish the whole fabrication. If
Yakoob Beg's life proves one thing more than another, it was that he was
a most fanatical Mussulman, and as such hating the Russians, as the most
formidable enemy of Islam, with the most intense hate his fiery nature
was capable of. This man's whole life must have been the greatest
hypocrisy if he was not genuine in his religious intolerance, and that
intolerance rendered any connivance with Russian measures an
impossibility. Owing to his early connection with the church, and his
maternal grandfather's high position therein, Yakoob Beg was always
distinguished for the strict orthodoxy of his views. Through all his
life he seems to have made it his chief object to keep the church on his
side. When he was reduced to the most desperate straits in his after
life in Kashgar, when some of the most faithful of his followers fell
off from him, and when even Buzurg Khan, the man whom he had placed upon
a throne, declared him a rebel and a traitor, he never lost heart so
long as the ministers of the church held by him; and, on the other
hand, they, recognizing the fidelity of their champion, supported him
through good and ill repute. Whilst residing at Bokhara "the holy" he
had attached to his person several of the most distinguished preachers
of Islam throughout Asia, and he had taken all the vows that give a
peculiar sanctity to the relations that connect the layman with his
priest. It was here that he publicly announced his intention of going on
pilgrimage to Mecca; an intention which he repeated on several occasions
during his rule of Kashgar, but was obliged, by the position and
precarious existence of that state, always to perform by deputy. When he
had established himself as ruler, his first measure was to re-enforce
the Shariat and to endow several shrines that had been erected to the
memory of the chief Khoja saints. It was by such means that he at every
crisis of his life had striven to make his interests identical with
those of his religion, and when he became a responsible and successful
prince his past life stood him in such good stead, that he easily came
to be regarded throughout Asia as the most faithful and redoubtable
supporter of Islam.
At this period of his life he is described by one who knew him as being
of a short but stoutish build, with a keenly intelligent and handsome
countenance. He had, during the vicissitudes of his career in Khokand,
been so often near assassination, or execution, that the result of the
morrow had, to all external appearance, become a matter of secondary
consideration to him, and his features, schooled to immobility by a long
career of court intrigue, appeared to the casual observer dull and
uninteresting. When, however, the conversation turned on subjects that
specially interested him, such as the advance of Russia, the future of
Islam, or the policy of England, he threw aside his mask, and became at
once a man whose views, with some merit in themselves, were rendered
almost convincing by the singular charm of his voice and manner. He was
honourably distinguished at all times by the simplicity of his dress,
and his freedom from the pretension and love of show characteristic of
most Asiatics; and at the very highest point of his power he was only a
soldier, occupying a palace. As was well said of Timour, the Athalik
Ghazi placed the "foot of courage in the stirrup of patience," and he
evidently set himself to copy the great lessons of military success that
might be learnt from the careers of Genghis Khan, Timour, and Baber.
Such is some account of the commander-in-chief to the expedition of
Buzurg Khan. The Khoja, himself, was a man about the same age as his
lieutenant, but in every other respect as different as he well could be.
Personally a coward, fond of show and every kind of luxury, and of the
treacherous, fickle nature that marked his race, he had done nothing
during his past life to compensate for the want of the most ordinary
virtues. Although he participated in the expedition of Wali Khan, he
showed no possession of merit, and in the subsequent occupation that the
Khojas maintained in Kashgar during a few weeks, he, perhaps more than
any other of his kinsmen, disgusted the people by his open and unbridled
licentiousness. Such were the two men who, in the latter days of 1864,
set out from Tashkent for the recovery of a kingdom. Of their chances of
success few would have ventured then to predict a settlement in their
favour; none, certainly, such as was obtained by Yakoob Beg. It is now
time for us to relate how they fared in Eastern Turkestan.
CHAPTER VII.
THE INVASION OF KASHGAR BY BUZURG KHAN AND YAKOOB BEG.
The Chinese were on several occasions, as we have seen, threatened in
Eastern Turkestan by the pretensions of the Khojas, and the secret or
open machinations of Khokand. But they had at all times triumphed over
every combination of circumstances, so long as they themselves were
united. The temporary success of Jehangir Khan was obliterated by the
excesses which characterized his occupation of the country, and by the
energy and large display of force, with which the Chinese pacified the
state on his flight; and the last, under Wali Khan, can scarcely be
dignified by any other appellation than that of a marauding incursion.
But a great and important change had occurred in the few years that had
elapsed since 1859. The Chinese no longer presented a collected force to
the onslaught of an assailant. In every quarter of their empire,
victorious rebels had established themselves, and had detracted in an
immeasurable degree from the effective strength of the Government. A
Mahomedan ruler swayed over the Panthays, in Yunnan, from his capital at
Ta-li-foo; the Taepings round Nankin were at the summit of their career,
just before the appearance of Colonel Gordon, when, in 1862, a fresh
danger broke out in the provinces of Kansuh and Shensi. From a remote
period there had been extensive Mussulman settlements in these
provinces, and so early as the seventeenth century they had been the
cause of trouble to the great Kanghi. The Emperor Keen-Lung, indeed, at
one time attempted to settle the question for ever by ordering the
massacre of every Mahomedan over fifteen years of age. Even this
sweeping measure did not have the desired effect, and whether
persecution was the means or not of giving vitality to the cause, it is
certain that they had become more numerous, more resolute, and more
confident in their own superiority to the other Chinese by the middle of
the present century. These Mahomedans were known as Tungani, Dungani, or
Dungans, while the Buddhist Chinese are spoken of as Khitay. Many
writers are not satisfied with this simple explanation of the name
Tungani, and will have it that they were a distinct race, who were
either transported to China at some period of Chinese conquest, or were
compelled to seek refuge there by some advancing barbarian horde. They
even assert that they can trace the name and origin of this people to a
tribe dwelling in the country of the lower waters of the Amoor; but
while there is complete uncertainty on the subject it seems simpler to
accept the signification that the word Tungani conveys to the Chinese,
and that is Mahomedan. We know, for certain, that these people had
resided in Kansuh and its neighbouring province for centuries--that they
were remarkable for a superiority in strength and activity over the
Khitay, and that they possessed the virtues of sobriety and honesty.
They were also not infected by the disease of opium smoking, and we
should imagine them to have been a quiet, contented, and agreeable
people at their most prosperous period. Their physical superiority to
the Khitay would probably be owing to their abstention from "bang" and
opium, and we need not suppose that they were the descendants of a
stronger race, who had issued from the frigid north, when we have an
explanation so much simpler and more natural at hand. They were found by
their Khitay rulers to form excellent soldiers, policemen, and other
Government servants, such as carriers, &c. In this last employment many
found their way to Hamil, thence to Turfan and Urumtsi, and their
numbers were increased by discharged soldiers, who remained as military
settlers sooner than return to Kansuh. In the course of a few
generations their numbers became much greater, until, at last, in the
cities we have named, they formed the majority of the inhabitants. In
Kuldja, too, they were very numerous, but south of the Tian Shan they do
not seem to have advanced westward of Kucha in any great force. At Aksu
the Andijan influence, supreme in Western Kashgar, presented an
impassable barrier to the Tungani, who, it must be remembered, had no
sympathy with Khokand. The Tungani were, therefore, Mahomedan subjects
of China, originating in Kansuh, but who had also, in the course of
time, spread westward into Chinese Turkestan and Jungaria. They were
employed in the service of the country without restriction, nor can we
find that they were subjected to any unfair usage, after the measures
taken against them in the earlier days of Keen-Lung. They may not have
been as highly favoured as the Sobo tribes, and they may have been
subjected to some ridicule in Kansuh; but in Jungaria they were on an
equality with all the other Chinese, and immeasurably better placed in
the political scale than the Andijanis or Tarantchis. The Chinese had
just grounds for believing that no danger to their rule in Eastern
Turkestan or Jungaria would ever be caused by the Tungani, and it is not
easy to explain how their reasonable anticipations were falsified. The
Tungani were fervent, if not the most orthodox in form of, Mahomedans,
and it would appear that they were not free from a belief in their own
superiority to the Khitay. This feeling was fostered by the "mollahs,"
or priests, who became very active within the Chinese dominions, when
these had been extended by conquest into the heart of Asia. As if in
retaliation for a Khitay conquest the Mahomedan religion was undermining
the outworks of its rival's power slowly, but surely. The impulse given
to trade by the security and patronage that accompanied Chinese rule
was, at least from a purely Chinese point of view, neutralized as an
advantage by the admission into the empire of energetic and eloquent
preachers of the superior merits of Mahomedanism. It required many
generations before the effect of their efforts became perceptible, and
it was not until the power of China fell into an extraordinary
decline--a decline which many thought, with some show of reason, was to
herald the fall, but which later events have seemed to make but the
prelude to a more vigorous life than ever--that these Mahomedan
missionaries among the Tungani knew that the time to reap what they had
sown with patience and persistency was at hand. It is impossible not to
connect this event in some degree with that unaccountable revival of
fanaticism among Mahomedans, which has produced so many important events
during the last thirty years, and of which we are now witnessing some of
the most striking results.
In 1862, a riot occurred in a small village of Kansuh; it was suppressed
with some loss of life, and people were beginning to suppose that it
possessed no significance, when a disturbance broke out on a large scale
at Houchow, or Salara. The Tungani had risen, and the unfortunate
unarmed Khitay were massacred right and left. The rising soon assumed
the proportions of a civil war, and the infection spread to the
neighbouring province of Shensi. Then ensued scenes of the most
atrocious barbarity. The Khitay, who all their lives had lived at peace
and as neighbours with the Tungani, were butchered without mercy. The
Mahomedan priests seized all the governing power into their own hands,
and set their followers the example of unscrupulous ferocity. The
movement, even if we make allowance for the difficulties besetting the
government in other regions, must be considered to have been attended by
unexpected success. It can only be accounted for by the supposition that
the Khitay were taken completely by surprise, and realized neither the
extent nor the nature of the danger to which they were exposed. Before
the end of 1862, a Tungan government was established in Kansuh, and its
jurisdiction was for a time acknowledged in Shensi. The priests formed
an administration amongst themselves, and set themselves to the task of
consolidating what they had won, and of preparing for the time when the
Chinese should come for vengeance. The events happening in Kansuh were
naturally of interest to the Tungani in the country lying beyond it, and
it was not long before the example set them was followed in Hamil,
Turfan, Urumtsi, Manas, and other cities of that district. The same
success attended the movement here as in Kansuh. The Chinese power was
subverted, the Khitay massacred with greater circumstances of cruelty,
if possible, and a new Tungan state was formed in those cities. Each
district retained a nominal independence, under the headship of a
priest, or body of priests, or of one of the native Tungan princes, and
then the movement spread with irresistible strides to Karashar, Kucha,
and Aksu. There it stopped, and south of the Tian Shan the Tungan revolt
proper never extended west of Aksu.
In Altyshahr and Kuldja for some months longer the Chinese maintained
the external show of power, but all their communications with China were
cut off, and neither in numbers nor resources had they sufficient means
to cope with the Tungani unaided. They would have accomplished as much
as could have been expected from them if they succeeded in keeping
possession of that which they still occupied. The Tungan element in
Kucha and Aksu was not predominant. It had to share power with the
Khojas, and, as we shall see later on, the Khojas of these two cities
seized the governing power for themselves. It was the appearance of the
Tungan sedition in these cities, which occupy a middle relation to the
purely Chinese cities of Hamil and Urumtsi, and the almost totally
Khokandian cities of Yarkand and Kashgar, that roused the Kashgari to a
full appreciation of the importance to themselves of this movement, and
the Chinese garrisons and settlers to an equally just realization of
their own danger. The Kashgari, not free from the fanaticism of all
their co-religionists, and naturally elated at the successes of the
Tungani, forgot, with their well proved fickleness, all the benefits
they had received from the Chinese, and waited eagerly for a favourable
opportunity to come for them to imitate the example set them by their
eastern neighbours. Nor had they long to wait, although it was not from
them that came the first spark that lighted the firebrand of civil war
and anarchy throughout the length and breadth of Altyshahr.
It will be remembered that the Khokandian government had the right to
nominate in each city, where they received dues on Mahomedan
merchandise, an agent or tax-collector to look after the proper levy of
the tax. In some of the larger cities this official would require a
considerable staff of assistants, and thus a certain number of skilled
Khokandian officials were permanently located on Kashgarian or Chinese
territory. After the failure of the expedition of Wali Khan, in which
these officials seem to have disappeared, either having become merged in
the body of his partisans or sacrificed during the massacres of that
time, a fresh batch of Khokandians was installed, and occupied, in a
legal sense, the same position as their predecessors. It would appear,
however, that the natural result of their aid to Wali Khan followed, and
that the Chinese Ambans regarded their presence with scarcely concealed
dislike, and proclaimed that these Khokandian tax-gatherers were
devoting more of their attention to the propagation of heretical
religious and political doctrines than to the collection of dues on silk
and other articles of commerce. It would require but the slightest
untoward circumstance to fan this ill-feeling into the most insatiate
hatred and hostility. The danger was rendered the more serious when the
Chinese Ambans perceived for the first time that the sympathies of a
large portion of their Tungan soldiery were estranged from them. It was
doubtful whether the Tungan regiments could be relied on against a fresh
Khoja revolt, and it was certain that they would not combine in any
repression of the Mahomedan religion, even though the sufferers should
only be Andijanis. Such was the state of the public mind in Altyshahr in
1862, when the Tungani revolted and obtained success in Kansuh and
Shensi.
As early as 1859 the hostility of the Chinese Ambans to the Andijani
tax-collectors received a forcible illustration in the town of Yarkand.
At that time Afridun Wang was governor, and, whether there was any
personal enmity at the root of the action or not, he found little
difficulty in convincing both himself and the other Chinese residents
that the Andijani agent had been stirring up discontent against them in
the town. Accordingly, as self-preservation is the first law of nature,
this Khokandian official, with his attendant, was arrested and executed.
There may have been some foundation for the accusations made by Afridun
Wang against his rival: more probably there was none; but on referring
the matter to the Viceroy of Ili for decision it was decided that the
governor should be removed. The Khokandian government sent fresh agents,
and it is not stated that any reparation was given to the families of
the sufferers. From this it would appear that the post of tax-collector
in Altyshahr for His Highness the Khan of Khokand was not a very
desirable position. Afridun Wang retired to his native town of Turfan,
where, three years later on, he contributed more than any one else to
the success of the Tungan movement. His policy, if anti-Khokandian, was
pro-Mahomedan or Tungan, and his case is very typical of the nature of
this rising. In Turfan he continued to be one of the chief men, until,
six years later on, it fell to the Athalik Ghazi.
His successor in the governorship of Yarkand did not interfere with the
Khokandian officials, but for this moderation he made up by the
exactions he committed on the residents, more particularly on the
Mahomedan portion of them. His extortions and cruelties had the effect
as much of disgusting his own followers as of rousing a spirit of
opposition among the oppressed. It was while things were in this
uncertain state at Yarkand that the governor received secret notice of
the Tungan revolt in Kansuh, and he at once perceived that, when this
important intelligence became known, not only would his own Tungan
troops become more openly mutinous, but that the Khojas might seize the
opportunity to assert their claim to the country once more. In this
special case, in addition to the general apprehension that would be felt
by any Chinese governor at the aspect of affairs, there was personal
fear for the unjustifiable acts of his government, and the Amban, in his
trepidation, resolved on the most strenuous precautions to avert the
danger from himself. He summoned a council of war of his Buddhist
lieutenants, and stated the exact position to them; how the Tungan
portion of their forces could not be depended on; how the Tungan
settlers would join them; and how the Andijani agents would do their
utmost to unite in one cause against themselves all those who followed
the teaching of Islam; and how all these events, which before were
possible, had been rendered probable by the Tungan successes in the
east. He dwelt on the fact that no time was to be lost in the execution
of such precautions as they thought necessary; that at any moment the
news might arrive, and then they would be in a minority; and he did not
attempt to conceal the purport of his address--that he was in favour of
sharp measures, of going to the root of the evil at once, and of
massacring every Mussulman in the town. The council of war was not
prepared to endorse such a violent proceeding without careful
consideration. There were many dissentients, and the meeting was
adjourned. It reassembled, and, on this occasion, although the
supporters of more moderate measures had decreased, it adjourned once
more before deciding. The danger evidently appeared more appalling to
the governor than to his subordinates; perhaps also there was some
personal dislike for their chief even among his Khitay following. At the
second meeting they seemed, indeed, more willing to acquiesce in his
proposed strong measures, and this may have been caused by their
observation of the state of public opinion in the interval. But even
then no final decision could be arrived at, and the Khitay never had a
chance after that of making any defence in Yarkand. The Tungan troops
were not long in hearing, through their chief officer, Mah Dalay, that
there was a plot on foot among the Khitay to disarm, or, as others said,
to massacre them, and they then learnt of the Mahomedan revolt in China
and along the road thither. They immediately determined to be beforehand
with the Amban and his lukewarm council, and no weak hesitation marred
the execution of their plot, as it had that of the Chinese governor.
The Khitay troops, unarmed, were surprised during the night, and cut
down without quarter, and the small body of survivors sought refuge in
the Yangyshahr fort. This was in August, 1863, and no fewer than 7,000
Khitay soldiers are computed to have fallen on this single occasion. The
Tungan troops were thereupon joined by the townspeople, and the question
then to be decided was, who was to be supreme, the Tungani or the
Andijan-Kashgari Mahomedans. The former were simply an unlettered and
rather savage soldiery; the latter possessed keen intellects for
manipulating a fanatical people, and for improvising an administration
of a superficial character. The balance of power was evenly distributed
until reinforcements arrived from Aksu and Kucha to the anti-Tungan
party. Two Khojas who had been banished from Kucha, for endeavouring to
promote their own interests in the name of Khokand, had fled to Aksu,
where they met the same fate. In this latter flight many of similar
principles joined them, so that when they reached Yarkand they had a
numerous force at their back. The Khojas in the first place joined their
forces to the Tungani, to storm the remaining Khitay in the Yangyshahr.
The Khitay after a gallant resistance perceived that further opposition
was impossible. Then occurred one of those deeds, which, if Europe
instead of Asia had been the scene, would have been handed down to
posterity as a rare example of military devotion and courage, but which,
although not unique even in the annals of the campaign we are entering
upon, having occurred in little-known Eastern Turkestan, is not realized
as an event that has actually taken place. It is a myth of the myth-land
to which it
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/33712