The Life of Yakoob Beg; Athalik Ghazi, and Badaulet; Ameer of Kashgar. James D. Boulger

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ