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

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ