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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ