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

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ