The Life of Yakoob Beg; Athalik Ghazi, and Badaulet; Ameer of Kashgar

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 176 °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 £3,500 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 Cày 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.