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

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.

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 to the Viceroy of Ili, who alone was in communication with Pekin. Under each of these potentates there were the usual deputy-ambans and Tay Dalays, or military commanders. All the cities had Gulbaghs constructed outside of them, and these forts were held by Chinese troops – that is, by a mixture of Khitay and Tungani. It is computed that 20,000 troops used to garrison Kashgar and the neighbourhood alone. The military posts were restricted to Chinamen, and the higher judicial and administrative offices were also withheld from the subjected race. But these were the only privileges retained by the Chinese.

The Khan, or chief Amban, who resided in Yarkand, made all the appointments to the minor offices, which were filled almost exclusively by Mahomedans. The only precaution the Chinese seem to have taken was to refuse employment to a Kashgari in his native town, so that a Yarkandi would have to go to Aksu, or some other place away from his home, if he desired to participate in the government of his country. But beyond this there was no restriction, and nominally the Hakim Beg, the highest Mussulman officer, ranked on an equality with the Chinese amban. His subordinates were all Mahomedans, with the exception of his personal guard of Khitay troops. In the hands of these natives of the country lay all the administration of justice among their co-religionists, the collection of the revenue, and the levying of customs dues on the frontier and of trade taxes in the cities. It was only when cause for litigation arose between a Buddhist and a Mussulman that the amban interfered. We have therefore the instructive spectacle before us of a Buddhist conquest becoming harmonized with Mussulman institutions, and Chinese arrogance not content with tolerating, but absolutely fostering, a régime to which its hostility was scarcely concealed. This is the only instance of the Chinese exhibiting such more than Asiatic restraint towards Mahomedans; for their dealings with Tibet, a country of peculiar sanctity and Buddhist as well, is not a case in point. The scheme worked well, however. Chinese strength was husbanded by being employed only when absolutely necessary to be called into play, and the people, to a great degree their own masters, did not realise the fact of their being a subjected nation. Their first anxiety was the payment of their taxes – far from exorbitant, as it had been under their own rulers; but that task accomplished, they could free their minds from care.

Very often their own countryman, the Hakim Beg, was a greater tyrant than the Chinese amban in the fort outside their gates; but against his exactions they could obtain speedy redress. When their Hakims, or Wangs as the Chinese called them, became unpopular in a district, the amban promptly removed them; even if he considered they were not much to blame, he always transferred them to some other district. The first object in the eyes of the amban was the maintenance of order, and he knew well enough that order could not be maintained, unless he resorted to force, which he studiously avoided, if the people were discontented. The people therefore could repose implicit trust in the Chinese amban securing a fair hearing and justice for them in their disagreements with their own leaders; and the Mussulman Wangs, who were the old ruling class, saw the unfortunate tax-payer at last secure from their tyranny through the clemency of a Buddhist conqueror. We are justified in assuming that the population saw the force of these patent facts, and that, if not perfectly to be relied on in any emergency, the Chinese had no danger to expect from the tax-producing and patient Kashgari.

So long as the Chinese rule remained vigorous – that is, for about the first fifty years – the Ambans worked in perfect concord with the Wangs, and through them with the people. But the internal relations between these various personages became more complicated and less cordial through the importation, about the beginning of this century, of a fresh factor into the question. The Chinese had granted the cities west of, and including, Aksu very considerable privileges in carrying on trade with Khokand; and in the course of commercial intercourse a Khokandian element was slowly imported into these cities, when it became a people within a people, enjoying the prosperity to be derived from the Chinese Empire, but not experiencing any sentiment of gratitude towards those by whom the favours were conferred. After some years, when these Khokandian immigrants had become numerous, the Chinese acquiesced in their selecting a responsible head for each community, and this head, or Aksakal, was nominated by the Khan of Khokand, the only temporal sovereign these people recognized. The creation of this third power in the state, which was first sanctioned as a matter of convenience, was to be fraught with the direst consequences for the Chinese. The Khitay would be justified in saying that the Aksakals were "the cause of all their woe," in Kashgar at all events. The Aksakals were far too prudent to challenge the supremacy of the Chinese officials, and their first object was rather to make themselves independent of the Wangs than to compete with the Ambans. In this they were successful, for the Chinese neglected to take into account the dangers that might arise from these same bustling, intriguing, and alien Aksakals. The Wangs had always been obedient vassals, but the plausibility of the Aksakals put them on a par with their rivals. The Chinese washed their hands of the quarrel, and may have imagined that their rule was made more assured by divisions among the Mussulmans. In this they were mistaken. The Aksakals, who after a time repudiated their obligations to the Wangs, became the centre of all the intrigue that marked the last half-century of Chinese rule, and, puffed up by their triumph over the Wangs, did not hesitate to challenge the right of the Ambans to exercise jurisdiction over them. But of this more later on.