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

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.