CHAPTER XII
THE GEOGRAPHY, GOVERNMENT AND COMMERCE OF
CHINESE TURKESTAN
Le Turkestan est pour les Chinois une position stratégique et un excellent débouché pour l’aristocratie mandarine qui ne trouve plus assez de places disponibles dans la vieille Chine. C’est tout simplement une bonne terre de pâture pour engraisser une portion notable du troupeau administrateur—Grenard, La Haute Asie, ii. 273.
Hsin-Chiang, or “the New Province,” as the Chinese term it, includes the province now generally known as Chinese Turkestan, together with Urumchi and other districts situated to the north of the Tian Shan which lie outside the scope of this work. The province we are dealing with has had many names, such as Lesser Bokhara, Moghulistan, Tartary, High Tartary, Eastern Turkestan, the Six Cities and Kashgaria, the last four names having been in use until quite recently.
The country is a vast plain, measuring about 1000 miles from east to west and about half that distance from north to south. Its altitude is some 4000 feet in the west, and decreases steadily as it stretches eastwards, until at Turfan an area lying below sea-level is found. The physical boundaries are definite, being formed by some of the loftiest mountains in the world. To the north runs the Tian Shan; to the west lies the Kizil Art, holding up the Pamirs, those elevated valleys of High Asia; on the south are the lofty Kara Koram and Kuen Lun ranges, the latter being the Kasia Mountains of Ptolemy, bounding Serindia, as he termed the province. The eastern boundary is the vast Gobi or “Desert,” where Sir Francis Younghusband travelled for nearly one thousand miles without seeing a house.
The Takla Makan desert, distinct from the Gobi, occupies the centre of the country. From east to west this paralysing waste stretches for 500 miles, while its greatest breadth from north to south is half that distance. It is indeed a Land of Death, covered with monstrous sandhills, which overlie the ruins of great cities and dense forests and represent the triumph of the wind, combined with desiccation, over the patient industry of man. There are also smaller deserts, such as that lying between Merket and Kashgar, which we crossed on our journey.
THE TIAN SHAN OR CELESTIAL MOUNTAINS.
(Taken from the West on the Osh-Kashgar route.) Page 236.
Chinese Turkestan may be described as a desert, or series of deserts, fringed by oases forming a horseshoe, with the toe pointing west. In Persia, except in the heart of the Lut, there are villages at intervals all over the country, depending mainly on the underground irrigation channels termed kanats, whereas in Chinese Turkestan, outside a few large oases, more fertile than any areas in Persia, the desert is of a more intense type, and rarely supports even a scanty covering of bushes such as are usually found in Persia. Indeed the desert, with its waves of sand advancing in regular lines and rising to the height of perhaps one hundred feet, is the most noticeable feature of the country, which is full of legends of the destruction through this agency of many famous cities. The description of Hiuen Tsiang, the great Chinese traveller, is worth quoting: “These sands extend like a drifting flood for a great distance, piled up or scattered before the wind. There is no trace left behind by travellers, and often-times the way is lost, and so they wander hither and thither, quite bewildered, without any guide or direction. There is neither water nor herbage to be found, and hot winds frequently blow. When these winds rise, both man and beast become confused and forgetful, and there they remain perfectly disabled. At times, sad and plaintive notes are heard and piteous cries, so that between the sights and sounds of this desert men get confused and know not whither they go. Hence there are so many who perish on the journey. But it is all the work of demons and evil spirits.”[5]
It has been calculated that the area of the oases is rather less than 1½ per cent of the whole, so that if the deserts were taken away we should have to deal with a very small stretch of habitable country. As it is, we see oases, generally separated by miles of desert, all producing wheat, barley and other essentials within their own limits, and therefore needing but little communication with their neighbours, from whom they want nothing and to whom they sell nothing. The result is a state of general well-being, unprogressive in character and tending to stagnation. The more one travels the more one realizes how the progress and prosperity of a country depend upon good communications and an abundant rainfall.
There is another point of view from which the detached oases have affected the history of the region. They have never possessed enough resources to support a powerful army; but, owing to their isolation and proximity to the mountains, they were doomed to become the prey of every powerful force which swept down from the undefended frontier and took the cultivated areas in detail. The inhabitants have at no time displayed military virtues, and are to-day singularly unwarlike.
Of the rivers of the province, the Yarkand, known in its upper reaches as the Zarafshan, and lower down as the Tarim, is the most important. It frequently changes its course, and is perhaps responsible for the proverb, “A river, like a king, obeys no law.” Its chief tributaries are the Ak Su from the north and the Khotan River from the south. The Kizil Su or “Red River,” which flows through Kashgar, was also in past times a tributary of the Yarkand River, but it now fails to reach the main stream, for its water falls into the Lalmoi marsh below Maralbashi. Other rivers do not even approach the Zarafshan, but lose their waters in the sands.
It is a far cry from Egypt to Chinese Turkestan, but they are alike in this, that both countries depend absolutely and entirely on rivers for their life. As in Egypt, so in the basin of Chinese Turkestan, there is no rainfall which counts; everything therefore depends on a full river. The snowfall on the ranges affects the volume of water, which on the whole is decreasing. “The Land of Withering Rivers” is the appropriate title of a chapter dealing with this question in Huntington’s The Pulse of Asia. Apart from this, a cold summer in the Pamirs, such as occurred in 1915, may hinder the melting of the snows to such an extent that very little water reaches Maralbashi, below Kashgar, during the entire summer; and even in the Kashgar Oasis there was in that year a distinct deficiency of irrigation water.
The climate of Chinese Turkestan is intensely continental. The province is surrounded, as we have seen, by some of the highest ranges in the world; we therefore find extremes of heat and cold. Kashgar, where alone meteorological observations are taken, lies at an altitude of 4277 feet, and it might be thought that in consequence of this altitude, together with a latitude which is that of Central Spain, and the proximity of snow-covered ranges, the summer would be short and cool. Yet, mainly owing to the almost total absence of rainfall, the three summer months have a mean maximum of 90° with a mean minimum of 62°. On the other hand, the three winter months have a mean maximum of 38° with a mean minimum of 17°, but it is to be noted that, owing to the dryness, the cold is not severely felt. The scanty rainfall of only 3·34 inches is distributed over the whole year and is irregular. During the spring and summer of 1915 no rain fell in Kashgar beyond a few showers which were too light to record, but in the mountains the falls of snow and rain were frequent, especially in June.
The Kashgar Oasis certainly merits the epithet of “windy” during the spring. The storms blowing mainly from the west, or from the Takla Makan, are generally accompanied by clouds of dust which envelop the Oasis in a haze, and so prevalent is this condition that there are, as already mentioned, only one hundred clear days in the year. This disagreeable phenomenon was noted by Mirza Haidar, who, in the early part of the sixteenth century, wrote: “But Kashgar has also many defects. For example, although the climate is very healthy, there are continual storms of dust and sand, and violent winds charged with black dust.”[6]
The population of Chinese Turkestan is estimated at about one million and a half. It is almost entirely confined to the oases, chief of which are Kashgar with 300,000, Yangi Shahr with 200,000, Yarkand with 200,000, and Aksu and Khotan each with 190,000 inhabitants. The population may also be grouped into two main classes as “settled” and “nomadic,” with a small semi-nomadic division. The nomads, together with the semi-nomads, do not aggregate more than 125,000 in all. They inhabit the cold highlands, moving about in summer and winter alike as their flocks exhaust the grazing, which is rich in summer and scanty at other seasons. The Kirghiz, who are the leading nomads, estimated to number 50,000, implicitly believe that their ancestor was a Kazak Prince, Saghyon Khan by name. According to the legend, his forty daughters were walking by a river one day when they remarked foam covering its surface. From curiosity they all dipped their fingers into the water, and thereby became pregnant, and the Kirghiz claim to be the descendants of these “Forty Maidens” or Kirk Kiz. This tradition evidently rests on a poor pun, but it proves that the Kirghiz regard themselves as a branch of the Kazaks, or “Cossacks,” as we write the word. They furthermore believe that the same Prince had thirty sons, Utuz Ughul, whose descendants inhabit the Alai and the country between it and the Ili province. In Chinese Turkestan the principal Kirghiz tribes inhabiting the uplands between Kashgar and the Taghdumbash Pamir are the Naiman, the Kapchak and the Tait. The Kirghiz are all Moslems of the Sunni sect.
The Dulanis, whom we met in the Merket Oasis below Yarkand, are another tribe of importance in the province. Their origin is called in question, but they are akin to the Kirghiz, although they differ in appearance owing to their sedentary life in a forest-covered country. Their name is said to have been given them by a Khoja monarch, who termed them his dulan or “two shoulders.” They live in miserable shanties made of wood and are poor cultivators, relying more on their flocks than on the produce of their land.
The semi-nomads include the Taghliks or “Highlanders,” who herd the flocks belonging to the sedentary population. They spend the summer in the mountains, but occupy huts or caves in the foot-hills during the winter; these “Highlanders” are all Sunni Moslems. On the other hand, the Mongols of Karashahr, who in numbers are about equal to the Kirghiz, are all Buddhists.
In addition to the tribes already mentioned, there is a strong colony of five thousand families of Tunganis, mainly immigrants from Central China, Kansu and Shensi. As Sunni Mohamedans converted in the early days of Islam they were hostile to the Chinese, and have rebelled more than once; but during the recent Revolution they changed their policy and supported the local authorities. In consequence they are now being given posts in the government, and at the time of my visit the commander of the troops at Khotan was a Tungani.
To conclude this enumeration, the Tajiks, who are Aryans from Farghana, numbering 13,000, the Chinese 6000, the Indians 5000 and the Abdalis 1000, make up the population of Chinese Turkestan. The Abdalis claim kinship with the Abdalis of Khorasan or Herat, now the Durranis. They are locally believed to be the descendants of Yezid, the slayer of the Imam Husayn at Kerbela, and until the time of Yakub Beg’s rule are said to have acted a play in which the Shias are reviled. Grenard,[7] who studied this mysterious people, came to the conclusion that they were the descendants of a Persian Shia colony, but Stein, whose authority is superior, believes that they are Gipsies.
The province of Hsin-Chiang is ruled by a Chiang Chun[8] or Provincial Governor, who resides at Urumchi. Under him are Taoyin, or Governors, of Urumchi, Tarbagtai, Ili, Aksu and Kashgar. The situation is complicated by the fact that the commander of the troops in the districts south of the Tian Shan is independent of the Governor of Urumchi, taking orders direct from Peking. Under the Taoyin of Kashgar, with which we are especially concerned, are Hsien Yin, or Sub-Governors, of Khotan, Yarkand and other districts; there are also officials appointed to deal with foreign affairs. The term Amban is applicable to all Chinese officials, and is used especially as a mark of respect. The above-mentioned officials, constituting the superior civil service, are all Chinese, but their subordinates, known as Begs, Ming Bashis and Yuz Bashis, are usually Moslems. The Begs are the local landowners and are generally men of considerable influence, and to them is entrusted the collection of the taxes, the administration of justice so far as minor cases are concerned, and the arrangements for forced labour. The irrigation system is also in the hands of the Begs, whose subordinates are elected by the cultivators of the district.
THE TUNGANI COMMANDER OF THE TROOPS AT KHOTAN.
Page 242.
The nomads are administered quite independently of the provincial governors, by an official generally known as the Ili Tartar General, who is the acknowledged head of the various tribal organisations. Their taxes are one-fifteenth of the crop in the case of those who are engaged in agriculture, and about the equivalent of three shillings per 100 sheep, or 10 horses, or 5 camels; cattle are not taxed.
The system sketched above, by which there are three independent authorities in the province, is bad enough; but it is made infinitely worse by the corruption which prevails, especially in the collection of the revenue. On the other hand, the taxes are generally light, and the condition of the people is one of acquiescence in Chinese domination.
The chief tax levied from the “settled” population is on land, which for this purpose is divided into “well-irrigated” and “white” land. The survey on which the revenue is raised was that fixed after the final expulsion of the Khokandis and Andijanis, when less than one-half of the land now cultivated was occupied. The tax is light, amounting to one-tenth for the good land and one-fortieth for the bad land. It is payable in grain; but, as the Chinese officials demand money, the Begs fix the rate high and share the difference with their superiors. By this and other means the land tax is now increased to about one-fifth of the crop; but prices have risen considerably of late years, and when prices rule high the farmer makes money. Apart from the land tax revenue is raised from registration of sales of land, from likin or internal customs, and from taxes on wine, salt, mills, etc. Labour has also to be provided for public works and transport for the use of troops. For the assessment of this impost the unit of fifteen houses termed a choka is taken, and each choka provides a labourer and a cart; building material, if required, is partly paid for. Artisans, who are organized into guilds, are obliged, if required, to work for Government on five days in each month, and receive the equivalent of fourpence a day. In 1913 the revenue levied by the Taoyin of Kashgar was as follows:
| Taels. | |
| Land Tax | 570,000 |
| Tax on registration of land sales | 200,000 |
| Tax on sale of live stock | 250,000 |
| Likin | 180,000 |
| Miscellaneous taxes on wine, salt, flour mills | 100,000 |
| ———— | |
| Taels | 1,400,000 |
This sum, with the tael reckoned at 2s. 8d., is equivalent to £186,666. The revenue is all ear-marked for local expenditure, 800,000 taels, or rather more than one-half of the entire amount, being absorbed by the inefficient army, which exists mainly on paper.
The administration of justice is fairly good, although bribery is not uncommon. As a rule, civil cases are tried by the Kazis and criminal cases by the Begs. The Chinese authorities merely supervise, and prefer that all cases, whether criminal or civil, should be settled out of court. By Chinese law no punishment can be inflicted without confession of guilt, and torture is freely administered to secure this confession. Punishments include beating on the back of the thighs above the knees, and the cangue, a board two feet square and weighing thirty pounds, which is worn round the neck; and also imprisonment. Death sentences (which have to be confirmed at Urumchi) are carried out by hanging, strangling or beheading.
In this system as a whole, as in the administration of justice, the Chinese work as far as possible through the leading inhabitants, while retaining a general supervision. They are very greedy for money, but are acute enough to avoid causing too much discontent, and they remove any official who becomes unpopular. In short, although their system may be inefficient and aims at no improvements in administration or communications, it is believed that the natives, with their memory of Yakub Beg’s tyranny, would not care to exchange their Chinese rulers for Moslems.
We come now to the trade of the province, concerning which my remarks refer mainly to the three cities of Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan. Kashgar, the residence of the Governor, is not only the chief town, but the centre of Russian trade. Owing to its favoured position with regard to the railway at Andijan and the wealth of its rich oasis, the city is increasing in population, which is now estimated at 80,000. Land is rising in price and there is hardly a vacant house. Yarkand, with 70,000 inhabitants, is also rich and prosperous, but in a less marked degree, and is the chief centre of the trade with India. Khotan, with a population of 50,000, is the centre of the manufacturing activity of the province, being celebrated for its jade, silk and carpets.
The mainstay of the export trade with India is the drug known as charas in India, prepared from the hemp which is planted round the fields of maize; raw silk is the next most valuable export. The chief articles of import from India are muslins, longcloths, and red cotton prints; while spices from Southern India are in great and increasing demand, and penetrate even to the western provinces of China. Surat brocades are imported for covering caps and for women’s cloaks, and I have seen some good specimens of the beautiful cloth of gold.
In no part of Asia are communications more difficult. The route to India, via Leh, perhaps the highest and roughest trade route in the world, runs across range after range of stupendous mountains, culminating in the Kara Koram, which is crossed by a pass at the immense height of 18,550 feet. This track is open for not more than six months in the year, and the difficulties from storms, avalanches and flooded rivers are increased by the scantiness of the grazing, and for some six stages by the entire absence of villages. This trade with India via Leh is of small amount, showing a total value of about £200,000 for 1913.
By treaty Russo-Chinese trade via Irkeshtam or Narin is free of customs dues. Its value in 1913 was two and a half million roubles, or rather more than the British total at the pre-war rate of exchange, cotton tissues being the most important article. The Russian flowered prints with which the natives are chiefly clothed—only the poorer classes wearing the dingy white native calico—are artistic, and make the crowds in the bazar delightfully picturesque. As may be supposed, the chief articles of export are raw materials, such as cotton, sheepskins, silk and wool; but there is also a considerable trade in the local white cloth, which is worn on both sides of the frontier, and in carpets.
The trade with Afghanistan is local and is mainly with the province of Badakshan, the imports being almonds, pistachio and gall-nuts, and the horses which were famous even in Marco Polo’s day. Opium, too, is smuggled in considerable quantities; the lapis lazuli mines are not worked regularly, but occasional blocks are brought for sale. The Badakshani traders carry back Russian piece goods, carpets and the local white cloth. The route, which runs across the Wakhijir pass, is open during the summer only, and the pedlars—for those who use it are little more—must be a hardy race to withstand its rigours.