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

by Demetrius Charles Boulger

In comparison with Chinese power his was as nothing; in comparison with Chinese perseverance his was weakness; in comparison with Chinese tactics, his tactics were those of a school-boy; and even in comparison with Chinese courage his courage had to confess an equal. There was not only the dead weight of numbers against him, but there was also the quick weight of superior intellect. There were superior strategy and superior weapons; greater force and greater determination; no hesitation in action, and perfect unanimity in council; all combined to crush one poor forlorn man, fighting with all the desperation of despair for life, if not for liberty. Worthier of a better fate, and meeting destiny with the calm that is natural to brave men, Yakoob Beg's defeat and death may serve to "point a moral and adorn a tale." The tale has been told in these pages with as close a regard for fact as the meagre records will supply, and for the personage whose name is the pivot round which the main facts concentrate, it may be claimed that he deserved attention even from Englishmen. It may well be that some future generation may recur to this career with interest as marking the only real break in the Chinese domination in Eastern Turkestan. When the massacres and other atrocities that marked the Khoja invasions and the Tungan outbreak on both sides shall have been forgotten or condoned, then it will be admitted that, despite the great benefits conferred by China on the people in the way of trade-fostering and good government, there was some merit in the administration which a Khokandian soldier had unaided created in this region. High credit, then, let us, who view the subject from an impartial stand-point, pay this departed warrior, who as a soldier met few equals, as a governor none in his long career. Much as we may marvel at, and perhaps impugn, Chinese strength, let us not judge Yakoob Beg harshly, because Chinamen out-manœuvred him, and overthrew him in fair fight. It is an easy gauge to apply, and one which would dispel all the reputation the Athalik Ghazi had secured, if we deny the Chinese the great qualities those who know them best will accord them without hesitation. But in applying so shallow a test to the case before us, we should be wronging our own understanding quite as much as its victim. However much we may blame Yakoob Beg for going out to encounter an enemy whom he ought to have awaited either at Kucha or Aksu, his valour, and also his mistaken contempt for the Chinese, are made all the more clear. We may fairly claim for him that he was the most remarkable man Central Asia in its fullest extent has produced since Nadir Shah; and that he accomplished with insignificant means a task which ordinary men, though born in the purple and ruling a prosperous and thickly populated state, might have failed to do. What better epitaph could be placed over a courageous and just ruler?

The moral of his career is a short one, but for us full of significance. Those independent rulers who establish themselves for a space on the confines of China are mere ephemeral excrescences; birds of passage who must betake themselves away, if they can, when their little hour has struck. English governments have never understood the vitality of Chinese institutions. They should appreciate it better in the future.

CHAPTER XIII. THE CHINESE RECONQUEST OF KASHGAR.

When Yakoob Beg died at Korla the task of reconquering Kashgar had barely commenced. The Chinese army, victorious at Turfan, was lingering in idleness round that city, exhausted, as some believed, by the greatness of the effort. It was not clear even that the Chinese aspired to achieve any greater triumph than that they had already won, viz., the subjection of the Tungani, a subjection which could not be considered accomplished so long as Yakoob Beg remained in the neighbourhood at the head of a large army; and that with the withdrawal of the Kashgarian army to Karashar the Chinese generals might call a halt of an indefinite duration. Nor did it follow as a matter of necessity that because the Chinese had taken Turfan they could capture Kashgar or Yarkand. Distance alone was no slight obstacle, and when added to the barrenness of the country, which would be made more desolate by the retreating army of the Mussulmans, an impartial observer might have hesitated to predict any very speedy triumph for the Chinese. But besides these, there were other impediments, of which a prudent general had to take careful cognizance. To seize Karashar or Korla only needed a bold attack; but to subject Kucha might have been a more arduous undertaking than was even the siege of Manas. A delay of two months in the heart of Eastern Turkestan must have strained the resources of the Chinese very much, and might have ruined their whole enterprise. And even if Kucha fell there still remained Aksu, and afterwards Ush Turfan in the north, and Maralbashi in the south, barring the way to the vital portion of the state round Kashgar and Yarkand. Now the death of Yakoob Beg did not remove any one of these defences, and for a time it was believed that his son, who had always the repute of being a good soldier, would make the best of the very strong line of defence that he undoubtedly possessed. As a matter of fact, the death of Yakoob Beg was an irretrievable disaster, for it destroyed whatever cohesion and unity there were in the country. He himself might have been unable to avert a final overthrow, but the contest would have been made more protracted. Therefore in the months of May and June, 1877, immediately after the death of the Athalik Ghazi, it is strictly true to say that the Chinese reconquest of the country had barely commenced.

The hesitation shown by the invading generals after the victory of Turfan was at first caused by a belief in the formidableness of their antagonist, and, when that antagonist died, by a prudent resolve to permit the disintegrating causes that speedily manifested themselves in Kashgaria to have full time to work in their favour. Meanwhile they formed their plans in secret, laid in large stores of supplies from Russian territory, and explored the little-known passes of Tekes and Yuldus. A large number of fresh troops was received from the Calmucks north of Chuguchak, who during the worst period of the Tungan revolt had preserved that city for the Chinese.

But before following the forward movement of the Chinese it is necessary to say something of the internal disturbances in Eastern Turkestan, more especially of the rivalry of Beg Bacha and Hakim Khan for supremacy. In the first place, it is necessary that it should be distinctly understood that of the events that occurred in Kashgaria between the death of the Athalik Ghazi and the final advance of the Chinese army we are really without any definite intelligence at all, and it is not probable that we shall ever be accurately informed of the course of events during those five months. In the absence of exact data, we must assume the events to have taken place which are most in accordance with probability. On Yakoob Beg's death, his eldest son, Beg Kuli Beg, was either in the city of Kashgar or somewhere on the road thither. It is probable that he had been despatched to the rear, to bring up reinforcements after the defeat at Turfan, and in his absence Hacc Kuli Beg, the Ameer's second son, assumed the command of the army when his father died. It is certain that he accompanied the funeral cortége of Yakoob Beg back to Kashgar, and that he was murdered outside the walls by his brother. It was during this time that Hakim Khan Torah appeared upon the scene. It should be remembered that tidings of the death of Yakoob Beg travelled very slowly to this country, and that almost immediately after it arrived we received intelligence of events that had occurred many weeks after the death of the Ameer. We were therefore hearing at the same time the particulars of the circumstances of Yakoob Beg's death, and of those commotions which broke out some weeks after that event.

When Hacc Kuli Beg left Korla no personal representative remained there of the dynasty of the Athalik Ghazi, and during that interval the occasion arose for the intriguing elements that a mixed court, such as that of Yakoob Beg, could never be free from. Hakim Khan seized that opportunity, and established his authority in Karashar, Korla, and, probably, Kucha also; and during a short time Kashgaria was accordingly divided into three hostile camps. It appears that Beg Bacha, lulled into a false sense of security by the inactivity of the Chinese, resolved to chastise the insolence of his rebellious governor, a task which he should have left for the Chinese. A war then broke out between Beg Bacha and Hakim Khan, which exhausted the few resources that still remained to a ruler of Kashgar. The contest appears to have been of a desultory nature, and although the final result was in favour of Beg Bacha, he never appears to have recovered possession of Karashar and Korla. In the neighbourhood of Aksu the battle of this war took place, and Hakim Khan was defeated, "by the overwhelming numbers of his enemy." Beg Bacha's chief loss was the death of Mahomed Yunus, the Dadkhwah of Yarkand, his ablest and most faithful adviser. Hakim then fled to Russian territory, with 1,000 sarbazes, who were promptly interned by order of General Kolpakovsky, and there he sought to restore his shattered fortunes by carrying on intrigues with the Russian government. It is scarcely necessary to say that these came to nothing, and that Hakim Khan has sunk into that insignificance which, to judge from his acts when called into public life, is his most befitting atmosphere.

While engaged on this successful campaign east of Aksu, an event occurred of singular significance, as illustrating the condition of Kashgar under Beg Bacha. The Kirghiz chief Sadic Beg, who had disappeared from the scene since his old rivalry with Yakoob Beg thirteen years before, seized the opportunity afforded by Beg Bacha's embarrassment to attack the city of Kashgar, denuded of the greater portion of its garrison. He plundered the suburbs, and only withdrew when the young Ameer hastened back from Aksu to defend his capital. The Kirghiz, true to their nature, at once sought the desolate regions of Kizil Yart. They had, however, made the confusion arising from the death of the Ameer and the disaffection of Hakim Khan worse confounded, and completed those elements of weakness and discord which had always proved an invaluable ally to the Chinese. By themselves both Hakim Khan and the Kirghiz depredator were beneath contempt; but with an enemy established on the soil of the country, they assumed a too clear and mischievous importance. The minor seditions that manifested themselves in Sirikul and at Khoten completed the round of dissension that, combined with external force, shattered the fair show of Yakoob Beg's empire. We are completely ignorant of the details of the disturbances that were reported to have taken place round Tashkurgan or Sirikul; but it is plausible to suppose that these were caused either by inroads on the part of the Wakhis or Badakshis, or by some fresh Kirghiz attack. The inhabitants of Tashkurgan being Yarkandi settlers, it is not probable that the rising, or whatever form the commotion assumed, originated with them; at Khoten the rising was more tangible, and more easily understood. The people of that city never forgave Yakoob Beg his treachery towards their ruler, and the instant he disappeared they hastened to take their revenge. When the Kashgarian garrison was withdrawn the towns-people simply deposed their dadkwah, and nominated a ruler of their own, who retained authority until the triumph of the Chinese made it politic for them and him to bow to the rising sun. The example of Khoten had been followed by Sanju and the vicinity; and thus the whole southern portion of the state acquiesced in the Chinese conquest, after the fall of Kashgar, without the necessity for a single Chinese soldier to be advanced south of Yarkand. It seems probable that at this very moment the Chinese troops have remained content with the submission of these districts, and have not garrisoned those important towns which skirt the Kuen Lun range with their own soldiers.

When Beg Bacha returned post haste to Kashgar, to encounter the Kirghiz, we said that Sadic Beg fled to the Kizil Yart; but he did not remain there long, for soon we find him back again at the capital in high favour with the Ameer, with whom he had come to terms. His Kirghiz followers were taken into the pay of the state, and just as this alliance had been struck up, tidings came of events that made that alliance, however futile and insignificant, a matter of the first necessity, both to Kirghiz and Kashgar. The Chinese army was at last advancing. The danger that had for five months been hanging in suspense over the devoted heads of a Mussulman people was close upon them. The long-feared and long-expected Khitay were drawing nigh to the capital, in irresistible strength; and the apprehensions of a cowed people made them know, too surely, that their end was at hand. The dissensions among the people themselves, the discord in the ruling house, and the dissentient elements in every effort towards unity, had all operated in favour of the invader. While the Chinese had plotted and prepared in the deliberate manner of a great nation, the people of Kashgar had entered into cabals and schemes of party tactics that were well nigh ludicrous. And all the time that the sap of their vigour was being expended, the Chinese generals were drawing the noose more closely together that was to strangle the newly erected state beyond all chance of recovery. It would almost seem as if the Kashgari and their rulers had recovered from their first shock at the Chinese invasion, and were becoming reconciled to their presence east of Korla, when they experienced a second, more severe, and more lasting shock, in the announcement that the Chinese were again advancing. Their brief contentment passed away, and all their old terror revived in tenfold force. Hope died within their bosoms, and the resignation of despair only nerved them to bear a fate which their own valour should have striven to avert. It is time for us now to return to the Chinese army, and to follow its decisive operations.