On the 19th, or more probably the 22nd of October, Kin Shun resumed his forward movement, encountering no serious opposition. His first halt was at a village called Hoser, where he halted for one night, which he employed in inditing the report to Pekin, which described the successes and movements of the previous three weeks. At the next town, known as Bai, Kin Shun halted to await the arrival of the rear-guard, under General Chang Yao. This force came up before the close of October, and the advance against Aksu was resumed. Up to this point the chief interest centred in the army south of the Tian Shan, and in the achievements of Kin Shun. Our principal, in fact our only, authority for this portion of the campaign is the Pekin Gazette.
We have now to describe the movements of the Northern Army, which was under the immediate command of Tso Tsung Tang, and which was operating in the north of the state, in complete secrecy. That general had under him, at the most moderate computation, an army of 28,000 men. By some it was placed at a higher figure; but a St. Petersburg paper, on the authority of a Russian merchant, who had been to Manas, computed it to be of that strength. It was concentrated in the neighbourhood of Manas, and along the northern skirts of the Tian Shan; and also on the frontier of the Russian dominions in Kuldja. To all appearance this army was consigned to a part of enforced inactivity, since it was impossible to enter Kuldja, and thus proceed by their old routes through the passes of Bedal or Muzart. But it was not so; the travels of Colonel Prjevalsky in the commencement of 1877 had not been unobserved by the Chinese, and it was assumed that where a Russian officer with his Cossack following could go, there also could go a Chinese army. By those little-known passes, which are made by the Tekes and Great Yuldus rivers, the Chinese army, under Tso Tsung Tang, crossed over into Kashgaria; and it is probable that the two armies joined in the neighbourhood of Bai. It was by this stroke of strategy on the part of Tso Tsung Tang that the Chinese found themselves before the walls of Aksu, with an overwhelming army, at the very sight of which all thought of resistance died away from the hearts of the Mussulman peoples and garrisons. Tso Tsung Tang appeared before the walls of Aksu, the bulwark of Kashgar on the east, and its commandant, panic stricken, abandoned his post at the first onset. He was subsequently taken prisoner by an officer of Kuli Beg, and executed. The Chinese then advanced on Ush Turfan, which also surrendered without a blow. As we said, the Chinese have not published any detailed description of this portion of the war, and we are consequently unable to say what their version is of those reported atrocities at Aksu and Ush Turfan, of which the Russian papers have made so much. There is no doubt that a very large number of refugees fled to Russian territory, perhaps 10,000 in all, and these brought with them the tales of fear and exaggerated alarm. We may feel little hesitation in accepting the assertion as true, that the armed garrisons were slaughtered without exception; but that the unarmed population and the women and children shared the same fate we distinctly refuse to credit. There is every precedent in favour of the assumption that a more moderate policy was pursued, and there is no valid reason why the Chinese should have dealt with Aksu and Ush Turfan differently to Kucha or Turfan. The case of Manas has been greatly insisted upon by the agitators on this "atrocity" question; but there is the highest authority for asserting that only armed men were massacred there. This the Chinese have always done; it is a national custom, and they certainly did not depart from it in the case of the Tungani and Kashgar. But there is no solid ground for convicting them of any more heinous crime, even in the instances of Manas and Aksu, which are put so prominently forward.
Early in December the last move of all began against the capital, and on the 17th of that month the Chinese took it by a coup de main. Beg Kuli Beg, according to one account, fought a battle outside the town, in which he was defeated; according to another report, he had withdrawn to Yarkand, whence he fled to Russian territory, when he heard of the fall of Kashgar. It is more probable that he resisted the Chinese attack on Kashgar, for he certainly reached Tashkent, in company with the Kirghiz Chief, Sadic Beg, who was wounded in that battle. With the fall of Kashgar the Chinese reconquest of Eastern Turkestan was completed, and the other cities, Yangy Hissar and Yarkand, speedily shared the same fate. Khoten and Sirikul also sent in formal promises of subjection. But the capture of Kashgar virtually closed the campaign. No further resistance was encountered, and the new rulers had only to begin the task of reorganization. When Kashgar fell the greater portion of the army, knowing that they could expect no mercy at the hands of the Chinese, fled to Russian territory, and then spread reports of fresh Chinese massacres, which probably only existed in their own imagination. There can be no doubt that the Chinese triumph has been thorough, and that it will be many years before the people of Eastern Turkestan will have again the heart to rebel against their authority. The strength of China has been thoroughly demonstrated, and the vindication of her prestige is complete. Whatever danger there may be to the permanence of China's triumph lies rather from Russia than from the conquered peoples of Tian Shan Nan Lu; nor is there much danger that the Chinese laurels will become faded even before an European foe. Tso Tsung Tang and his lieutenants, Kin Shun, who has since fallen into disgrace,—perhaps he had excited the envy of his superior—and Chang Yao, accomplished a task which would reflect credit on any army and any country. They have given a lustre to the present Chinese administration which must stand it in good stead, and they have acquired a personal renown that will not easily depart. The Chinese reconquest of Eastern Turkestan is beyond doubt the most remarkable event that has occurred in Asia during the last fifty years, and it is quite the most brilliant achievement of a Chinese army, led by Chinamen, that has taken place since Keen-Lung subdued the country more than a century ago. It also proves, in a manner that is more than unpalatable to us, that the Chinese possess an adaptive faculty that must be held to be a very important fact in every-day politics in Central Asia. They conquered Kashgar with European weapons, and by careful study of Western science and skill. Their soldiers marched in obedience to instructors trained on the Prussian principle; and their generals manœuvred their troops in accordance with the teachings of Moltke and Manteuffel. Even in such minor matters as the use of telescopes and field glasses we find this Chinese army well supplied. Nothing was more absurd than the picture drawn by some over-wise observer of this army, as consisting of soldiers fantastically garbed in the guise of dragons and other hideous appearances. All that belonged to an old-world theory. The army of Eastern Turkestan was as widely different from all previous Chinese armies in Central Asia as it well could be; and in all essentials closely resembled that of an European power. Its remarkable triumphs were chiefly attributable to the thoroughness with which China had in this instance adapted herself to Western notions.
With the flight of Beg Kuli Beg to Tashkent closed the career of the house of the Athalik Ghazi in Kashgar. Whatever turn events may take in this portion of Central Asia, whatever schemes there may be formed in Khokand, or elsewhere, of challenging anew the Chinese domination, it will not be round the banner of Kuli Beg that the ousted Khokandian officials will rally. By his flight in the hour of danger, by the hesitation which marked all his movements, and by the murder of his brother in cold blood, this prince, of whom much at one time was expected, has irretrievably ruined both his career and his reputation. If on any future occasion Russia should seek to play the part played of old by Khans of Khokand in the internal history of Kashgar, it will not be Kuli Beg whom they will put forward as their puppet. His old rival, Hakim Khan, stands a much better chance than he, more especially if it be true that he is the representative of the Khojas, being the son of Buzurg Khan, as many have asserted. But the fact remains clear, that all the dreams of Yakoob Beg of founding a personal dynasty in Eastern Turkestan are now dispelled beyond all prospect of realization.
CHAPTER XIV. THE CHINESE FACTOR IN THE CENTRAL ASIAN QUESTION.
The overthrow of the Tungani, and the reconquest of Kashgaria, have not completed the task that lay before Chinese generals and soldiers in Central Asia. Great and remarkable as those triumphs were, the Chinese are not satisfied with them, because there yet remains more work to be done. They have restored to the Emperor Tian Shan Nan Lu, but so long as the Russians hold Kuldja, Tian Shan Pe Lu is only half won back. Moreover, so long as a great military power is domiciled in Kuldja, China's hold on the country west of Aksu must be only on sufferance. As of old, the Chinese so often reconquered Kashgar, when it had shaken off the Chinese rule, from Ili, so might the Russians at their good pleasure play the same part against the Chinese. In short, the Russians remaining in Ili would neutralize all the advantages that China had secured by her recent military success. But, although there is a foundation of well grounded apprehension at the strategical advantages of Russia, at the root of China's demand for the surrender of Kuldja, that is not the only cause, or even the principal one, for the Chinese making it. Of all their Central Asian possessions, Ili was the most cherished, and it was to recover that region more especially that Tso Tsung Tang undertook those arduous campaigns which have so far ended in triumph, and which were designed for, among other purposes, the purpose of giving that Viceroy a prestige and influence that would enable him to play the rival to Li Hung Chang. Ili was their metropolis in Central Asia, and its fall marked the wide difference that there was between the Tungan-Khoja rising of 1862–63 and all its predecessors. The fall of Ili meant the fall of Chinese power, and Chinese power cannot be held to be completely restored so long as Ili remains in alien hands. On this point the Chinese are very keen.
Russia, on the other hand, hesitates to hand over Ili for various reasons. In the first place, it is not certain that China has permanently reconquered Eastern Turkestan, nor is it clear that the Imperial exchequer will be able to bear a continual strain upon it for Central Asian expenditure. Moreover there is the unknown quantity of the rivalry of Li Hung Chang and Tso Tsung Tang, and whatever influence the latter may have with the army and the ruling caste on account of his Mantchoo blood, the former holds the purse in his hands, and can at any moment paralyse Chinese activity and strength in Central Asia. The Russians also, whatever rash promises they may have given at Pekin—and they certainly did promise to retrocede Kuldja to China, whenever the Chinese should be strong enough to return to Central Asia—formally (teste General Kolpakovsky's proclamation) annexed Kuldja "in perpetuity." In the eyes of the people of Central Asia, that proclamation defines Russia's tenure of Kuldja, and not the vague promise that was uttered in the ears of the authorities at Pekin. Now Russia knows this as well as we do; and she is aware that no strict adherence to her word of honour will induce the people of Western, as well as of Eastern, Turkestan to believe that she retrocedes Kuldja for any other cause than fear of the Chinese. The Khokandians, the Bokhariots, as well as the Kirghiz, the Calmucks, and the Kashgari, will all argue that Russia restores Kuldja not through any desire to fulfil her engagements, but simply because she cannot decline to fulfil them without engaging in a war with China, and her compliance with the demand would then be construed as an admission of her disinclination to encounter China in the field. In fact, even if Russia had promptly restored Kuldja, she would not have secured the credit she might have claimed for her good faith, and she would have had no guarantee that the Chinese would have rested content with the cession of Ili proper and not gone on to claim, in a moment of military arrogance, the restoration of the Naryn district, which China at a period of weakness had herself ceded to Russia more than twenty years ago. Then, besides these objections to the surrender of Kuldja on political grounds, there are commercial and fiscal reasons why Russia should be loth to restore this province. Not only has it become highly prosperous and thickly populated under Russian rule, but it has also been raised into one of the most fiscally remunerative portions of the Russian possessions in Central Asia, and then there is its admirable frontier in the Tian Shan, which places the future trade with the western parts of China more at its disposal, than it is through the Semipalatinsk and Chuguchak route, and, above all, it effectually dispels all sense of real danger from attack. The Chinese would find that to force the Tian Shan range into Kuldja would be a task almost impossible for them, and they would be compelled to enter the province from the north by Karkaru. By so doing, they would leave the whole of their flank and line of communication exposed to an attack with telling effect both at Manas and in Kashgar, and with a scientific foe such as Russia, no sane Chinaman could dream of attacking Kuldja except in the most overwhelming force. It may be as well to sketch here the history of Russia's rule in Kuldja from 1871 to the present time, before proceeding with the consideration of the questions aroused by the difficulty between Russia and China.
When an independent government had been founded in Kuldja in 1866, a ruler of the name of Abul Oghlan was placed upon the throne. He appears to have been a Tungan, and he certainly was a truculent and self-confident potentate. He refused to abide by the stipulations of the Treaties of Kuldja and Pekin, and in petty matters as in great, set himself in direct opposition to Russia. For five years he pursued his career undisturbed by exterior influences, and during that period he tolerated the inroads of his subjects into Russian territory, urged the Kirghiz tribes beyond his frontier to revolt, and forbade Russian merchants to enter his dominions. On a small scale, he aped the manners subsequently adopted by Yakoob Beg. But he was only a minor and insignificant despot. His people groaned under his tyranny, and the 75,000 slaves within his dominions were only too anxious to be relieved from their bondage by any deliverer whatsoever. The state of Kuldja, as administered by Abul Oghlan, was pre-eminently one that would fall to pieces at the first rude shock from outside. For five years, or thereabouts, the Russian authorities at Vernoe, Naryn, and in Semiretchinsk put up with his veiled hostility; but when it became evident that his state was on the eve of falling into divers fragments, of which Yakoob Beg would, probably, come in for the lion's share, the Russians, whose patience had become well-nigh exhausted, resolved not to be forestalled in Kuldja, either by the Athalik Ghazi, or the Tungani Confederation. A kind of ultimatum was presented to Kuldja, in which Abul Oghlan was given a last chance of retaining power, if he consented to ratify the terms of the past treaties with China. He does not appear to have distinctly refused to do so, when he was required to enter into this agreement with Russia. But he prevaricated and delayed, until at last the patience of the Muscovite authorities was quite exhausted. They resolved to destroy the government of Abul Oghlan, to annex Kuldja, and to bring their frontier down to the Tian Shan.
In May, 1871, Major Balitsky crossed the river Borodshudsir, which formed the boundary between the two countries, and, at the head of a small detachment, advanced some distance into the dominions of Abul Oghlan. His force, however, was small, and, after a brief reconnaissance, he retired within Russian territory. Six weeks afterwards the main body under General Kolpakovsky crossed the frontier into Kuldja and marched on the capital. That invading army consisted of only 1,785 men and sixty-five officers. At first the forces of Abul Oghlan offered a brave resistance, but the Russian cannon and rifles carried everything before them; and on the 4th of July the ruler presented himself at the Russian outposts. When taken before General Kolpakovsky, he said, "I trusted to the righteousness of my cause, and to the help of God. Conquered, I submit to the will of the Almighty. If any crime has been committed, punish the sovereign, but spare his innocent subjects." The next day the Russian general entered the capital after a campaign that had only lasted eight or nine days. Protection was promised to all who would lay down their arms, and the army of Abul Oghlan was disbanded. Abul Oghlan was pensioned, and Orel was appointed as his place of residence. Kuldja or "Dzungaria," as it is called in the proclamation, was annexed "in perpetuity," and became the Russian sub-governorship of Priilinsk. There can be no doubt but that the Russian occupation of Kuldja was an unqualified benefit to the inhabitants of that region. The declaration of the abolition of slavery alone released seventy-five thousand human beings from a life of hardship and hopelessness. The return of trade, which had become stagnant, ensured the prosperity and advancement of the active portion of the community, and during the seven years Russia has ruled in Kuldja, the people have steadily progressed in moral and material welfare. The population has during the same period remarkably increased, and the valleys of the Ili teem with a population at once contented and prosperous. The rule of Russia in Kuldja is the brightest spot in her Central Asian administration. The Chinese in demanding the retrocession of Kuldja labour under the one disadvantage that they come to oust a beneficent rule. This disadvantage is made the greater by the bad name the Chinese have earned in Kashgar and the Tungan country, by the atrocities they are said to have committed. Those who will take the trouble to scan the matter carefully, and to consult the Pekin Gazette, as much as they do the Tashkent, will find that these atrocities are for the most part the creation of panic, and of malicious observers, and in the few cases where Chinese vindictiveness overcame military discipline, as at Manas and Aksu, we have clear evidence that women and children were spared. The Tashkent Gazette has laboured strenuously, and not in vain, to disseminate the report of Chinese atrocities; and one London paper has so far assisted the object of the Russian press in raising a feeling of indignation against China, on account of these reported massacres in Eastern Turkestan, that it has placed translations of these charges before the English reader, and, on the authority of the Tashkent Gazette, has indicted and summarily convicted the Chinese of the grossest acts of inhumanity. We would venture to suggest, that in common fairness to the Chinese this journal should place before its readers the temperately worded and dignified reports that have appeared in the Pekin Gazette of those events upon which the Tashkent Gazette has commented so indignantly.