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

by Demetrius Charles Boulger

CHAPTER III. HISTORY OF KASHGAR.

The great difficulty encountered in giving a description of the past history of Kashgar is to evolve, out of the series of successive conquests and subjections that have marked the existence of that state for almost two thousand years, a narrative which shall, without confusing the reader with a mere repetition of names that convey little meaning, place the chief features of its history before us in a light that may make its more recent condition intelligible to us. We may say in commencement, that those who desire a historical account in all its fulness of Kashgar must turn to that contributed by Dr. Bellew to the Official Report of Sir Douglas Forsyth on his embassy to Yarkand. They will there find ample details of the events that took place in this region of Central Asia from the commencement of our era; but a mere reiteration of the various calamities, with brief and intermittent periods of prosperity, each wave of which bore so striking a similarity to its predecessor, would not serve the purpose we have at present in view—viz., of considering its own history, for the purpose of better understanding its relations with its neighbours and with China, and how the state consolidated by the Athalik Ghazi was constructed on ruins handed down by an almost indistinguishable antiquity.

For a considerable number of years anterior to the ninth century, the Chinese Empire extended to the borders of Khokand and Cashmere. But the dissensions that marked the latter years of the Tang dynasty were not long in producing such weakness at the extremity of this vast empire that the subject races and their proper ruling families were enabled to obtain either their personal liberty or their lost positions once more, unhappily without in any case achieving with the severance of their connection with China any perceptible amelioration in their lot—indeed, on almost every occasion only binding themselves with harder fetters, and sinking into a deeper state of servitude. When the petty princelets of Kashgar, Yarkand, Turfan, and the rest broke away from their allegiance to Pekin, and when the imperial resources were unable to coerce their rebellious subjects, the whole country passed under the hands of their feudatories, who split up into innumerable factions, waged continuous war, and sacrificed the happiness and welfare of the subject people to a desire to promote their own individual interests. As the barons and counts of Italy in the Middle Ages devastated some of the fairest provinces of Europe, so these Oigur princes fought for their own hand in the valleys of the Artosh and the Ili. It is very possible that this state of things would have continued until China became sufficiently strong and settled to reassert once more her dormant rights over her lost provinces, but that a new force appeared on the western frontiers of Kashgar. As early as 676 the Arabs, under Abdulla Zizad, had crossed over from Persia, and were carrying destruction and terror in their course along the banks of the Oxus. At that moment a beautiful and gifted queen, named Khaton, ruled for her son in Bokhara. She had not long been left a widow when her country was threatened by this unexpected and terrible invasion. Although assistance came to the queen from all the neighbouring States, including Kashgar, she was defeated twice in the open field, and compelled to seek safety within the walls of her capital. But the Arab leader was unable to take the city by storm, and slowly retired, with a large number of captives and an immense quantity of booty, back to Persia. Some years later the Arabs again returned, but withdrew on the payment of a heavy indemnity. Another chief, Kutaiba, was still more successful, for on one occasion he carried fire and sword through Kashgar to beyond Kucha. This was the first occasion on which the doctrines of Mahomed had been carried into the realms of China, and with so cogent an argument as the sword it is not wonderful that some hold was secured on the country. Subsequent expeditions in the next few centuries strengthened this beginning, and it was not long before the ruling classes of Kashgar became infected with the new doctrine.

In the tenth century, Satuk Bughra Khan, the ruling prince of Kashgar, who had been converted to Islam, forced his people to adopt that religion, although it is tolerably clear that up to this time there had been no acknowledgment of supremacy to the representative of Mahomed on earth. A disunited state, which had on several occasions felt the heavy hand of the authority of its generals, and at whose very gates its power was consolidated, could not but be in some sort of dependence to the stronger power, as there was no ally to be found sufficiently powerful to protect it, now that the Chinese had retrogressed into Kansuh. Towards the end of the tenth century the Mahomedans met with a series of reverses from the Manchoo and Khoten troops, who still preserved their relations, political and commercial, with China. It was in the neighbourhood of Yangy Hissar that their general, Khalkhalu, inflicted the most serious defeat on the Mahomedan rulers of Kashgar, but within the next twenty years, assistance having come from Khokand, these defeats were retrieved, and Khoten itself for the first time passed under the rule of Islam. The family of Bughra Khan was now firmly established as rulers of Eastern Turkestan, and their limits were almost identical with those of the late Yakoob Beg.

The Kara Khitay, who had migrated from the country bordering on the Amoor and the north of China, after long wanderings, had settled in the western parts of Jungaria, and, having founded the city of Ili, in course of time formed, in union with some Turkish tribes, a powerful and cohesive administration. Their chief was styled Gorkhan, Lord of Lords, and their religion was Buddhism. It was of this tribe, according to some, that the celebrated Prester John, or King John, was supposed to be the chief in the Middle Ages. Some neighbours who had been harassed by predatory tribes came to Gorkhan for assistance, which was willingly conceded; but, having successfully repulsed the Kipchaks and other tribes, this leader did not withdraw from the country he had occupied as a friend and ally. Not only did he then annex Kashgar and Khoten, but he crossed the Pamir into the province of Ferghana, and in a short period brought Bokhara, Samarcand, and Tashkent under his dominion. This extensive empire was of very brief duration however, and civil war was waged for more than half a century after the first successes of Gorkhan, in which Khiva, or Khwaresm, and the Kara Khitay fought for supremacy. A chief of the Naiman tribe of Christians, Koshluk by name, then entered the lists against the aged Gorkhan, who was, after some hard fighting, defeated and captured. This was in the year 1214. Koshluk's triumph was also, however, of very brief duration, for he now came into contact with one of the most formidable antagonists that the soil of Asia has ever produced, Genghis Khan.

The Mongols or Mughols began to appear as a distinct tribe about the same time that the Kara Khitay migrated to Jungaria, and as early as the commencement of the twelfth century they had carried destruction into the Chinese provinces of Shensi and Kansuh. When Genghis Khan appeared upon the scene he found the tribe which he was destined to lead to such great triumphs in a state of singular strength, and its neighbours either at discord among themselves or only just recovering from a long period of anarchy. The Chinese were particularly divided at that moment, and Genghis Khan, who had family connections in that empire, soon found it an easy task to lead successful inroads into the heart of his rich but defenceless neighbour. Genghis Khan was born at Dylon Yulduc, in the year 1154. His father, Mysoka Bahadur, was a great warrior, and waged several successful wars with the Tartars. The earlier years of Genghis Khan were occupied exclusively in overcoming the difficulties of his own position. His tribe, divided into several distinct bodies, formed only one confederacy when a foe had to be encountered in the field. It required years to remove the dislike they experienced at submission to a distinct authority; and it was only when the renown of his military achievements threw a halo over his name that these tribes could be induced to acknowledge a supremacy which they had become powerless to resist. But during these years, when he led a life unknown and insignificant as the chief of a small nomad clan, he was all the time preparing for a wider career, and for a more extended authority. It was while he was residing in the remote district round the salt springs of Baljuna that he drew up the code on which his administrative system was founded. It was based on the fundamental principle of obedience to the head, on the maintenance of order and sobriety in the ranks of the warriors, and on the equal participation in the spoils of battle by all; but its regulations were so strict on the former points, and the gain of the individual had to be so completely sacrificed for the advantage of the many, that at first the establishment of this code of order had rather the effect of driving his followers from him, than of attracting to his standard zealots capable of the conquest of a world. It was not until the year 1203, when he was nearly forty-nine years of age, that Genghis Khan succeeded in bringing all the Mongol tribes under his leadership. No sooner had he accomplished this much than he embarked on military enterprises, which, in the course of a very few years, placed the greater part of Asia at his disposal. Having subjugated various Tartar and Tangut tribes, he included them in his military organization, and by making them embrace his system of compulsory service in the army, he found himself in the possession of an enormous following. Genghis Khan therefore ruled at the time we have specified over Kashgar, including Khoten, Jungaria, and the Tangut country; and there was no force capable of opposing his except, in the east China, and in the west the government of Khiva, at this period omnipotent in Western Turkestan. The rumours which reached the Shah of Khwaresm of the formation of this new confederacy in Mugholistan induced him to send an embassy to discover the true facts of the case, and accordingly, while Genghis Khan was prosecuting a war against the Chinese, there arrived in his camp the emissaries of Western Asia. Haughty and imperious as this conqueror undoubtedly was, he received the embassy affably, and with expressions of the deepest friendship. He sent them back with rich presents and the following characteristic message:—"I am King of the East. Thou art King of the West. Let merchants come and go between us and exchange the products of our countries." In furtherance of this wish he sent a mission composed of merchants and officials to represent the advantages that would be derived from mutual intercourse. But the Shah of Khiva, either incredulous of the formidableness of the adversary with whom he had to deal, or mistaking his own strength, did not reciprocate the amicable expressions of Genghis Khan, nor, when the merchants who had been despatched to his country were murdered, did he make any offer of reparation. Such treatment would not be tolerated by any civilized ruler of the nineteenth century, much less was it brooked by an irresponsible conqueror, whose will was his sole law, in the thirteenth. As soon as his campaign with China had closed with success, Genghis Khan made every preparation for the punishment of this act of treachery. It was then that Genghis Khan, with an armed horde of many hundred thousands, burst upon the astonished peoples of Western Asia like a meteor from the east. It was then that some of the fairest regions of the earth were given over to a soldiery to devastate, a soldiery who had raised the work of destruction to the level of one of the fine arts; and whose handiwork in Bokhara, Balkh, Samarcand, Khiva and the lost cities of the desert, is to be seen clearly imprinted in the ruins which mark the site of ancient capitals, even at the present moment, 700 years after the Tartar conqueror swept all resistance from his path. Afghanistan, and the mountain ranges which are now considered to be impassable by Russians, did not retard the progress of this "Scourge of God." Cabul, Candahar, Ghizni fell to the warriors of far distant Mongolia, as they fell not forty years ago to British valour, and as they must again fall when the onset shall be made with equal intrepidity and with equal discipline. And not content with having defaced the map of Asia, with having converted rich and populous cities into masses of ruins, and with having depopulated regions once prolific in all that makes life enjoyable, Genghis Khan carried the terror of his name into the most remote recesses of the Hindoo Koosh. He wintered in the district of Swat on our north-west frontier, a territory which is quite unknown to us except by hearsay, and which has only been occupied by the Mongol and Macedonian conquerors. From his headquarters on the banks of the Panjkora he sent messengers to Delhi; and it is uncertain whether he did not meditate the addition of an Indian triumph to those already obtained.

A rebellion in the far eastern portion of his dominions distracted his attention from the Indus, and he was compelled to hasten with all speed to quell in person the rising that was jeopardising his position in the seat of his power. He hastily broke up from his quarters in Swat, and, by the valley of the Kunar and Chitral, he entered Kashgar, through the Baroghil Pass. Although he suffered much loss from a journey across mountain roads, which were scarcely practicable in the early spring, he succeeded in reaching Yarkand, with his main body, and hastening across Turkestan arrived at Karakoram, his capital, in time to quell the disturbance. After this his life was spent in conquering China, a feat which he never accomplished. But in several campaigns, extending over a period of about twenty years, he worsted the Imperial troops so continually, that before his death, in 1227, he had occupied all the northern provinces of that empire, with Pekin, and left to his son and successor, Ogdai Khan, the task of completing the work which he had commenced. On the death of Genghis Khan, his vast possessions were divided amongst his children, and Kashgar, including Jungaria, Khwaresm, and Afghanistan, fell to the lot of Chaghtai Khan. This ruler was able to hold during his life the extensive territory he had succeeded to; but on his death dissensions broke out in all quarters of the country, and produced a fresh distribution of the various provinces. It may be mentioned that, although Chaghtai was a fanatical Buddhist and a confirmed debauchee, he was a prudent and sagacious ruler, and no unworthy successor to his distinguished father. The dissensions that broke out on his decease continued, with more or less violence, for a period of almost 100 years after that event took place, and they finally only received a momentary solution in the formation of a new kingdom of Mugholistan, or Jattah Ulus, as it was more specifically called, under one of Chaghtai's descendants.

As briefly and as clearly as possible, we will endeavour to lay before the reader the chief events of this troubled epoch, when the numerous progeny of Genghis Khan warred throughout the whole extent of Central Asia, and a term was only at last placed to their restlessness by their disappearance. In the first place, it may be as well to mention, that the religions of Christ, Buddha, and Mahomed, were equally tolerated in Eastern Turkestan during the greater part of this period. The Arab invasion and the advance of Islam, had been hurled back beyond Bokhara "the Holy," by the victorious arms of the great Buddhist conqueror, Genghis Khan; and for a long period after the Mongol conquests, little was heard of attempts at conversion to the tenets of the "true Prophet." But it must not be supposed that, although Genghis Khan, in the sack of Bokhara, had almost exterminated the race of Mahomedan priests, he was disposed to stamp out the new heresy from his realms. Having crushed its power in the field, he was quite content to let it live on or die out, so long as his imperial or personal interests were not affected. So we have the strange picture before us, of the three great doctrines of the earth flourishing side by side in Eastern Turkestan in the fourteenth century. The Nestorian Christians of Kashgar, who in the time of Marco Polo were rich and flourishing, were obliged later on to succumb to the violent measures of the other members of the community, and have entirely disappeared for many centuries.

Shortly after the death of Chaghtai Khan, Kaidu, a great-grandson of Genghis, obtained the throne of Kashgar and Yarkand; and a few years later on, by a skilful piece of diplomacy, backed up by force, added thereto the greater part of Khokand and Bokhara. His triumph was, however, of brief duration, and he was displaced by other competitors. Dava Khan, the son of Burac, the great-grandson of Chaghtai, had been appointed governor of Khoten, but his ambition was not satisfied with less than the throne of Western Turkestan also. He eventually obtained his desire; but in a rash moment he threw himself in the path of the Chinese Emperor, Timour Khan, who was returning from a raid carried almost to the gates of Lahore. He was defeated somewhere in the neighbourhood of Maralbashi, and was compelled to acknowledge the supremacy of China. He is of some note to us, as having been the father of Azmill Khoja, who was selected as ruler by the people themselves, about the year 1310, and from whom descend that line of Khoja kings of Kashgar, who have clung to their hereditary claims for a longer time than any other royal Central Asian house. The last of the Chaghtai Khans who held the sceptre with any effective purpose, was Kazan Ameer. On his death another period of trouble broke out, and military governors and rival princelets of dubious titles advanced their pretensions to the vacant seat. Up to this all the rulers had, however, been Buddhists. Toghluc Timour, one of the few remaining representatives of the Genghis families, had only been saved by the pity of a leading man in Kashgar, from one of the most extensive massacres of his kinsmen, and for years he was obliged to lead an uncertain existence in the mountains or deserts bordering on the state. His associations were all Buddhist; but one day he was so struck by the definition of the "true faith" given by the descendant of a Mahomedan priest, spared by Genghis Khan at the destruction of Bokhara, that he made a vow to become a Mussulman when he had regained his rights. Not long after this the turn of events in Kashgar made people seek for some person with recognized claims to be their ruler, and none in this respect surpassed Toghluc Timour. He, on succeeding to the throne, openly owned his conversion to Islam, and in a few years he was gradually imitated by all the leading chiefs of Turkestan. From this time downwards to the present day, the religion of the majority in this state has been Mahomedanism, except perhaps during the Chinese rule, when the number of Chinese merchants, officials, and soldiers, put the minority of the followers of Buddha on a par with those of the rival religion. Toghluc died in 1362.