Peking to Lhasa : vol.1 / Page 139 (Color Image)

0139	Peking to Lhasa : vol.1

LAN-CHOW TO TANGAR 105

Liang began to decline about 1915 and in 1920 he

died, partly from chagrin at the growing influence

of Ma Ch'i.

The Mohammedans of Kansu are believed to

have come from Samarkand about the 8th century

A.D. They gradually adopted Chinese customs

though retaining their old religion. About a

hundred years later the Salars also came from

Samarkand and settled round Sun-hwa on the

Yellow River to the west of Lan-chow. Being

more remote they retained most of their Turkish

customs.

Ma Ch'i had a certain number of regular troops

but depended chiefly on his raw levies. Each

village when called on had to provide a couple of

men, and the village had to pay their families for

a substitute to work in the fields and also provide

the soldier with a horse if he was a cavalry soldier

and a rifle and two hundred rounds. These levies

were quite untrained but were of good fighting

material.

Pereira gives an interesting account of Ma Ch'i's

methods in fighting the Goloks, a Tibetan tribe

who had hitherto never been conquered. Ma

Ch'i sent Mohammedan and Chinese traders among

them to act as spies. When the time was ripe for

attack he called out his levies, of whom 20 per cent

were buglers. But he did not attempt to attack

the Tibetans : he simply made his buglers blow,

while with some old Krupp guns he fired at the

rocks ; and the noise of the bugles and the guns

and shock of the shells on the rocks so terrified

the Goloks that they fled. Ma Ch'i then pursued

them and slew them in large numbers.

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