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0288 Report of a Mission to Yarkund in 1873 : vol.1
Report of a Mission to Yarkund in 1873 : vol.1 / Page 288 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000196
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thousand men at Achi, captured all their chiefs, except Abdurrahmân Kirghiz and S. T. Israr Cull Kapchik, who escaped with their followers and joined Khuda Cull at Midi. Here Beg Muhammad Minghashi, Mirza Ahmad liaslûrkhwânchi, Syad Beg Kapchak, Sadie Beg Kirghiz, and the Khoja brothers, Eshin Khan Tora, Wall Khan Tora, and Kichik Khan Tora, with a number of others, held a consultation, and decided on retiring with their artillery by way of Caflan Kol to Gulsha, and there holding out and barricading the approaches. From this, as will be seen in the sequel, they all joined Yikiib Beg at Kashghar.

Meanwhile Khudayar at Osh wrote as an humble servant to Muzaffaruddin, reporting the aspect of affairs and awaiting orders. The Bukhara Amir, uneasy at the proximity of the Russians and unwilling to be embroiled in the troubles of his neighbour, summoned Khudayar back to Khokand, and setting him in the government there, returned to his capital by Khujand, whence he sent a minatory message to the Russian General at Tashkand demanding his evacuation of the city and retreat to Chamkand.

But the Russian General, on the contrary, with the consent of an influential Rom. party of the citizens, who on the 30th September presented him with an address of congratulation and an appeal to be taken under the protection of the Ak Pidshah or Czar, annexed the whole territory of Tashkand to Russia for ever. Its limits are on the east Isigh Kol=" Hot Lake," and Uch Kurghan=" Three Forts" to the Syr Darya or Jaxartes ; on the north, the same from Ila to Akmasjid and Fort Raim; on the west, from the beginning to the end of the Syr Darya with its left bank and fort of Chardarra; and on the south, the same extent along the Syr Darya from beginning to end.

Following this, in January 1866 came General Chernayeff's unsuccessful expedition as far as Jizzak to release the Russian envoys detained at Bukhara, and his retreat to the Syr Darya below Chirchik. The rupture, accelerated by this hostile conduct of the Amir Muzaffaruddin, led to the advance of the Russians under General Romanoffski who, on the 20th May 1866, exactly a year after the defeat and death of Alim Culi, gained his signal victory over the whole Bukhara host at the famous battle of Irjar ; when he put the Amir to flight, routed his army in disorder, and captured all his camp and equipage.

Following up this success, the Russians next bombarded Khujand and captured it on the 5th June. And so great was the immediate effect of their triumphs, that Khudayar voluntarily congratulated their General on the success of his arms, and declared himself the friend and ally of Russia. Oratappa and Jizzak were taken in the October following, and a treaty of friendship and protection was concluded with Khudayar; whilst Muzaffaruddin was warned to prepare for war, unless he restored the refugee Sultan Murad, paid one hundred thousand tila = six hundred thousand rupees (counting the tilcf at six) as war indemnity, and opened out his country to Russian traders.

The subsequent negotiations with the Bukhara Amir not proving satisfactory led to the active prosecution of the war, to his own speedy subjection to the Russian protectorate, and to the occupation by Russia of the sister city of Samarcand in August 1868—a position which brought them into direct contact with the little States of Iiaratakin, Darwaz, and Shihnin on the upper waters of the Oxus ; and into communication with their Tajik populations, cognate in birth and speech, and confederate in creed and polity, with their Aryan brethren of Badakhshan and Wakhan and the other petty independent hill States on the southern slopes of the Hindu Kish Range down to Kabul on one side and Kashmir on the other. A fact of no small importance, and notable, too, as bringing Russian influence beyond the pale of Uzbak and Tartar polity in Central Asia into the sphere of the great Aryan element of the Indian continent south of the mountains.

Whilst this succession of events and transfer of governments was taking place on the west of the Bolor Range, a hardly less important revolution had been brought