National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

( 201 )

Rom. to a more bloody close by the substitution of a new government in the country to its east. Here Russia had already acquired a high degree of political influence since her establishment at Almati Vernoe in 1853, and subsequent advance in 1860 to Piskak and Tokmak (the latter of which is now a flourishing Russian town with 400 mujik settlers brought from Moscow) ; and later again by the extension of her frontier to the Narin and establishment of her outposts at only eight days' march from the capital of Kâshghar; an influence which was favoured by the concessions of a commercial treaty with the Chinese government, according to the stipulations of which Russia acquired the right to establish trade agencies and build factories in the towns of Eastern or Chinese Turkistan—a privilege, however, which was very suddenly invalidated by the revolution that now in the course of sequence claims our notice.

The insurrection of the Muhammadan Chinese, called Tungâni, which broke out

in the province of Kânsiih in 1862, and which has in the space of a single decade shaken the stability of the ancient government of the celestial empire to its very base is, I believe, referable to that vague and ill understood revival of Islam of which so many instances have attracted attention in widely separated parts of the Muhammadan world during the last fifteen years ; and may be counted as a result of the fanatic obstructiveness of the faith to the advancing civilization and knowledge of the age.

P.   Be this as it may, the religious insurrection commencing at Sala'. or Hochow,

in Kânsûh, which was the principal seat of the Tungâni sectarians, spread very rapidly over the subordinate governments of Zûnghâr and Kâshghar, in which the Tungâni—formerly, even against their Khoja co-religionists, the most loyal, and now the sole rebel—formed an important portion of the imperial troops holding the several frontier towns. The cities •of Zûnghar and the eastern cities of Kâshghar were the first to join in the rebellion, and almost simultaneously to overthrow the constituted authority by the massacre of the Budhist Chinese officials and residents for the usurpation of the government under Muhammadan leaders of the Khoja or Priest class.

So rapid were the successes of these fanatic insurgents, and so weak was the

authority of the Chinese governors, that by the end of 1862 all the eastern cities of Kâshghar from Ca,mdl or Khâmil to Aksti had thrown off the Chinese yoke and massacred, or subjected to the jazya or " poll-tax," all the Budhist officials, traders, and nomads. The movement did not spread with equal rapidity, nor with a like combination in action in the western cities or Altyshahr where, though the population was more Muhammadan, it was less Chinese, and consequently had no common inter-

est in the movement worked by the Tungâni who, as belonging to the Shafi sect, were

rather contemned by the orthodox chd yâri of the western States; though when in the following year the outbreak was precipitated in Yarkand by the action of the Chinese governor there, the Musalmâns generally were not backward in joining the ghazdt against their infidel rulers.

In these western cities under Khokand influence discontent with the Chinese

rule had been rapidly on the increase since the revolt of Wall Khan in 1857, owing to the intrigues of the Andijânis through their commercial agents. At Yârkand the Chinese Governor over the Musalmâns in the city, Afridûn Wang of Turfan, who bad held the post since ten years before the attack by Tila Khan, became jealous of the power and growing independence of these Khokand consuls, and on the arrival of a new agent with thirty followers from that State in 1859 after the resumption of commercial relations in the preceding year, he caused their assassination by the Ambân on the representation that they were circulating seditious papers inciting the Musalmâns to rise and expel the Chinese.

The internal troubles of Khokand at this time did not admit of the Khan taking a revengeful notice of this hostile act, but the Andijan interest at Khutan was brought to bear against Afridtin Wang, and he was deposed in favour of Rustam Beg