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0293 Report of a Mission to Yarkund in 1873 : vol.1
Report of a Mission to Yarkund in 1873 : vol.1 / Page 293 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000196
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( 203 )

P. people to join the ghazât and slay the infidel Khitiy. The city chiefs, fearing the

vengeance of the Chinese reinforcements as on previous occasions of revolt, attempted to quell the tumult and restore order, but the mob of ruffians, gamblers, drunkards, and others who were more or less in debt to the Chinese traders, rushed all over the city and with their knives killed every Khitiy man, woman, and child

they could lay hands on, and plundered their houses. So rapid was the work of their destruction, that by noon not a Khitây was left alive in the city, except a few who had found concealment in the houses of Musalmân friends. From the city the mob, joining the Tungâni mutineers, issued into the bazar connecting it with the Yingishahr, five hundred yards to the west and wholly occupied by Khitiy and foreign traders and settlers, and there by sunset completed the rôle of death commenced in the morning. And thus on one of the hottest days of the year, 23rd Safar 1280 H. (10th August 1863), perished some 7,000 Khitiy souls.

The Ambin meantime barricaded the citadel in Yingishahr, and during the next three days with his Khitiy troops drove the Tungâni mutineers from the outer fort in which they had regained a footing. The Tunginf, now without a leader, made a wealthy and saintly divine of the city, one Sahibzida Abdurrahmin, their king, and appointed the merchant Nyâz Beg, the recently-elected governor, to be his wazir. They next sent off messengers with the news of their success to the adjacent cities, and then set to organize a force to besiege the Khitiy shut up in the Yingishahr citadel. On receipt of this intelligence, the cities of Khutan, Yingi Hisser, Kishghar, and Aksû all rose simultaneously against the Khitiy; and within six weeks had massacred them all, of both sexes and every age, except the garrisons which held out in the forts ; and then they each and all became the scenes of the most rampant discord and contention amongst rival pretenders to the government till Yâkrib Beg- carne and reduced them all one after the other to his own subjection.

The siege of the Yingishahr at Yirkand had lasted three months, when Khoja Ise from Kûchi and Khoja Mahmiid from Aksû, with others who had been ousted in the struggle for ascendancy in those places by more powerful leaders, arrived at the city with a numerous following of adventurers. They were welcomed by the besiegers, and a succession of unsuccessful attempts were made to take the Yingishahr by assault. Finally, after six months' siege, having blown down a considerable portion of the outer wall by mining and powder, the besiegers stormed the breach and massacred the defenders without quarter.

The Ambin had assembled his family and principal officers in the reception hall of his palace, and on finding all was now lost emptied his pipe on a previously laid train of powder at his feet, and perished with them in the explosion. On this the soldiers rushed to the powder magazines, one on each side of the citadel square, and setting fire to them disappeared in the ruin of their explosions. For three days similar upheavals of concealed mines continued to scatter the limbs and heads of the defenders amidst the disturbed mass of ruin.

The Khitiy being now entirely destroyed, the Krichi and Aksû Khojas soon quarreled with Abdurrahmin as to the control of the government on the grounds of the victory having been won by them ; but the Tungini rallying round the king they had set up drove the Khojas from the city. After a while these Khojas were joined by reinforcements from Aksû under Khoja Burhânuddin of Kûchâ, and through his mediation Abdurrahmin consented to a division of the government; the Khojas to rule in the city, and the Tungâni to hold the Yingishahr Fort. This arrangement lasted for two months, when the Tungâni went to attack Khutan, but were repulsed, as will be related hereafter.

Whilst these changes were occurring at Yirkand, another somewhat similar course of events was being enacted at Kishghar. Here the Chinese Haim Beg, or "District Governor," over the Musalmâ,ns was Ciithigh Beg of Kûchâ. He had recently, owing to the stoppage of funds to pay the troops from China, by order of the Ambit', imposed a new tax of 2 per cent. on all sale transactions in the city.

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