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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

P. people to join the *ghazát* and slay the infidel Khitáy. 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 Khitáy 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 Khitáy was left alive in the city, except a few who
had found concealment in the houses of Musalmán friends. From the city the mob,
joining the Tungáni mutineers, issued into the bazar connecting it with the
Yángíshahr, five hundred yards to the west and wholly occupied by Khitáy and
foreign traders and settlers, and there by sunset completed the rôle of death com-
menced 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 Khitáy souls.
The Ambán meantime barricaded the citadel in Yángíshahr, and during the
next three days with his Khitáy troops drove the Tungáni mutineers from the outer
fort in which they had regained a footing. The Tungáni, now without a leader, made
a wealthy and saintly divine of the city, one Sahibzáda Abdurrahmán, their king,
and appointed the merchant Nyáz Beg, the recently-elected governor, to be his
*wazír*. 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 Khitáy shut up in the
Yángíshahr citadel. On receipt of this intelligence, the cities of Khutan, Yángi
Hissár, Káshghar, and Aksú all rose simultaneously against the Khitáy; 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 Yákúb Beg came and reduced them all one after the other to his own subjection.
The siege of the Yángíshahr at Yárkand had lasted three months, when Khoja
Isá from Kúchá and Khoja Mahmúd from Aksú, 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 Yángi-
shahr 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 Ambán 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 Khitáy being now entirely destroyed, the Kúchá and Aksú Khojas soon
quarreled with Abdurrahmán as to the control of the government on the grounds of
the victory having been won by them; but the Tungáni rallying round the king they
had set up drove the Khojas from the city. After a while these Khojas were joined
by reinforcements from Aksú under Khoja Burhánuddin of Kúchá, and through
his mediation Abdurrahmán consented to a division of the government; the Khojas
to rule in the city, and the Tungáni to hold the Yángíshahr Fort. This arrangement
lasted for two months, when the Tungáni went to attack Khutan, but were repulsed,
as will be related hereafter.
Whilst these changes were occurring at Yárkand, another somewhat similar
course of events was being enacted at Káshghar. Here the Chinese *Hákim Beg*,
or "District Governor," over the Musalmáns was Cútlúgh Beg of Kúchá. He had
recently, owing to the stoppage of funds to pay the troops from China, by order of
the Ambán, imposed a new tax of 2 per cent. on all sale transactions in the city,
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