In 1847 the encroachments of Russia in Central Asia had brought her upon the borders of the important khanates of Khiva and Khokand, and, like some huge boa-constrictor, she prepared to swallow them. In 1852 the inevitable military expedition was followed by the customary permanent post. Another row of forts was planted on the Lower Yaxartes, and in 1854 far to the eastward, in the midst of the Great Horde, was built Fort Vernoye--the foundation of a new line, more or less contiguous to natural boundaries (mountains and rivers), but not a close line. Between Perovsky and Vernoye there were upwards of four hundred and fifty miles of desert open to the incursions of brigands, and between the Aral and Caspian seas there was a gap, two hundred miles in width, favorable for raids into the Orenburg Steppe from the side of Khiva. Finally, under the pretext of closing this gap, a general convergent movement of the Siberian and Orenburg forces commenced, culminating under General Tchernayeff in the capture of Aulieata and Chemkent in 1864, and of Tashkent in 1865. Here, M. Veniukoff says: "The Government intended to halt in its conquests, and, limiting itself to forming a closed line on the south of the Kirghiz steppes, left it to the sedentary inhabitants of Tashkent to form a separate khanate from the Khokand so hostile to us." And this historian tells us that the Tashkendees declined the honor of becoming the Czar's policemen in this way, evidently foreseeing the end, and, to cut the matter short, chose the Russian general, Tchernayeff, as their Khan. The few Central Asian rulers whose necks had so far escaped the Muscovite heel, made an ineffectual resistance, and in 1866 Hodjeni and Jizakh were duly "annexed," thus separating Bokhara and Khokand.