Sayyid Mozaffar ud-Dīn Khān, who succeeded this monster of iniquity, had attained the mature age of thirty-eight on his death. He was the son of a Persian slave-girl, and at the age of fourteen was appointed governor of Karshī, the Dauphinée of modern Bokhārā.[515] That he lived to reign in his turn was due to his extreme circumspection, for he was swayed by the same vices as his father had been. His first care was to regain the confidence of the priestly caste, which had been alienated by the insane excesses of Nasrullah. Then, inspired by those dreams of universal conquest which had been the curse of his dynasty, he turned his attention to Shahrisabz, which continued in a state of revolt. Undeterred by his failure to reduce the stubborn mountaineers to subjection, he next attacked Kokand. That Khānate had fallen into the hands of Khudā Yār, a grandson of the murdered Mohammad `Alī, who had been brought up under Nasrullah’s eye in that gilded sty, the Bokhāran Court. He attained power at a period pregnant with danger to his country. The lower reaches of the Sir Darya were enclosed in the coil of the Russian advance. In 1853 the fortress of Ak-Mechet had fallen, and eleven years later the Eagle waved over Turkestān and Chimkent.[516] The onward movement was checked in 1864 by the failure of an assault on Tashkent; but Khudā Yār was foiled in his turn in a like attempt on Turkestān, and retreated to his capital only to find that the warlike Kipchāks,[517] a tribe who, then as now, were the backbone of the population, had set up a younger brother named Mollā Khān in his stead. Khudā Yār fled to Bokhārā and implored the Amīr to aid him to regain the throne. Mozaffar ud-Dīn saw in these events an excuse for extending his own authority up to the frontier of China. As a preliminary measure, he had Mollā Khān assassinated, and, marching on Kokand, reinstated Khudā Yār. The Kipchāks, however, were far from approving his choice. They rose in rebellion, and, after a protracted struggle with the Bokhāran forces, they succeeded in wresting the eastern half of the Khānate from Mozaffar ud-Dīn’s protégé.[518] But their strength was sapped by the war raging on the northern frontier, and their trusted leader was slain by the Russians at Tashkent. Thus when in 1865 the Bokhāran Amīr invaded Kokand, in order to repress their insolence, he found the task an easy one. Khudā Yār was replaced on his tottering throne, and, had Mozaffar ud-Dīn possessed a trace of political foresight, he might have united the forces of Central Asia against the common danger. But his lust for conquest was increased by his cheaply won successes in Kokand, and, spurred to his ruin by a fanatical priesthood, he flung the gauntlet of defiance in the teeth of Russia. Though General Chernaieff had made himself master of Tashkent, and had Kokand at his mercy, he received a haughty summons to evacuate his conquests, accompanied by a threat of a Holy War.[519] His reply