General Chang Yao captured the small towns of Chightam and Pidjam in the middle of April without encountering any serious opposition. And from the latter of these places, some fifty miles east of Turfan, commenced that concerted movement with his superior, Tso Tsung Tang, which was to overcome all Kashgarian resistance. A glance at the map will show that Yakoob Beg at Turfan was caught fairly between two fires by armies advancing from Urumtsi and Pidjam, and if defeated his line of retreat was greatly exposed to an enterprising enemy. Upon the Chinese becoming aware of the success of their preliminary movements a general advance was ordered in all directions. It is evident that the Chinese were met at first with a strenuous resistance at Devanchi, and that the forcing of the Tian Shan defiles had not been accomplished when news reached the garrison that their ruler had been expelled from Turfan by a fresh Chinese army. It was then that confusion spread fast through all ranks of the followers of Yakoob Beg; in that hour of doubt and unreasoning panic the majority of his soldiers either went over to the enemy or fled in headlong flight to Karashar. In this moment of desperation the Athalik Ghazi still bore himself like a good soldier. Outside Turfan he gave battle to the invader, and though driven from the field by overwhelming odds he yet once more made a stand at Toksoun, forty miles west of Turfan, and when a second time defeated withdrew to Karashar to make fresh efforts to withstand the invading army. Yakoob Beg probably lost in these engagements not less than 20,000 men, including Tungani, by desertion and at the hands of the enemy. He consequently conceived that it would be prudent to withdraw still farther into his territory, and accordingly left Karashar, after a few days' residence, for Korla. Some weeks before the occurrence of these striking events Yakoob Beg had sent an envoy to Tashkent to solicit the aid of the Russians against the advancing Chinese. But the Russians only gave his messenger fair words, and did not interfere with Mr. Kamensky's commercial transactions with the Chinese army. At the moment, too, Russia was so busily occupied in Europe that she had no leisure to devote to the Kashgarian question. The Chinese had for many years been good friends with Russia, and Yakoob Beg had all his life been a scarcely concealed enemy. Between two such combatants the sympathies of the Russian government must at first have certainly gone with the former; nor had Yakoob Beg's attitude towards Russia of late been as discreet as it might have been. His nephew, the Seyyid Yakoob Khan, was notoriously an agent for some indefinite purpose at Constantinople. His protection of the Bokharan prince, Abdul Melik, or Katti Torah, the most bitter enemy of Russia in Central Asia, was also ill calculated to attract Russian sympathy to his side.