The Gulbagh of Kashgar itself alone held out, but it at last fell, after
sustaining a long siege, into the hands of Jehangir. His triumph
completed, he had to concern himself more with his relations with
Khokand than about the Chinese, who were mysteriously quiet. Mahomed Ali
Khan, of Khokand, who thought that Jehangir's success was solely due to
him, laid claim to a certain historical superiority over his vassal of
Kashgar, to which the Khoja prince was not willing to assent. A large
Khokandian army which had been sent to Kashgar returned, after losing
1,000 men before the walls of the Gulbagh, and its withdrawal was the
signal for plots and counterplots to break out in the palace of the new
ruler. These he promptly repressed, reduced the intriguing general, Isa
Dadkhwah, in rank, and had emancipated himself from his thraldom to
Khokand, when the news came that the Chinese were at last returning.
Although the western portion of Altyshahr had fallen away from the
Chinese, Aksu and Maralbashi remained true to their allegiance. The
Chinese still possessed the military keys of the country. Moreover,
their possession of Ili gave them an enormous strategical advantage, and
in the Tungan population they possessed an almost inexhaustible supply
for recruiting "revindicating" armies. It is apropos here to state that
China retained both of these advantages down to the time of Buzurg Khan
and Yakoob Beg, and that, so long as she possessed them, the utmost
Mussulman fanaticism and Khokandian patronage of the Khojas could do
was futile against the arrest of fate. During six months Jehangir ruled
in Kashgar, and during six months the Chinese viceroy made his
preparations at Ili for a thorough revenge. An army of more than 100,000
men, raised from the Tungani, the Calmucks, and the Khitay garrison, was
despatched from Ili, and in January, 1827, entered Aksu. Here all the
brigades were concentrated, and the Viceroy, in conjunction with the
general under him, by name Chang-Lung, drew up the plan of campaign,
which was as follows:--A small army of 12,000 men was sent against
Khoten across the desert through Cày Yoli, while the remainder of the
host advanced on Maralbashi. Here another detachment of 7,000 strong was
directed against Yarkand, while the main body marched on Kashgar by the
banks of the Kizil Su.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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