The Khitay troops, unarmed, were surprised during the night, and cut down without quarter, and the small body of survivors sought refuge in the Yangyshahr fort. This was in August, 1863, and no fewer than 7,000 Khitay soldiers are computed to have fallen on this single occasion. The Tungan troops were thereupon joined by the townspeople, and the question then to be decided was, who was to be supreme, the Tungani or the Andijan-Kashgari Mahomedans. The former were simply an unlettered and rather savage soldiery; the latter possessed keen intellects for manipulating a fanatical people, and for improvising an administration of a superficial character. The balance of power was evenly distributed until reinforcements arrived from Aksu and Kucha to the anti-Tungan party. Two Khojas who had been banished from Kucha, for endeavouring to promote their own interests in the name of Khokand, had fled to Aksu, where they met the same fate. In this latter flight many of similar principles joined them, so that when they reached Yarkand they had a numerous force at their back. The Khojas in the first place joined their forces to the Tungani, to storm the remaining Khitay in the Yangyshahr. The Khitay after a gallant resistance perceived that further opposition was impossible. Then occurred one of those deeds, which, if Europe instead of Asia had been the scene, would have been handed down to posterity as a rare example of military devotion and courage, but which, although not unique even in the annals of the campaign we are entering upon, having occurred in little-known Eastern Turkestan, is not realized as an event that has actually taken place. It is a myth of the myth-land to which it belongs. And yet, when we read how the Amban summoned all his officers to his chamber, where he sat in state surrounded by his wives, his family, and his servants; how all were silent, and yet sedate and prepared; how, at the given signal that all were present, and that the foe was at the gate, the aged warrior dropped his lighted pipe into the mine beneath; how the exulting foe won after all but a barren triumph; and how the Khitay taught the natives that if they had forgotten how to conquer they had not how to die, we feel that there is an under-current throughout the story, that, apart from the admiration it must command, has claims to our own special sympathy. The Chinese, as we did in India in the dark hours of 1857, asserted their superiority over the semi-barbarous races under their sway, even when all hopes of a recovery seemed to be abandoned. After the fall of the citadel the Khoja element was supreme in Yarkand, and a priest named Abderrahman was set up as king.