We can now return to Buzurg Khan and his commander-in-chief. When they left Tashkent they had only a following of six, among whom were Abdulla, Pansad; Mahomed Kuli, Shahawal; and Khoja Kulan, Hudaychi. All of these played a very prominent part under Yakoob Beg. From Tashkent they went to Khokand, where their numbers rose to sixty-eight. Here the final preparations were made, and during the first days of January, 1865, this band of adventurers crossed the Khokand frontier into Eastern Turkestan. The mountain forts seem to have been deserted, for no opposition was encountered in the passage of the Terek defile. Several small bodies of troops joined them, and they reached Mingyol in the neighbourhood of Kashgar with increased numbers and confidence. Sadic Beg had conceived a more sanguine view of his situation by this time, and half repented that he had invited the Khojas in at all, more particularly when he found that the Khoja had a following of his own, and a skilled commander and minister in Yakoob Beg. He then strove to dissuade Buzurg Khan from proceeding further with an enterprise fraught with great peril, for he represented the Chinese as sure to return, when summary vengeance would be exacted. But his arguments were unavailing. Either Buzurg Khan or his adviser, Yakoob Beg, was deaf to all entreaty. The enterprise they had embarked on must be continued to the bitter end. They could not think of returning to Khokand with nothing accomplished, with the stigma attaching to them of a retreat when there had been no foe. Sadic Beg could not but submit with the best grace possible; and Buzurg Khan was accordingly placed on the throne of his ancestors.