Peace Had Been Preserved There As Much By The Extraordinary Prestige Or Reputation Of China As By The Skill Of The Administration Or The Soundness Of The Policy Of The Governing Power, Which Left A Large Share Of The Work To The Subject Races.

Outside each of the principal towns the Chinese built a fort or gulbagh, in which their garrison resided, and military officers or ambans were appointed to every district.

The Mohammedan officials were held responsible for the good conduct of the people and the due collection of the taxes, and as long as the Chinese garrison was maintained in strength and efficiency they discharged their duties with the requisite good faith. The lapse of time and the embarrassment of the government at home led to the neglect of the force in Central Asia, which had once been an efficient army. The Chinese garrison, ill-paid and unrecruited, gradually lost the semblance of a military force, and was not to be distinguished from the rest of the civil population. The difference of religion was the only unequivocal mark of distinction between the rulers and the ruled, and it furnished an ever-present cause of enmity and dislike, although apart from this the Mohammedans accepted the Chinese rule as not bad in itself, and even praised it. The Chinese might have continued to govern Ili and Kashgar indefinitely, notwithstanding the weakness and decay of their garrison, but for the ambition of a neighbor. The Chinese are to blame, however, not merely for having ignored the obvious aggressiveness of that neighbor, but for having provided it with facilities for carrying out its plans. The Khanate of Khokand, the next-door state in Central Asia, had been intimately connected with Kashgar from ancient times, both in politics and trade. The Chinese armies in the eighteenth century had advanced into Khokand, humbled its khan, and reduced him to a state of vassalage. For more than fifty years the khan sent tribute to China, and was the humble neighbor of the Chinese. He gave, however, a place of refuge and a pension to Sarimsak, the last representative of the old Khoja family of Kashgar, and thus retained a hold on the legitimate ruler of that state. Sarimsak had as a child escaped from the pursuit of Fouta and the massacre of his relations by the chief of Badakshan, but he was content to remain a pensioner at Khokand to the end of his days, and he left the assertion of what he considered his rights to his children. His three sons were named, in the order of their age, Yusuf, Barhanuddin, and Jehangir, and each of them attempted at different times to dispossess the Chinese in Kashgar. In the year 1812, when Kiaking's weakness was beginning to be apparent, the Khan of Khokand, a chief of more than usual ability, named Mahomed Ali, refused to send tribute any more to China, and the Viceroy of Ili, having no force at his disposal, acquiesced in the change with good grace, and no hostilities ensued.

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