After Some Bloodshed, Two Imperial
Commissioners Were Sent From Pekin To Restore Order.
The principal
Mohammedan leader formed a plot to murder the commissioners, and on their
arrival he rushed into their presence and slew one of them with his own
hand.
His co-religionists deplored the rash act, and voluntarily seized
and surrendered him for the purpose of undergoing a cruel death. But
although he was torn to pieces, that fact did not satisfy the outraged
dignity of the emperor. A command was issued in Tungche's name to the
effect that all those who persisted in following the creed of Islam should
perish by the sword. From Shensi the outbreak spread into the adjoining
province of Kansuh; and the local garrisons were vanquished in a pitched
battle at Tara Ussu, beyond the regular frontier. The insurgents did not
succeed, however, in taking any of the larger towns of Shensi, and after
threatening with capture the once famous city of Singan, they were
gradually expelled from that province. The Mohammedan rebellion within the
limits of China proper would not, therefore, have possessed more than
local importance but for the fact that it encouraged a similar outbreak in
the country further west, and that it resulted in the severance of the
Central Asian provinces from China for a period of many years.
The uprising of the Mohammedans in the frontier provinces appealed to the
secret fears as well as to the longings of the Tungan settlers and
soldiers in all the towns and military stations between Souchow and
Kashgar.
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