His Confidence Received A Rude
Check When He Learned A Short Time Afterward That The Chinese Were Making
Extraordinary Preparations To Recover Their Lost Province, And That They
Had Collected An Immense Army In Ili For The Purpose.
Then he wished his
Khokandian allies back again; but he still resolved to make as good a
fight as he could for the throne he had acquired; and when the Chinese
general Chang marched on Kashgar, Jehangir took up his position at
Yangabad and accepted battle.
He was totally defeated; the capture of
Kashgar followed, and Jehangir himself fell into the hands of the victors.
The Khoja was sent to Pekin, where, after many indignities, he was
executed and quartered as a traitor. The Chinese punished all open rebels
with death, and as a precaution against the recurrence of rebellion they
removed 12,000 Mohammedan families from Kashgar to Ili, where they became
known as the Tarantchis, or toilers. They also took the very wise step of
prohibiting all intercourse with Khokand, and if they had adhered to this
resolution they would have saved themselves much serious trouble. But
Mahomed Ali was determined to make an effort to retain so valuable a
perquisite as his trade relations with Kashgar, and as soon as the Chinese
had withdrawn the main portion of their force he hastened to assail
Kashgar at the head of his army, and put forward Yusuf as a successor to
Jehangir. Only desultory fighting ensued, but his operations were so far
successful that the Chinese agreed to resort to the previous arrangement,
and Mahomed Ali promised to restrain the Khojas. Fourteen years of peace
and prosperity followed this new convention.
Serious disorders also broke out in the islands of Formosa and Hainan. In
the former the rebellion was only put down by a judicious manipulation of
the divisions of the insurgent tribes; but the settlement attained must be
pronounced so far satisfactory that the peace of the island was assured.
In Hainan, an island of extraordinary fertility and natural wealth, which
must some day be developed, the aboriginal tribes revolted against Chinese
authority, and massacred many of the Chinese settlers, who had begun to
encroach on the possessions of the natives. Troops had to be sent from
Canton before the disorders were suppressed, and then Hainan reverted to
its tranquil state, from which only the threat of a French occupation
during the Tonquin war roused it. These disorders in different parts of
the empire were matched by troubles of a more domestic character within
the palace. In 1831 Taoukwang's only son, a young man of twenty, whose
character was not of the best, gave him some cause of offense, and he
struck him. The young prince died of the blow, and the emperor was left
for the moment without a child. His grief was soon assuaged by the news
that two of his favorite concubines had borne him sons, one of whom became
long afterward the Emperor Hienfung. At this critical moment Taoukwang was
seized with a severe illness, and his elder brother, Hwuy Wang, whose
pretensions had threatened the succession, thinking his chance had at last
come, took steps to seize the throne. But Taoukwang recovered, and those
who had made premature arrangements in filling the throne were severely
punished. These minor troubles culminated in the Miaotze Rebellion, the
most formidable internal war which the Chinese government had to deal with
between that of Wou Sankwei and the Taepings. From an early period the
Miaotze had been a source of trouble to the executive, and the relations
between them and the officials had been anything but harmonious. The
Manchu rulers had only succeeded in keeping them in order by stopping
their supply of salt on the smallest provocation; and in the belief that
they possessed an absolutely certain mode of coercing them, the Chinese
mandarins assumed an arrogant and dictatorial tone toward their rude and
unreclaimed neighbors. In 1832 the Miaotze, irritated past endurance,
broke out in rebellion, and their principal chief caused himself to be
proclaimed emperor. Their main force was assembled at Lienchow, in the
northwest corner of the Canton province, and their leader assumed the
suggestive title of the Golden Dragon, and called upon the Chinese people
to redress their wrongs by joining his standard. But the Chinese, who
regarded the Miaotze as an inferior and barbarian race, refused to combine
with them against the most extortionate of officials or the most unpopular
of governments. Although they could not enlist the support of any section
of the Chinese people, the Miaotze, by their valor and the military skill
of their leader, made so good a stand against the forces sent against them
by the Canton viceroy that the whole episode is redeemed from oblivion,
and may be considered a romantic incident in modern Chinese history. The
Miaotze gained the first successes of the war, and for a time it seemed as
if the Chinese authorities would be able to effect nothing against them.
The Canton viceroy fared so badly that Hengan was sent from Pekin to take
the command, and the chosen braves of Hoonan were sent to attack the
Miaotze in the rear. The latter gained a decisive victory at Pingtseuen,
where the Golden Dragon and several thousand of his followers were slain.
But, although vanquished in one quarter, the Miaotze continued to show
great activity and confidence in another, and when the Canton viceroy made
a fresh attack on them they repulsed him with heavy loss. The disgrace of
this officer followed, and his fall was hastened by the suppression of the
full extent of his losses, which excited the indignation of his own
troops, who said, "There is no use in our sacrificing our lives in secret;
if our toils are concealed from she emperor neither we nor our posterity
will be rewarded." This unlucky commander was banished to Central Asia,
and after his supersession Hengan had the satisfaction of bringing the war
to a satisfactory end within ten days.
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