THE MUSLIM REBELLION AND THE KASHGHAR EMIRATE IN CHINESE CENTRAL ASIA, 1864-1877 (YAQUB BEG, SINKIANG)

The Ch'ing colonial rule over Sinkiang which had begun from the middle of the eighteenth century was abruptly interrupted by the Muslim rebellion in 1864. Its immediate cause was a rumor that the Ch'ing government was going to massacre the Tungans in Sinkiang. Yet the rebellion itself was the eventual consequence of complex changes that took place around the middle of the nineteenth century, such as the breakdown of the Chinese control over the region, the Russian expansion into Central Asia, the loss of the Khoqand control over anti-Ch'ing Kashgharian religious nobles, and the worsening of the socio-economic conditions among the people in Sinkiang. The Muslims demolished the Ch'ing rule within a short period of time and established several independent governments. However, the intensive infra-Muslim fighting and the weakness of the leadership usually held by religious leaders deterred the emergence of a unified Muslim state.; It was Ya('c)qub Beg who achieved the unification. He was originally an official of the Khoqand khanate whom its rulers sent to Sinkiang in order to protect their vested interests and to take advantage of the Ch'ing collapse in the region. As a result of a sudden change in the leadership of the khanate caused by the Russian attack of Tashkent, however, he became free from his responsibility to Khoqand and acted on his own. He succeeded in creating a government encompassing entire Eastern Turkestan and the Urumchi area, and in building a formidable non-tribal standing army of forty thousand strong. He achieved the centralization in the fields of the army as well as in the central and the local governments, and tried to safeguard his position by making his countrymen, the Khoqandians, dominate the political power of his state. Furthermore, in order to create safe international environments he opened diplomatic relations with England and Russia, setting one power against the other. His alliance with the Ottoman empire was also motivated by a similar political aim.; His drive to the excessive centralization and the costly military buildup created political injustice and economic strain, which cost him the loss of the popular support from the local Kashgharians. When China sent troops to reconquer the area, those dissatisfied people began to desert him. Furthermore, he made a critical mistake by not responding to the attack actively with military means but by trying to stop the war only through diplomacy. His strategy seriously harmed the unity of the Muslim camp, and his sudden death completely destroyed their power to resist the Ch'ing army. Although the period of the rebellion and of the Muslim independence was short, a little more than a decade, it was the period of an important transition, and the impact that it gave upon the subsequent historical development can never be underestimated.