Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 2.pdf/163

 owing to the progressive weakening of the central government by the Opium War, the Taiping Rebellion, the wars of 1858–60, and the troubles with the Nien-fei, the hold of China on the Northwest steadily relaxed. Finally there broke out a Mohammedan Rebellion that lasted from 1862 to 1877 and devastated most of Shensi and Kansu. The outstanding leader of the Mohammedans in these two provinces was Ma Hua-lung 馬化漋 (d. 1871) who took as his base of operations Chin-chi-pu, Kansu. Tso Tsung-t'ang began his campaign by dividing his forces into three units and pressing on to Chin-chi-pu by three routes. By the spring of 1869 Shensi was pacified, and later in the same year Tso moved his headquarters to P'ing-liang, Kansu. However, the northern route army under the very able leader, Liu Sung-shan 劉松山, suffered a serious reverse around Chin-chi-pu, and Liu died in action. His command was taken over by his nephew, Liu Chin-t'ang 劉錦棠, who proved worthy of the charge. On February 17, 1871 Chin-chi-pu was taken and Ma Hua-lung was executed. Though occupied both in suppressing the rebels and rehabilitating devastated areas, Tso Tsung-t'ang had, by August 1872, moved his headquarters to Lanchow. Meanwhile he had a printing establishment set up in Sian and an arsenal in Lanchow. In October he joined his armies in the attack on Suchow, Kansu. On November 4, 1873 Suchow was taken and the entire province of Kansu was pacified, but about this time Po Yen-hu 白彥虎, another rebel Mohammedan from Shensi, escaped to Hami. Tso was made associate Grand Secretary, but remained at his post as governor-general. In reorganizing his newly-pacified provinces he carried out several important reforms, among them prohibition of opium culture, and encouragement of the cotton industry according to methods outlined in his printed booklets. He established factories for weaving both cotton and wool, and utilized the leisure hours of his soldiers in farming unused land-farms which were later transferred to the people. In the autumn of 1874 he was promoted to full Grand Secretary and in the following year was placed in charge of military affairs in Sinkiang.

For carrying on a campaign so far removed from his source of supplies, and in a land so sparsely settled as Chinese Turkestan, the two most pressing needs were food and money. Fortunately Tso Tsung-t'ang had always been interested in farming, and his practice ef putting his men to work on the land when they were not otherwise occupied, made it possible for him to meet in part, at least, the first of these needs. In June 1875 the Russian traveller, Sosnowsky, arrived in Lanchow on his way to Russia, and with him Tso contracted for the purchase of Siberian grain to be delivered at Ku-ch'êng, Sinkiang—it being actually cheaper to transport it from there than over the long route from China. By April 1876 the Russians had delivered four million catties of this grain. In order to provide funds for his campaign Tso memorialized the throne, urging that ten million taels be borrowed from foreign banks in Shanghai. This request, however, provoked the opposition of many officials in Peking who regarded the building of an adequate navy and coastal defense more pressing needs than the recovery of territory in far distant Sinkiang. Even those who believed in the prosecution of the campaign were not sufficiently convinced of its importance to advocate a foreign loan. Among those who held this view was the influential. But Tso Tsung-t'ang persistently pleaded his case and finally won his point. He argued that the recovery of Sinkiang was necessary for the retention of Mongolia which in turn was essential to the safety of Peking. Unless all the strategic points in Sinkiang were held by China the Mohammedan rulers of that area would sooner or later have to yield, either to Russia or to Britain. In his opinion, the primary reason for the encroachment of Western nations on the sea-board of China was for commercial advantages and not for territorial aggrandizement. This, he believed, was a problem to be solved by diplomacy rather than by force of arms. Moreover, funds had previously been ear-marked for a navy, and therefore the problem of coast defense had nothing to do with the crisis in Sinkiang. He obtained the loan early in 1876, and having previously made all preparations, moved his headquarters to Suchow with a view to regaining the territory north of the T'ien-shan and then taking the region to the south.

The dominant figure in Sinkiang at this time was Yakoob Beg 阿古柏帕夏 (c. 1820–1877). Some ten years previously (1864) a Mohammedan leader named chin Hsiang-yin 金相印 started a rebellion. Finding himself unable fully to overcome the Chinese government troops stationed in Sinkiang, chin requested help from Khokand 浩罕. But as Khokand was then in process of being absorbed by Russia, he could not expect much help from that quarter. Never- 765