Page:From Kulja, across the Tian Shan to Lob-Nor (1879).djvu/28

Rh dynasty they were freed from their slavery to the Mongols.

The country being secured in this way, it was perfectly safe for the Chinese to send there the Dzungars and the Oirat, who had previously sought their protection; and, subsequently, they also allowed many to come back who had fled from the massacres, and had taken refuge among the Kirghiz. These were further reinforced by the arrival of the Kalmuks, from Russia, in A.D. 1771, whose journey has been immortalized by De Quincey, in his "Flight of a Tartar Tribe." These Kalmuks were settled in the excellent pasture-grounds on the Kunges and the Tekes, where they still live under the name of Torguts.

All these different races were kept in order by a military force of Manchus and Chinese, with a Jan-jun, or governor-general, living in Ili Kulja, while the Amban of Eastern Turkestan, residing at Kashgar, and that of Tarbagatai, resident at Chuguchak, were subject to him.

This state of things continued, with occasional disturbances, and especially risings of the Mohammedan khojas, in Kashgar, till the grand Mohammedan upheaval in China, when for a time the Imperial authority was swept away, and a Mohammedan kingdom was established in Turkestan by Yakub Beg.

This is not the place to give a detailed history of the rise and consolidation of Yakub Beg's power,