Page:The Tarikh-i-Rashidi - Mirza Muhammad Haidar, Dughlát - tr. Edward D. Ross (1895).djvu/138

 Rh independent, and sent their own tribute, separately, to Peking; and it was only when Turfán became powerful, after the middle of the century, that they were annexed to their more important neighbour. This would have been only very shortly before the commencement of the reign of Sultan Ahmad, or when we come to corresponding names and dates in the two lists. At this time, it may be, the custom was changed, and the reigning Khan may have begun to send the tribute missions in his own name; while the names—especially the non-Musulman ones—of the subordinate chiefs, would have tended soon to fall into oblivion and remain unnoticed by Muhammadan writers. This, however, is only a suggestion—a possible explanation of the discrepancies.

Unfortunately, it is not the only puzzle connected with this eastern Khanate. In his Mémoires concernant les Chinois, Père Amyot has published several Chinese documents relating to Turfán, one of which is a rescript by the Emperor Shun-Chi (the first of the present dynasty), dated 1647, where notice is taken of the fact that Turfán had not sent to tender homage to China for more than 280 years—i.e., since some date previous to the year 1367, or the commencement of the Ming epoch! So direct a contradiction is this of all that the Ming history has recorded, that it would appear almost hopeless to attempt to reconcile the two statements. It would be tempting to put the Tsing Emperor's direct assertion into the same side of the scales with Mirza Haidar's silence on the subject, and to suspect the veracity of the Ming chronicles; but my impression is that these records contain too much internal evidence of truth, and are too circumstantial in their facts, to admit of the matter being disposed of in so summary a manner. The Emperor Shun-Chi, it must be remembered, had only come to the throne in 1644. He was a mere child of nine years of age in 1647, while his elder relations, who were presumably his advisers, were Manchus, who had been deeply engaged in the wars which had won for him the Empire of China. They probably knew little of the affairs of the country, or of the history of the dynasty that bad just been crushed by them and their people. The dynastic history of the Mings, moreover, was not written till many years later, while events connected with an