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Although it is probable that they were only induced to take this step by the fear that if they did not do so Yakoob Beg would, the fact remains that the Russian government did a good thing in the cause of order by interfering for the restoration of tranquillity in the valley of the Ili.

Mongols, now called Kalmuks, defeated by the Chinese, had migrated to the Ili region, where after heavy fighting they gained supremacy over some of the Kazaks and other Turkish peoples living there and in western Turkestan. Some Kazak tribes went over to the Russians, and in 1735 the Russian colonialists founded the town of Orenburg in the western Kazak region.

Their rule has been described by a Mussulman as being both very fair and very just. Having conquered Eastern Turkestan, the Chinese next took steps for the recovery of Ili. Without the metropolitan province the undertaking of Tso Tsung Tang would lack completeness, while indeed many political and military dangers would attend the situation in Central Asia.

In 1754 peace was again concluded with China, but it was followed by raids on both sides, so that the Manchus determined to enter on a great campaign against the Ili region.

As she was now sending cart-load after cart-load of goods over the border, through Ili, into northern and western China, without paying a cent of customs duty, while on the other hand not even a leaf of tea or thread of cotton passed over the Russian line from China without the payment of an exorbitant tariff; and as she had already established in Kuldja a postal, telegraph, and Cossack station, it would seem that she does not even now view the province of Ili as wholly foreign to the Russian empire.

Latsan Khan was slain, and the Eleuth army collected an incalculable quantity of spoil, with which it returned to the banks of the Ili. The expedition against Sining failed, and the rapid advance of a Chinese army compelled the retreat of Zeren Donduk without having attained any permanent success.

The Chinese might have continued to govern Ili and Kashgar indefinitely, notwithstanding the weakness and decay of their garrison, but for the ambition of a neighbor. The Chinese are to blame, however, not merely for having ignored the obvious aggressiveness of that neighbor, but for having provided it with facilities for carrying out its plans.

As we ascended the Ili valley piles of stones marked in succession the sites of the towns of Turgen, Jarkend, Akkend, and Khorgos, names which the Russians are already reviving in their pioneer settlements. The largest of these, Jarkend, is the coming frontier town, to take the place of evacuated Kuldja.

The name of the god signified in the old pre-Semitic language of Chaldæa "the lord of the upright horn," while it is worth notice that the names of the owner and his father are compounded simply with the word ili or el, "god," not with the name of any special divinity. Multal-ili means "Provident is God," Ili-isme-anni, "O my God, hear me!"

The latter, however, were met by a desperate resistance from the young princes, who shot down several of them, and thus alarmed the soldiers. Assistance was promptly at hand, and the rebels were all killed or captured. Immediate measures were taken to suppress the Society, of which it is said that over twenty thousand members were executed, and as many more sent in exile to Ili.