United States or Equatorial Guinea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But in 1875 the arrival of Kinshun at Barkul showed Yakoob Beg that he would have to defend his possessions against their lawful owners, while the overthrow of the Tungani and the capture of their strongholds, in 1876, carried with them a melancholy foreboding of his own fate.
He moved forward his army to Guchen, 200 miles west of Barkul, where he established a fortified camp and a powder factory, and took steps te ascertain the strength and intentions of the enemy. Toward the end of July the Chinese army resumed its march. The difficulties of the country were so great that the advanced guards of the opposing armies did not come into contact until August 10.
From Urumtsi we had decided to take the northern route to Hami, via Gutchen and Barkul, in order to avoid as much as possible the sands of the Tarim basin on the southern slope of the Tian Shan mountains. Two guards were commissioned by the viceroy to take us in charge, and hand us over to the next relay station.
Our week’s run to Barkul was made, with a good natural road and favoring conditions, at the rate of fifty-three miles per day, eight miles more than our general average across the empire. From Kuldja to the Great Wall, where our cyclometer broke, we took accurate measurements of the distances.
Once Barkul and Hami were in the possession of the Chinese, it became necessary to reopen direct communications with Souchow. This task occupied the whole of the next twelve months, and was only successfully accomplished after many difficulties had been overcome, and when halting-stations had been established across Gobi.
The expression Tian Shan Pe-lu, or northern Tian Shan route, in opposition to the Tian Shan Nan-lu, or southern Tian Shan route, shows that the Chinese had fully appreciated the importance of this historic highway, which continues the road running from the extreme western gate of the Great Wall obliquely across Mongolian Kan-su, through Hami and Barkul, to Urumtsi.
The town of Urumtsi, situated within a loop of the mountains, lies at a distance by road of more than 300 miles from Barkul. Kinshun, who had now been joined by Liu Kintang, the taotai of the Sining district and a man of proved energy and capacity, resolved to concentrate all his efforts on its capture.
The sense of a common peril, more perhaps than the desire to attain the same object, led to revolts at Hami, Barkul, Urumtsi, and Turfan, towns which formed a group of industrious communities half-way between the prosperous districts of Kansuh on the one side and Kashgar on the other.
He followed a circuitous line of march, with a view of avoiding the strongly placed and garrisoned town of Hami. The exact route is not certain, but he seems to have gone as far north as Uliassutai, where he was able to recruit some of the most faithful and warlike of the Mongol tribes. But early in 1875 he arrived before the walls of Barkul, a town lying to the northwest of Hami.
Here, too, we began that journey of 1500 miles along the Celestial mountain range which terminated only when we scaled its summit beyond Barkul to descend again into the burning sands of the Desert of Gobi. Here runs the great historical highway between China and the West. From Auli-eta eastward we had before us about 200 miles of a vast steppe region.
Word Of The Day