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The fortitude of Jehangir confirmed the attachment of his friends, and the Khokandian ruler, encouraged by the defeat of the Chinese, again took up his cause and sent him troops and a general for a fresh descent on Kashgaria.
This outrage precluded all possibility of an amicable arrangement, and the Chinese prepared their fighting men for the invasion and conquest of Kashgaria. They crossed the frontier in two bodies, one under the command of Tchaohoei, the other under that of Fouta.
Keen Lung decided to administer the country which he had conquered. But another step was seen to be necessary to give stability to the Chinese administration, and that was the annexation of Kashgaria.
He established his sovereignty over the whole of Kashgaria, which he ruled through a prince named Daniel, and he established relations with the Russians, which at one time promised to attain a cordial character, but which were suddenly converted into hostility by the Russian belief that the Upper Urtish lay in a gold region which they resolved to conquer.
When Kwangsu ascended the throne the preparations for the campaign against Kashgaria were far advanced toward completion, and Kinshun had struck the first of those blows which were to insure the overthrow of the Tungani and of Yakoob Beg.
In that operation he may be left employed for the brief remainder of Tungche's reign; but it may be said that in 1874 the campaign against Kashgaria had been fully decided upon. A thousand Manchu cavalry were sent to Souchow.
The great region of Little Bokhara or Eastern Turkestan, known to us now under the more convenient form of Kashgaria, was still ruled by the Khoja Barhanuddin, who had been placed in power by Amursana, and it afforded a shelter for all the disaffected, and a base of hostility against the Chinese.
A small band fled to the citadel, which they held for a short time; but at length, overwhelmed by numbers, they preferred death to dishonor, and destroyed themselves by exploding the fort with the magazine. The defection of the Tungani thus lost Kashgaria for the Chinese, as the other garrisons and towns promptly followed the example of Yarkand; but they could not keep it for themselves.
The people passively accepted the authority which he was prepared to assert with his Khokandian soldiery, and the independent state of Kashgaria might have continued to exist for a longer period had the Chinese not returned.
Even if Tchaohoei had not reported that the possession of Kashgaria was essential to the military security of Jungaria, there is no doubt that sooner or later Keen Lung would have proceeded to extreme lengths with regard to Barhanuddin. The Chinese were fully warranted, however, in treating him as an enemy when he seized an envoy sent to his capital by Tchaohoei and executed him and his escort.
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