Part 4 (2/2)

Kashgaria might be in a very backward state of cultivation, and years of commotion and warfare had undoubtedly thrown it back in the ranks of prosperity and civilization, but the Athalik Ghazi was persuaded of the truth of the Latin philosopher's saying, that ”Parsimonia magna vectigalia est.” It must be remembered that Yakoob Beg set himself a different task to accomplish than had the Chinese. Their idea was not so much to extend their empire, although there has always been a tendency with the Chinese to be aggressive against small neighbours, as to acquire a territory that could be made a paying thing: much as the pioneers of Anglo-Saxon conquest have made their impression in every quarter of the globe in search of wealth and adventure, did the Chinese by a seemingly irresistible impulse spread over the continent of Asia.

In doing so they were actuated as much by calculation of possible profit as by any desire for military renown. The Emperor Keen-Lung himself was flattered by the triumphs achieved beyond Gobi; but his lieutenants and viceroys aimed at more mercenary objects, and but for the golden promise held forth by a permanent conquest of Turkestan would have induced their master to direct his efforts to some more profitable undertaking. The Chinese, having acquired Kashgar, were far too sagacious to use up its resources by an organized system of pillage, and they accordingly, let it be granted chiefly with a view to their own personal aggrandizement, devoted their attention to the development of its natural wealth by means already detailed in a previous chapter. For three generations the officials grew rich on the prosperity of their dependency, and for the same period the people themselves were scarcely less flouris.h.i.+ng. The Chinese had accepted no slight responsibility in undertaking the government of Kashgar on principles identical with those by which they held authority in Tibet; but, owing to wonderful perseverance and good management, they triumphed over every difficulty. The revenue raised for state and local purposes was very great, and it sufficed to preserve good order for many years, and to add permanent improvement to the state in every direction. The task voluntarily undertaken by the Chinese was far more onerous than that Yakoob Beg found he had to execute; but they came to it with many advantages that he wanted. They had a large and faithful army; he had only an uncertain gathering, which might flee or desert on the first symptom of disaster: they had the resources of a great and powerful empire at their back; he had nothing but his own energy and determination: and above all, they had a reputation that added to their strength and facilitated their undertakings, while he was regarded as a mere military adventurer, receiving the contempt of Tungan and Khoja alike. The very nature of things made the Chinese turn most of their attention to commerce, while for years Yakoob Beg's sole thought was to consolidate his military strength and form a large standing army.

For many years, then, Yakoob Beg only spent money on the drilling of soldiers and the purchase of weapons. Now and then, when some danger seemed to threaten him, either from Russia, Afghanistan, or the Tungani, he would devote considerable sums to the construction of forts in the line of the menaced position. But his chief expenditure was confined to his army, and the maintenance of his dynasty by his police system. The administration of justice required a certain sum of money, and the Church for its support came in for a fair share of the good things that were going. It is clear that his expenditure, if not very great in our eyes, would severely tax a population of 1,000,000 people in no very high state of prosperity. The chief source of wealth in the past had always been the trade with China, and when that was broken off, the slight increase in intercourse with Russia and India was not a sufficient compensation. In fact, the country was very poor, without the ingenuity and commercial instincts of the Khitay. During the days of the war under Buzurg Khan, the only means of obtaining the necessary revenue was by despoliation and enforced levies on the occupied portion of the territory. When the western portion of Kashgaria was subdued, Yakoob Beg found himself without any money in his exchequer, and no easy means of filling it presented itself to him. In these straits he had recourse to an expedient that, if not very novel, was at all events very effective.

He issued a proclamation to his faithful subjects to the effect that as conqueror he was landowner of the whole state; but that he was willing--eager would have been the more correct expression--to sell it to them at a cheap rate. He, however, exempted from this the old possessions of the Chinese w.a.n.gs and Ambans, and distributed their extensive domains among the more prominent of his followers, who in return acknowledged their liability to military service. The system was an exact copy of the old feudal regime, and Yakoob Beg was vested with all the rights and authority of the feudal lord of the Middle Ages. The parallel is still further maintained by the large reward that the Church received for its aid to the new ruler. The old revenues, devoted to the support of the temples and religious seminaries in the past, and which had miscarried during the troublous period of the war for the possession of Turkestan, were restored, and fresh possessions were added thereto, to demonstrate the generosity of the sovereign and his veneration for the religion of Mahomed. His old friend the Sheikh-ul-Islam was still more fortunate, and a large estate was set apart for his special enjoyment. Nor does it appear that the Mussulman priests abused the fresh power and advantages they thus secured; for among the toilers in Kashgaria none were more energetic than they in educating the people, and in extending their influence over their minds, both for the benefit of their religion and for the security of the power of the Athalik Ghazi. But in one respect, and it is impossible to exaggerate its importance, Yakoob Beg's endeavours to found a strong military cla.s.s, bound to him by ties of past favours and others yet to come, were abortive; for with rare exceptions his followers refused to fill their new avocation of landed proprietors. Instead of devoting their attention to the questions arising from agriculture and other rural pursuits, they sub-let all their possessions to Andijani immigrants, and, residing in their city _ordas_, gave themselves over either to lascivious pleasures or to complete indolence. Even so distinguished a warrior as Abdulla Beg, the slayer of more than 12,000 persons, as his panegyrists boasted, suffered from the pervading effeminacy on the cessation of active hostilities; and in the lower ranks of the service such deterioration in energy was still more manifest. This change in the spirit of his earlier supporters, among other things, obliged Yakoob Beg to depend the more on the Andijani merchants and shopkeepers, and conduced to his adopting more favourable views on foreign trade in the later years of his power.

The sum of money which he immediately received by the sale of lands placed him in a condition to undertake those wars against the Tungani, which added so much to the extent of his territory and to the responsibilities of his position. Indeed, for several years after its first enforcement it continued to bring in a certain amount to the coffers of the State. But even this resource was transitory, and the sum of money received by this means and in the shape of spoil, from Yarkand, Kashgar, Khoten, and other places, was not sufficient to meet the expenditure caused by the formation of a large army. Neither of these practices could be regarded as a permanent means of obtaining a revenue, for the former would scarcely admit of a repet.i.tion, and the latter soon exhausted itself. So when his rule had become a little settled, and these modes of raising money, in addition to the still more reprehensible practice of robbing foreign merchants, had become out of date to a certain degree, the Athalik Ghazi had to place his fiscal arrangements on a more practical and honourable basis. While he laboured under some disadvantages, already enumerated, as compared with the Chinese, he had the great advantage over them that he strove for an object more easily accomplished than the restoration of Kashgar to its pristine welfare; and in his budget he had only steadily to keep in view how much he required to maintain so many _jigits_, and so many police in his pay, and to keep in his exchequer a small surplus for any untoward emergency. He left the roads to take care of themselves; the irrigation works, sadly wanted in various parts of the state, must be reserved for his successors; and all proposals for the amelioration of the people were shelved for a more opportune occasion. But so many thousand _jigits_ must be in the ranks; so many fresh guns and cartridges must be placed in the a.r.s.enals; and so many adventurers must be induced by good pay to take service in the army as non-commissioned officers, in order that the rank and file should be well drilled. The very necessities of his position compelled Yakoob Beg to make all these military preparations; but the cost was great, and the sacrifices thus imposed on ruler and on people were a terrible strain. Recent events make us inclined to believe that a less active military and foreign policy, and a more peaceable and domestic one, would have tended to have added more strength to the Athalik Ghazi's rule than the somewhat ostentatious military parade to which he had recourse. Be that as it may, Yakoob Beg inst.i.tuted in 1867 two taxes, which may be supposed to represent the two chief cla.s.ses of receipts during his tenure of authority. The first of these was a t.i.the on all the cereal produce of the country; this tax was called the _Ushr_. The second, called the _Zakat_, was a customs due levied on all merchandise entering Kashgar. The _Ushr_ was payable on all land except that occupied by the Church, or by those who owed military service to the crown instead of other payment; and even those who rented land from the n.o.ble cla.s.ses were obliged to surrender a t.i.the to the ruler. It would appear, therefore, from this that it was not so much the land as its legal possessor who was exempt from liability to the usual obligations of citizens.h.i.+p. The danger contained in the acquisition of all the crown lands by Andijani merchants, and the gradual displacement of his more immediate followers through the energy of these people, was not imperceptible to Yakoob Beg, and he accordingly adopted measures for preventing his n.o.bles selling their land without his sanction. The receipts from this _Ushr_ were very considerable, and it was the main source of his revenue for years. We have some idea of the approximate value of land in Kashgar. The method of measuring land for sale, and consequently also for taxation, is peculiar. It is not by any given size that it is computed, or, indeed, strictly speaking by the amount of crop it produces; but at a rate in accordance with the amount of wheat with which it had been planted. The average rate was about a pound for as much land as was sown with 20 lb. of wheat. The tenant, as has been said, paid the government dues and handed over three-fourths of the net produce to the landlord as rent, receiving for his portion only the one-fourth remaining. Under this system it was only in very prosperous years that any but very large tenants made sufficient to earn a competent livelihood. In bad years it is possible that the landlord had to satisfy himself with a smaller share, if he was not induced to surrender his claim altogether for the disastrous period. But the tax-farmers, entrusted with the collection of this rate, were eager to become rich, no less than to earn a good name with the authorities for bringing in a list with no defaulters. The unfortunate people were completely at their mercy, and without any means of ascertaining the accuracy of the claim, or of opposing extortionate demands on the part of the tax-collectors. They paid without a murmur, perhaps without a suspicion of the imposition that was being practised upon them, the sum demanded of them, if they were able; and as their dues were payable without delay and on demand before anything else was taken out of the total sum of the produce, the Athalik Ghazi received his share with regularity, and his tax-collector pocketed the excess sum for his own satisfaction. In many cases it is known that the amount claimed by the official exceeded by threefold the legal demand. Such a system was no less hurtful to the ruler than it was ruinous to the people. That in one tax alone a larger sum should be extracted from the people for the benefit of the officials than was contributed for the necessities of the state, exhibited a very loose system of supervision on the part of the sovereign, and is a strong piece of evidence that in many ways Yakoob Beg was a mixture of contradictions. We can scarcely persuade ourselves that he was aware of these occurrences, and yet how could he be ignorant of them?

In addition to the _Ushr_ there was another tax on home produce, viz., the _Tanabi_, or tax on land devoted to the production of vegetables or fruit. The Tanab is, by the way, a lineal measure of forty-seven yards, and a Tanabi is a piece of land forty-seven yards square. On this extent of land cultivated for vegetables, or fruit, a small tax was raised.

More than any other tax did this vary according to the character of the district, and to the quality of the year's crop. It was seldom less than a s.h.i.+lling a Tanabi, even in the least renowned district, whereas in some parts, in good years, it was five s.h.i.+llings, or even more. Here again, however, the middleman interfered, and exacted as much as he saw there was any possibility of his obtaining. This tax undoubtedly ought to have produced a large sum, as a larger portion of the soil is laid out as fruit and vegetable gardens than for crops; but whether it was more difficult to raise, or there was more peculation _in transitu_ from the tax-payer to the imperial exchequer, it is certain that we hear much less of this tax than we should be disposed to imagine. The two great taxes on home productions were therefore a corn due and a fruit due. The rate was not in itself excessive, and could be paid by any community without embarra.s.sment. It is uncertain to what extent the avarice of the officials had made the conditions of these two taxes more onerous, although, on the most favourable supposition, the citizen was mulcted in no inconsiderable sum. A more serious question for the ruler was, how did it affect his own position with regard to his subjects? Did Yakoob Beg appear in the eyes of the Kashgari as an exacting and oppressive tyrant on account of these heavy impositions?

It is impossible to speak on this point with any degree of certainty, but it is only natural to expect that such was the case. No tiller of the ground can feel grateful to a sovereign who required him to hand over almost one-third of his receipts before he made use of one penny of them, even for the payment of his rent. It is scarcely probable that Yakoob Beg approved of such enormous profits going to his officials; but, that having tolerated petty exactions in his earlier days, he found himself unable to attempt the task of coping with the evil when it had a.s.sumed such alarming proportions. It is impossible to believe that he remained in ignorance of what was occurring under his very eyes, and there is some evident foundation for the accusation that he partic.i.p.ated in the division of the profits of his tax-gatherers. We should be loth to admit the accuracy of such a charge, and yet the arguments in its favour are too plausible to admit of a very confident contradiction. It would not speak well for the efficiency of his secret police if he had remained in ignorance of a fact which was losing him the sympathy of his subjects.

The gold mines at Khoten were worked after the fall of that city in 1868, and continued productive down to the present time. There is no information on the quant.i.ties of the precious metal that are there turned out in the year, but it is probable that they are not very great.

The coal mines near Aksu and Kucha are no longer made use of, except by a few individuals, and the copper mines in that district have, since the departure of the Chinese, only been very partially explored. The jade that used to come in great quant.i.ties from Aksu and Khoten, is still to be found throughout Kashgar; but although it is probable that it still nearly all comes from those cities, the Kashgari themselves tell a hesitating tale as to its place of production. A visitor to Kashgar, on going the round of the bazaars, soon found that the people's tongues were tied by the presence, in his train, of a number of the secret police, who had been specially told off to prevent the Feringhee obtaining any troublesome information on the state of the people, or the resources of the state. A striking instance was given him of the close attention paid by these guardians of order to the veriest trifles. The traveller inquired in one stall where the jade, which was the chief commodity of the merchant in question, came from, and received the reply, Aksu. Proceeding to another shop in the street, he repeated the question, when he was informed that it was imported from Khokand. But the traveller said, your neighbour told me it came from Aksu. The shopkeeper, taken aback by this abrupt remark, became confused, and admitted that it came from Aksu. Warned by a look from the official, he then repeated his original a.s.sertion that it came from Khokand. The use of all this absurd shuffling, and attempt to throw dust in strangers'

eyes, is impossible to discover; for it was a matter of little moment whether jade came from Aksu, or Khokand, so long as we knew that it formed an important commodity, both in the rough and in the chiselled state, in the cities of Kashgaria.

The customs tax, or _Zakat_, is sanctioned by the Shariat, and was levied at all the border posts on the various roads leading into the state. Up to the ratification of the treaties with Great Britain and Russia, its regulations were vague and elastic in the extreme. In fact, any merchant who might have been so foolhardy as to venture into Kashgar would have had reason, before these events, to think himself fortunate if he escaped the penalty of his rashness; for a.s.suredly his luggage would not, but would have been confiscated for the special benefit of his Highness the Ameer. So late as 1869, Russian merchants were robbed of their baggage, and personally ill-treated, and only after long years of negotiation did the Russian Government obtain any satisfaction for the injuries and loss inflicted on one of their subjects. And then how did the Athalik Ghazi send the sum of money he agreed to pay for the loss the merchant had incurred?--why in a depreciated Chinese currency, part of a large number of coins that he had found in a disused temple in Kashgar! Before this, all the external trade had been carried on with Khokand and Bokhara, Afghanistan and Badakshan, and the receipts from _Zakat_ were quite insignificant, barring such treasure trove as the spoliation of a merchant from Tashkent, or from Leh. But with the persistent efforts on the part of the Russians on the north, and of the English native merchants on the south, to pierce the gloom hiding the country of Eastern Turkestan, it became impossible for Yakoob Beg to maintain much longer the incognito he was so jealous in maintaining.

Perhaps also the prospect of deriving an income from _Zakat_, that should smooth down many of his difficulties, was not without some influence on his mind when he came into direct contact with civilized empires. His expectations were far too sanguine, and he seems to have once more, during the last twelve months of his life, become indifferent to the advantages or disadvantages of trade with his neighbours. In fact, when he placed his customs on a fair footing, he found that it would require many years to recoup him for the excessive exactions he surrendered. The merchants who first attempted to commence intercourse with Kashgar became speedily discouraged by the dangers of the route, and the small opening for a large remunerative trade in a country whose wealth and population had been magnified tenfold. In a country where the richest merchant in the chief town possessed only a capital of 8,000, not much could be expected in the way of fortune; and although the legal dues on all merchandise were fixed at an _ad valorem_ rate of 2-1/2 per cent., it was soon discovered that if the ruler happened to be in want of cash he would not scruple to take what he could from the stranger.

Both to the ruler, and to the foreign merchant, the new arrangement contained distasteful matter. The former perceived that he had surrendered some of his imperial rights, and that he was not to be recompensed by his receiving more money, and the latter knew that the treaty stipulation would not save him from having to pay excess fees.

The _Zakat_, far from showing the expected disposition to increase, seemed rather inclined to remain stationary, if not to decrease; and the foreign merchant had obtained some promise on the part of the ruler of personal protection, and of a.s.sistance in the disposal of his wares.

His discontent at the stagnation in the customs soon showed itself by his exacting excess dues, sometimes on British, sometimes on Russian, but more often on Khokandian and Afghan merchants. Instead of increasing his receipts, these strong measures only threw them back, and left him in a worse plight than he was in before. He had not the patience necessary to enable him to wait with confidence the fuller development of trade, nor had he the perseverance or tact to place fresh inducements in the path of merchants to renew their intercourse with him and his state. Many visited Kashgar with merchandise a first time; but few, indeed, repeated the visit. The ruler was off-handed in his reception of them. They were scarcely accorded any liberty in their movements, and the profit of their journey was greatly reduced by the payment of a due of 5 per cent. instead of the stipulated condition of 2-1/2 per cent. It is a pure fiction, therefore, to say that trade with Kashgar had increased during the rule of the Athalik Ghazi through his friendly inclination. If the amount of merchandise imported into his state had increased, it was owing only to the necessities of its inhabitants, and was a fact that must have taken place either by intercourse direct, or through native states, with the two great providers of Central Asia. The exaggerated enthusiasm that it was endeavoured to raise up in this country about this same mythical ruler of Yarkand never spread far, and there was always some scepticism, if there could be no disproof, of the reports of the formidableness of this new kingdom. Looking calmly at the real state of Yakoob Beg's position, even at the height of his power, we find him to have always been a pecuniarily embarra.s.sed ruler, glad of the smallest windfall in the shape of the spoil of a single merchant.

The _Zakat_, his advisers pointed out to him, might be made a most productive source of revenue, if foreign merchants could be induced to bring their wares into the country. The loss the people had felt in the departure of the Chinese might be amply repaired by the appearance of Russian and English merchants to supply the same place that they filled.

If his aspirations were disappointed, and the _Zakat_ did not show any signs of possessing that elasticity which had been predicted, it is probable that in his impatience, heightened by the perception that foreign trade might lead to foreign complications, he did not give the scheme a sufficient time for a fair trial. His other sources of revenue, _Ushr_ and _Tanabi_, and the gold mines of Khoten, brought in a sum enough to meet the current expenses of the government and to maintain in his service as many soldiers as his recruiting officers were able to secure. But there was little if any surplus; and local improvements, and all outlay that might have been reproductive and for the benefit of the people, were strictly forbidden. The only works we can find constructed by him, with a view to the advancement of the interests of his subjects, were the merchants' _serais_, built in each city, and these were self-supporting. Yakoob Beg has no claim to being considered as a beneficent ruler. He was a military dictator, who had shown a rare power for inaugurating a rough system of government, and whose campaigns had always been singularly successful. As a ruler, showing a full appreciation of the wants of his people, and adopting the best possible measures to obtain them, he had no claims to consideration. Indeed, he could not be compared with the Chinese, who, however personal may have been their motives, certainly raised the state to a high pitch of material prosperity, and left many enduring marks of their past occupation. These two dominations, foisted on the Kashgari by the strong arm, while each immeasurably superior to the Khoja claimants, represented two distinct modes of governing a subject race. The Chinese endeavoured to conciliate, and to make the necessity for their presence felt by the people; the Athalik Ghazi was supremely indifferent to the prosperity of his subjects, so long as they were willing to pay him the tribute money, and to serve in his army. An exactly opposite result might have been expected, for there was far more kins.h.i.+p between the Khokandian adventurer and the Kashgari, than there was between the Khitay and the Andijani. Admirers of Yakoob Beg may, of course, plead that his rule had not acquired sufficient consistency to justify him in tasking his strength by great undertakings, such as the construction of roads and ca.n.a.ls. In one respect he had not the labour at his disposal, and he was, consequently, hampered by a difficulty that the Chinese were free from. Still when we remember that all these works ought to have been remunerative, and to have strengthened Yakoob Beg's individual power, instead of taxing his resources, the excuse cannot be admitted as ent.i.tled to our consideration. Yakoob Beg has claims only to be admired for having given us something better than a repet.i.tion of the depravity of the Khoja rulers, and of course among his coevals he is ent.i.tled to far the highest place. If it is only asked for him that he should be placed above them, no one can raise the slightest objection to it; for beyond the shadow of a doubt, he was the most energetic and talented ruler that had appeared among the Khanates for several centuries. But it would be affectation to deny that a higher place than this has been claimed for him; and before according his right to occupy it, the evidence on which his claim rests must be sifted with the greatest care.

Even now I do not say that his claims are unproven; but that it is open to doubt whether his work has not been exaggerated, I think must be admitted by every one who has studied the course of his life in

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