hinese had appeared north of the Tian
Shan. They had sacked Urumtsi, and were laving close siege to Manas.
Their numbers rumour had magnified to almost a hundred thousand
combatants, and they came armed with all the auxiliaries Western science
could supply.

Before following the movements of the ruler of Kashgar upon the receipt
of this intelligence, it will be necessary to consider what had been the
history of this Chinese army which had so suddenly appeared in Jungaria.
When in the natural course of events the Chinese government, having
solved the Taeping and Panthay difficulties, having restored order where
disorder had been supreme, and having created an army where there had
been only a disorganized rabble, turned its attention to the question,
which it had never lost sight of, of chastising the Tungan rebels beyond
Kansuh, the victorious soldiers of Yunnan, instead of being disbanded,
were invited to participate in a fresh campaign in the regions beyond
Gobi. It requires no great stretch of imagination to realize the scene
when the imperial edict came before these veterans, calling on all true
soldiers to vindicate their country's honour and their outraged religion
against the Tungan outcasts; how the generals, such as Chang Yao, set an
example of enthusiasm which the main body of their soldiers speedily
followed. In the presence of such military enthusiasm we are transported
back to the days of imperial Rome, when the subjection of one province
was only the prelude to some fresh triumph, and when every campaign
found in the ranks of the army the veterans of the last. So it was that
the victors of Talifoo, by long marches through Szchuen and Shensi,
reached Lanchefoo, the capital of Kansuh, where the viceroy of that
province was gathering together the munitions of war, and the recruits
who were to swell the nucleus of trained soldiers to the proportions
suitable to an invading army. Some have considered, and we are far from
denying that there is much to support such a view, that there was a
political motive at the root of this enterprise, the motive being a
desire on the part of the ruling family to give employment to a large
disciplined body of men, who if retained in China proper would be at the
service of any powerful conspirator or presumptuous aspirant to imperial
honours. Whether there is any foundation or not for this supposition, it
is certain that those troops who were not required for garrison work in
Yun