forces of Abdulla
were compelled to retreat with precipitation. Barhanuddin immediately
advanced on Kashgar, where he was received with open arms. Yarkand soon
afterwards fell into his possession, and the conquest of Kashgar by the
descendant of the Khojas and the triumph of the Aktaghluc party were
complete.

So far the Chinese had been merely spectators of the progress of events
in Kashgar. Amursana had induced them to approve of this enterprise of
Barhanuddin, and they had given general support in the war with Yusuf
and his son; and it was not until Barhanuddin, elated with his success,
set their wishes at defiance, that they resolved to occupy the country.
But before that, Amursana's career had been cut short. Although escorted
by a large force of native Chinese troops, he had aspired, in 1757, to
establish himself as an independent prince in Jungaria, and had broken
loose from Chinese control. The forces he raised were, however, defeated
with remarkable ease by the Chinese, and Amursana was compelled to flee
once more from his home--this time with no certain refuge, as he had
before in Pekin. The Russians were then in possession of Siberia, but
their influence for good or for ill beyond their desert and almost
impenetrable stations was practically _nil_; but, such as it was, it
seemed to Amursana the only place affording any prospect of security.
He died at Tobolsk, in 1757, soon after he arrived there; but the
implacable Chinese haughtily demanded from the Russians his body as a
proof of his decease, and the Russian government sent it to Kiachta for
surrender to them. Such was the career of the ill-fated, but ambitious,
Amursana, who was the immediate cause of the introduction of Chinese
power into Eastern Turkestan.

With so unmistakable a proof before his eyes of the power of the
Chinese, it is strange to find Barhanuddin also proving contumacious in
Kashgar, but so it was. In 1758, the very next year after the death of
Amursana, this ruler and his brother Khan Khoja broke out in open mutiny
to the Chinese. At Ili some Khitay officers were maltreated, and
outspoken contempt was shown for Chinese commands. Such attitude could
not be brooked by any established rule, and, to do the Chinese simple
justice, never had been tolerated by them on any occasion; and
accordingly a Chinese army was despatched from Ili to chastise this
recalcitrant ruler, and to remind him that the arm of Chinese power was
terribly long. B