HISTORY OF KASHGAR 1

Kashgar is a important hub on the Old Silk Road,a vibrant Islamic centre within Chinese territory. It is the largest oasis city in Chinese Central Asia and 90 per cent of its population of over 3,000,,000 are Uygur.Only in The city is populating 300,000. Kashgar's importance derives from its stratehic position at the foot of the Pamir Mountains, commanding access to the high glacial passes of the Silk Road routes into Central Asia, India and Persia. The weary trade caravans plodding west on the northern and southern routes met up at Kashgar, the desert hazards and demons finally behind them. Merchants bound for China thawed out after descending to Kashgar from the peaks of the Pamirs or the Karakorams, and exchanged their stolid yaks and exhaused packhorses for camles to convey their merchandese into Inner province of China. Kashgar Has a history of more than 2'000 years. the earlist reference appeared in Persian documents referring to an alliance of Tushlan tribes, who founded their capital here. Kashgar was posibly the first of the Buddhist kingdoms of the Tarim basin. In the second century AD, Hinayana Buddhism flourished here and continued to do so until the ninth or tenth century. During this period Indian and Persian cultural influences were strong. Xuan Zang noted that the Kashgaris had green eyes-perhaps a reference to Aryan origins-and that for their writing they take their model from India....The disposition of the men is fierce and impetuous, and they are mostly false adn deceitful. They make light of decorum and politeness, and esteem learning but little. In the first century AD, during the Han Dynasty, China lost its power over the Tarim Basin. The great General Ban Chao was dispatched to subdue the wild kingdoms of Silk Road that had aligned themselves with the Xiongnu against the Chinese. He took the kingdoms of Kashgar, Hetian and Loulan either by brute force or cunning strategy, installed pro-Chinese rulers and reopened the southern Silk Road to trade. Ban Chao remained in Chinese Central Asia for 31 years, crushing rebellions and establishing diplomatic relations with more than 50 states in the Western Regions. Accompanied by horsemen arrayed in bright red leather,he himself went as far west as Merv and made contacts with Parthia,Babylonia and Syria. In the early seventh century,Kashgar recognized the suzerainty of Tang China, which garrisoned the city. However, the Chinese were soon forced to withdraw between 670and 694, when Tibet expanded its territories throughout the southern oases of Tarim Basin.Between the tenth and 12th centuries the Kharakhanid Khanate, a loose mondic alliance of the Qarluq Turkic tribes, controlled the area between Bokhara and Hetian from its capital in Kashgar. The Sunni Muslim, Satuq Bughra Khan, was the first king of the Kharakhanid of Kashgar; he and his successors carried on bloody jihads against the still-Buddhist kingdoms of yarkant and Hotan. These battles, along with fierce Kharakhanid internecine struggles, disrupted the caravan trade, and East-West trade was increasingly forced to relay on the sea routes. Following the death of Chaghatai, who inherited the region from his father, Ghengis Khan,there followed numerous succession wars. Only briefly during the mid-14th century, when Telug Timur had his capital in Kashgar, was a degree of calm and stability restored,But Tamerlane's armies were soon to lay waste to the Kingdom of Kashgaria. In the 16th century,Kashgar came under the ruler of a religious leader, or khoja, whose colleagues formed a powerful clique in Bokhara and Samarkand. A theological split saw the formation of two opposing sects, the Black and White Mountaineers,which began a bloody see-sawing of power between Kashgar and Yarkant that ended `only with Qing intervention two centuries later. The Khojas attempted to return to power in Kashgar no fewer than six times,frequently backed by the Khokand Khanate and aided by Kirgiz nomadic horsemen,bringing fearful reprisals on the citizens. An unfortunate observer of the khojas' last atempt in 1857 was a German,Adolbhus Schlagintweit, whose throat was cut because of his arrogant comment that the three-month siege of Kashgar would have taken his countrymen a mere three days. Kashar was substantially fortified during the short but violent reign of Yakup Beg, who ruled Kashgaria from 1866 to 1877. This infamous soldier from Khokand ruled most of Xinjing, from Kashgar to Urumqi,Turpan and Hami,concluded treaties with Britain and Russia, and had the support of the Ottoman Empire. In 1869, Robert Shew, a British trader and unoffical dilomat, became the first Englishman to visit Kashgar and Kashgar, and was able to command two audiences with Yakub Beg,even though he was under virtual house arrest for the duration of his stay in the city.He wrote of Kashgar:'Intering the gateway, we passed throgh several large quadrangles whose sides were lined with rank of brilliantly attired guards, all sitting in solem silence so that they seemed to form part of the architecture of the building....Entire rows of these men (were)clad in silken robes and many seemed to be of high rank judging from the richness of their equipment.' After a leisurely three-year advance on Xinjiang, the 60,000 strong Chinese army of Zuo Zongtang suppressed the Muslim rebellions in Gansu and then moved southwest through the oasis towns, eventually ending Yakub Beg's rule in 1877. Yakub Beg fled to Kashgar where he died-rumoured to have either had a stroke or poisoned himself.In 1884,Qing government establish Xinjiang as province first.As anti-Chinese Muslim rebellions broke out throughout Xinjiang in the 1930s, a pan-Turkic Islamic movement based in Kashgar declared an Independent Muslim Republic of Eastern Turkestan.In 1949,the three arear-revalutionary army accept the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party,xinjiang entered a new construction. The Kashgar prefecture administers 11 counties,one city with a population of over 3 million. It is one of the main agricultural areas of Xinjing,producing cotton,rice,wheat,corn,beans and fruit.