The Rashīdī History 7.4
The Tarikh-i-Rashidi (Elias, Ross) 7.4
- Language
- English
7.4.1
Many embassies are recorded in the Ming Shi as having passed between Bishbalik, or Ili-balik, and the Chinese capital, which make it appear that the Khans of Moghulistan and the Dughlat Amirs paid tribute to China. Whether the position of tributaries was imposed upon them by superior force, or whether, as is far more probable, the missions were sent to cultivate the friendship of a powerful neighbour, and to profit by an exchange of presents, is nowhere intimated; but the result remains, that from the time of Khizir Khwaja, about the year 1391, down to the reign of Isan Bugha II. in 1456, each successive Khan (as we have seen in Section II.) sent one or more tribute-bearing missions to the Ming court. After the latter date, it appears to have been settled that 'Ili-balik' was to send tribute every three years, but no further mention is made of any special mission, and it is possible that not long afterwards, the growing weakness of the Mings caused the custom to fall into disuse.
7.4.2
It may be thought strange, perhaps, that Mirza Haidar's history nowhere speaks of intercourse with China, or mentions that the Moghul Khans performed these acts of homage to her Emperors. Whether he omitted any allusion to them, from a feeling that the payment of tribute was derogatory to his ancestors, or whether he thought the subject not worth recording, must remain a matter of conjecture. In all likelihood the latter was the reason, as we shall see, further on, when referring to similar missions from Uighuristan. The proceeding was, presumably, looked upon as a mere form, or indeed a farce, and therefore attracted no attention on the part of the historian. Still, his silence on the point cannot be taken to disprove the statements of the Chinese, for these are explicit and persistent, and can hardly be otherwise than correct as records of bare facts. What is remarkable, however, is that the same Khans and Amirs who were bowing the knee to China, whether in good faith or otherwise, had no hesitation in measuring their strength with so great a soldier as Timur. The fact that his power was near and visible did not inspire them with respect, or deter them from raiding into his territory and otherwise provoking his vengeance. But the Chinese, then as now, seem to have possessed the art of attracting the outward forms of submission from distant States, though they had no power to exact the reality.
7.4.3
Passing now across the mountains to the south-east, an entirely different land and people present themselves, in the province that may be most appropriately and correctly called Alti-Shahr, or the 'Six Cities' of Eastern Turkistan. Here the low ranges and open valleys of the steppes, are changed for gigantic mountains on the one hand, and sandy deserts on the other; the aoul of felt tents for the town of brown mud-bricks and close-packed bazars; the grazing grounds and hill-side torrents for cultivated fields and irrigation canals; while, above all, the thriftless, irresponsible nomad is replaced by the cultivator and artisan, with all the elements of stability that their industry confers upon a people. Though the area is large, the culturable and habitable spots in it are, out of all proportion, small. One modern traveller describes it as a huge desert fringed by a few small patches of cultivation. Another tells us that a bird's-eye view of the country would show a huge bare desert, surrounded on three sides by barren mountains, along the bases of which would be seen some vivid green spots, showing out sharp and distinct like streaks of green paint on a sepia picture. At the western end, the cultivation is of greater extent and more continuous than in the eastern half, where the oases are small and separated from each other by stretches of desert, which increase in length as the traveller passes eastward; while the eastern extremity is desert pure and simple.
7.4.4
The oases, however, are fertile enough in themselves, for every drop of the water brought down by the streams from the mountains, is drawn off into irrigating canals, and made to reach as far as possible toward the desert, for agricultural purposes. All except the shifting sands of the central waste, appears to require only water to render the ground fertile; but water is precisely the boon that is withheld. Though the monsoon clouds roll in every summer across the mountain masses on the south, they seldom do more than tantalise the cultivator, who watches them in the hope of rain. Indeed, rain but rarely falls and a Chinese traveller of ancient days has recorded the incredulity of the people, when told that water for cultivation fell from heaven, onto the favoured soil of his country, and rendered it independent of melted snow from the mountains. They laughed, and cried: "How can heaven provide enough for all?" Snow may be less of a rarity, but so dry is the atmosphere, that when a fall occurs, it evaporates after a few hours, and leaves the surface of the ground scarcely moistened.
7.4.5
That a land of this nature should support only a small population, and be too poor, as Mirza Haidar tells us, to maintain an army on its own produce, is not surprising. Whether its weakness as a State is owing to this or to whatever other cause, it has always been an easy prey to invaders, and has seldom had a native ruler within historic times. Its population has been a Turki one for ages past, and the Uighur branch of that race may be regarded (as far as historic times are concerned) as the original owners of the soil, and the parent stock of the bulk of the present inhabitants. That in later times, at least, they were not an aggressive race appears evident from the little we hear of them, and that they had some capacity for crafts and literature seems also to be established. No doubt the tendency of such a people would be to live peaceably under any government strong enough to repel external enemies; so that when Mirza Haidar tells us that Alti-Shahr was "free from the discord of men and the trampling of hoofs, and became an asylum for the contented and the prosperous," he is probably drawing a picture of the country not only true of his own time, but one that serves for several centuries both before and after it.
7.4.6
During the periods that the Dughlat Amirs and Moghul Khans held sway, we hear of expeditions being sent to overrun Badakhshan, Ladak, and other weak States, but these were evidently undertaken by foreign rulers with their foreign troops, and not by the people of the country; indeed, we come much more frequently upon records of invasions which they themselves underwent at the hands of various enemies, such as the Arabs, the Mongols, the Kara Khitai, and even the Kalmaks. In the raids of the Moghuls into Western Turkistan and Mavara-un-Nahr, in their wars with Timur and Ulugh Beg, and their long campaigns with the Uzbegs, it is probable that the natives of Alti-Shahr took little part, for they are never mentioned as combatants. They had, in short (and have still), all the attributes of a lowland and unwarlike people, whose wealth excites the cupidity of aggressive neighbours, but the nature of whose country and customs prevent them from becoming themselves aggressive. It would be interesting to learn what the armies were composed of, that invaded, in the reigns of Aba Bakr and Sultan Said, Badakhshan, Chitral, etc., Ladak, Tibet and Kashmir. In all likelihood the numbers were very small — to be counted in some instances by hundreds rather than by thousands — while most of the men were probably mercenaries from countries other than Alti-Shahr. Mirza Haidar nowhere specifies the races which furnished the rank and file of these forces.
7.4.7
When entering on the conquest of Kashghar, in 1514, he gives an analysis of the chiefs of Sultan Said's army, nearly all of whom were Moghuls of various clans, or members of tribes who had long previously thrown in their lot with the Moghuls, and the number of tribal followers that each chief brought with him is specified in each case. If the figures given are correct—and as they are not mere round numbers, they appear as if intended to be exact—it is evident that the tribal following which each chief could muster was a mere handful, for the total of the tribesmen mentioned does not approach that of the entire army of 4700 men, as he states it. The remainder must have been mercenaries and adventurers who were, no doubt, to be found in abundance all over Central Asia in those times, in the persons of Kipchaks, Turkomans, Afghans, Tajiks and what not. On this occasion, too, a great effort was being made and a prize worth winning was at stake; the army was raised, moreover, in Farghana and Moghulistan, and not in peaceful Alti-Shahr. Thus it was probably a much more numerous one than those afterwards employed on distant expeditions beyond the mountains, though it may be fairly conjectured that the composition was very similar in all cases.
7.4.8
In the expedition of Sultan Said against Ladak, Kashmir and Tibet in 1532, the author puts the total of the army at the round figure of 5000 men, but in this instance he gives none of the minute particulars that he records with regard to the 4700 and their supports, who invaded Kashghar. The round number is likely, therefore, to be one of the many similar exaggerations in which his book abounds; for it is improbable that as large a force would have been thought necessary for this enterprise as for the wresting of Kashghar and the whole of Alti-Shahr from so formidable an enemy as Mirza Aba Bakr. He tells us, it is true, that Ladak was incapable of supporting the Khan's army, but this might have been the case with even half 5000 men and their complement of horses.