hat city
held aloof from all intercourse with the new-comer. Both parties
remained watching each other for some time, each waiting for the other
to take the initiative. The Tungani had experienced the weight of the
military power of Yakoob Beg, when they had taken the offensive in the
earlier days of his appearance at Kashgar. It was, therefore, not very
probable that they would repeat the experiment when he presented a far
more formidable and united presence to their attack. Practically
speaking, Yakoob Beg was safe from invasion from the east so long as he
maintained order within his own frontier; and the Tungani in Ili on his
north had manifested no special hostility against his state. Secure from
any aggression on the part of the Tungani, Yakoob Beg might with some
reason have declined to push to extremities his relations with them. It
was certainly inconvenient that an antagonistic state should exist on
his very borders, but, as he was in a very strong position for defence,
the disadvantages of abandoning it to assume an offensive policy were
all the more apparent. What necessity could be alleged to justify a
scarcely excusable attack in a moral sense, and a quite unnecessary in a
political? The proximity of Aksu was in a strategic sense more than
neutralized by the possession of Maralbashi, and, with the lapse of
time and the return of peace, the trade route from Kashgar to Aksu might
be expected to revive once more. But such temporizing measures as these,
involving the endurance of Tungan indifference, could not be brooked by
the Athalik Ghazi. The orthodoxy of these Mahomedans was not above
suspicion, and to so devout and energetic a Sunni as Yakoob Beg these
differences were scarcely less offensive than if they had been believers
in a rival religion. Dictatorial announcements were made to the
Khoja-Tungan rulers of Aksu; and, on their persisting in defiance,
Yakoob Beg collected his forces to chastise them. The doctrines of the
Tungani were impeached as not being in strict accordance with the
Shariat, and the religious fervour of the Sunnis was appealed to, to
bring these recalcitrant people to an acknowledgment of the error of
their ways. In addition to the semi-religious element thus imported into
the question, Yakoob Beg also laid claim to the country up to Kucha as
part of the old territory of the Khoja kings.

In the spring of 1867 his army set out in two divisions for Aksu. The
Tungani appear to have been