a
large detachment into the country of the Tian Shan, his main body was
prosecuting with vigour the war against Karashar and Turfan. Yakoob Beg
did not always conduct the war in person, for his two sons, Kuli Beg and
Hacc Kuli Beg, were now growing up, and they, assisted by some of the
older lieutenants, triumphed in various actions over the Tungan rulers
of Turfan and Hamil, while even the princes of Urumtsi and Manas over
the Tian Shan were unable to oppose the valour and energy of their
adversary. The glory of these military achievements was tarnished by the
ruthless manner in which the district was laid waste, and the
inhabitants were massacred; and the senselessness of these proceedings
only required an hour of trial, such as the Chinese invasion, to prove
how fatal it would be to the enacters of these atrocities. Without any
great cessation, their operations were carried on down to the end of
1873, and it does not appear that Yakoob Beg derived any benefit
whatever from these costly and remote undertakings. Although the Tungan
chiefs of Urumtsi and Hamil were on several occasions defeated by the
armies of the Athalik Ghazi, their cities were never occupied, and they
consequently escaped that desolation which stretched from the walls of
Kucha to the regions north of Lake Lob. Chightam, a small town lying
half way between Turfan and Hamil, was the extreme point to which the
Kashgarian forces penetrated. The noble families of Urumtsi, Turfan, and
Hamil were almost totally destroyed in the fall of Turfan; and their
place in their own cities was seized by Tungan generals and adventurers,
who began to retreat westward from Kansuh, on the rumours of Chinese
preparations for invading Jungaria.

The wars against the Tungani certainly served one useful purpose in
enabling Yakoob Beg to collect a large and disciplined force round his
standard; but the attractions of service in his army lost much of their
value in the eyes of the hardier clans of Turkestan and the neighbouring
states, when it became known that the prospect of loot and prize money
in districts impoverished by several years of hostilities had
diminished. The rigour of the discipline maintained, too, was irksome to
nomads and irregulars accustomed to the easier service and freedom from
restraint of the other Asiatic princes; and during the later years of
his rule there were many desertions, and a difficulty was encountered in
inducing recruits to enter his army.