Yaqub Beg - Biography

Biography

Yakub Beg was born in the town of Pskent, in the Khanate of Kokand (now Piskent in the Tashkent Province of Uzbekistan). He rose rapidly through the ranks in the service of the Khanate of Kokand; by the year 1847 he was commander of the fort at Ak-Mechet until a few months before its fall to the Russian army under the command of General Vasily Alekseevich Perovsky in 1853. After the fall of the fort he fled to Bukhara.

By 1865 Yakub Beg had become the commander-in-chief of the army of Kokand. Taking advantage of the Hui uprising in China's Xinjiang province, he led his Andijani army to capture Kashgar and Yarkand from the Chinese and gradually took control of most of the region, including Aksu, Kucha, and other cities in 1867. He made himself the ruler of Kashgaria with its capital in Kashgar. At about this time he received the title of Atalik Ghazi ("Champion Father"), by which he is sometimes known.

He then deposed his former master, the Naqshbandi shaykh Buzurg Khan (Busurg Khan) (the only survived son of Jahangir Khoja) of the White Mountain, in 1867, and declared that he was the Amir. For the first few years, he was a vassal of the Khan of Kokand, but eventually declared independence.

Yakub Beg ruled at the height of The Great Game era when the British, Russian, and Chinese empires were all vying for Central Asia. Kashgaria extended from the capital Kashgar in south-western Xinjiang to Urumqi, Turpan, and Hami in central and eastern Xinjiang more than a thousand kilometers to the north-east, including a majority of what was known at the time as East Turkestan.

Yaqub Beg's Uyghur forces declared a Jihad against Chinese Muslims (Dungans) under T'o Ming (Tuo Ming a.k.a. Daud Khalifa) during the Dungan revolt. Islamic jurists under Yaqub Beg believed that the Chinese Muslims who were of Hui origin wanted to grab the territory for the Qing Emperor, and they being Turkic themselves, decided to wage war against Chinese Hui Muslims. Yaqub Beg enlisted non Muslim Han Chinese militia under Hsu Hsuehkung in order to fight against the Chinese Muslims. T'o Ming's forces were defeated by Yaqub, who planned to conquer Dzungharia. Yaqub intended to seize all Dungan territory.

Poems were written about the victories of Yaqub Beg's forces over the Chinese and the Tungans (Chinese Muslims).

Yakub Beg seized Aksu from Chinese Muslim forces and forced them north of the Tien Shan mountains, committing massacres upon the Chinese Muslims (tunganis).

Yaqub Beg gave himself the title "Athalik Ghazi, Champion Father of the Faithful", and was known for his crushing of both non Muslim and Muslim Chinese alike.

Yaqub entered into relations and signed treaties with the Russian Empire and Great Britain, but when he tried to get their support against China, he failed.

Eventually, Qing forces, including Chinese Muslims led by General Cui and General Hua, who spearheaded the attack on Yaqub Beg's forces in Xinjiang, defeated Yaqub Beg and destroyed his army.

Yakub Beg was disliked by his Turkic Muslim subjects, burdening them with heavy taxes and subjecting them to a harsh version of Islamic law.