Aggressive-Expansionist Policy of Manchu-Qing China in Eastern Turkestan

Armed Resistance of the Kyrgyz Against Chinese Troops

At the same time, Eastern Turkestan became the target of the aggressive expansionist policy of Manchu-Qing China. With the defeat of the Dzungar Khanate, the Qing nearly exterminated its local Oirat population.

A century later, A.N. Kuropatkin, who visited Eastern Turkestan, wrote: “The Chinese probably considered their power in Dzungaria to be unstable because this country was acquired without bloodshed.

Therefore, in the following year, 1758, taking advantage of minor local uprisings, the Emperor sent three armies under the command of Zhao-Hui and Fu-De with orders to eradicate the Dzungars. A terrible massacre of the Kalmyks began, indiscriminately killing men, women, and children. About 1,000,000 souls perished in this inhumane slaughter... The inhabitants of this once-rich country were exterminated.” Only a small part of the Oirat people survived - according to L.I. Duman, based on Eastern sources, about 20%. They were saved by resettlement to Russia, to the Lower Volga region (now Kalmyk ASSR). Several thousand Oirats settled in Fergana. They assimilated with the local population, retaining only their tribal self-designation “Kalmyk.” A new tribe “sart-kalmak” emerged in northern Kyrgyzstan - a fragment of the once monolithic people. Thus, despite the predatory nature of the Dzungar feudal lords' policies, the Kyrgyz and Uzbek peoples managed to rise above the thirst for revenge for past feudal disputes and oppression, sheltering the unfortunate refugees and providing them with assistance.

Chinese historians as early as the 1950s (Shan Yue and others) acknowledged that “the victory was achieved through the most ruthless, almost total extermination of the population of Dzungaria.”

Under the pretext of pursuing Oirat refugees, Qing troops attempted to cross from the Ili River valley into Northern Kyrgyzstan in the summer of 1758. But here they encountered armed resistance from the local population: the first serious clash between the Kyrgyz and Chinese troops occurred.

It did not have any significant impact on the fate of the Kyrgyz people - the Chinese troops did not linger here, but in official Chinese sources, based on the testimony of just one captive, it was tendentiously stated that some Kyrgyz biys “expressed their consent to submit [to China].”

Such statements had no sufficient basis. Let us turn to the facts. In the autumn of 1759 (according to some sources, in 1760), after a stubborn two-year struggle of the Uyghur people against the Manchus, representatives of the former feudal-theocratic dynasty of Khojas Burhan-ad-Din and Khan-Khodja fled from Eastern Turkestan to Central Asia. The Chinese decided to use their flight to attempt to pass through the Kyrgyz pastures to the borders of Kokand and other Central Asian possessions, but unsuccessfully. At that time, the Kyrgyz were not united; feudal tribal fragmentation weakened them, but nevertheless, they were not helpless - when necessary and in the face of external threats, they were capable of resisting neighbors like Kokand and even China.

A characteristic example is as follows. The well-known Sarybagysh biy Cherikchi, whose envoys were in Beijing in 1759, personally met a Chinese detachment that appeared at Issyk-Kul in 1760 with gunfire.

Traces of the Political Activity of the Kyrgyz in the Second Half of the 18th Century.