Yarkant County
Yarkant County, also known as Yakan County or Shache County, is a county in the Xinjiang, China, located on the southern rim of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin. It is one of 11 counties administered under Kashgar Prefecture. The county, usually referred to as Yarkand in English, was the seat of an ancient Buddhist kingdom on the southern branch of the Silk Road and the Yarkand Khanate. The county sits at an altitude of and as of 2003 had a population of.
The fertile oasis is fed by the Yarkand River, which flows north down from the Karakorum mountains and passes through the Kunlun Mountains, known historically as the Congling mountains. The oasis now covers, but was likely far more extensive before a period of desiccation affected the region from the 3rd century CE onwards.
Today, Yarkant is a predominantly Uyghur settlement with a small Tajik minority. The irrigated oasis farmland produces cotton, wheat, corn, fruits and walnuts. Yak and sheep graze in the highlands. Mineral deposits include petroleum, natural gas, gold, copper, lead, bauxite, granite and coal.
Image:Tarimrivermap.png|260px|thumb|Map showing the rivers of the Tarim Basin and Yarkand River
History
Han dynasty
The territory of Yārkand is first mentioned in the Book of Han as "Shaju", which is probably related to the name of the Iranian Saka tribes.Descriptions in the Hou Hanshu contain insights into the complex political situation China faced in attempting to open up the "Silk Routes" to the West in the 1st century CE. According to the "Chapter on the Western Regions" in the Hou Hanshu:
File:Zhigongtu.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Yarkand ambassador at the Chinese court of Emperor Yuan of Liang in his capital Jingzhou in 516–520 CE, with explanatory text. Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang, 11th century Song copy.
"Pei Zun, the Administrator of Dunhuang, wrote saying that foreigners should not be allowed to employ such great authority and that these decrees would cause the kingdoms to despair. An Imperial decree then ordered that the seal and ribbons of "Protector General" be recovered, and replaced with the seal and ribbon of "Great Han General." Xian's envoy refused to make the exchange, and Zun took them by force.
In 90 CE the Yuezhi or Kushans invaded the region with an army of reportedly 70,000 men, under their Viceroy, Xian, but they were forced to withdraw without a battle after Ban Chao instigated a "burnt earth" policy.
After the Yuanchu period, when the Yuezhi or Kushans placed a hostage prince on the throne of Kashgar:
In 130 CE, Yarkand, along with Ferghana and Kashgar, sent tribute and offerings to the Chinese Emperor.
Later history
There is very little information on Yarkant's history for many centuries, apart from a couple of brief references in Tang dynasty histories and it appears to have been of less note than the oasis of Kharghalik to its south.The area became the main base in the region for Chagatai Khan, who inherited Kashgaria and Jaxartes after his father, Genghis Khan, died in 1227.
Marco Polo described Yarkant in 1273, but said only that this "province" was, "five days' journey in extent. The inhabitants follow the law of Mahomet, and there are also some Nestorian Christians. They are subject to the Great Khan's nephew. It is amply stocked with the means of life, especially cotton."
At the end of the 16th century Yarkant was incorporated into the Khanate of Kashgar and became its capital. The Jesuit Benedict Göez, who sought a route from the Mughal Empire to Cathay, arrived in Yarkant with a caravan from Kabul in late 1603. He remained there for about a year, making a short trip to Khotan during that time. He reported:
During his journey, Göez also noted the presence of large marble quarries in the area, leading him to write that amongst native travellers from Yarkant to Cathay:
Yarkent Khanate
Yarkent served as capital for the Yarkent Khanate, also known as Yarkent State, from the establishment of Yarkent Khanate to its fall.The Khanate was predominantly Uyghur/Turki; some of its most populated cities were Hotan, Yarkent, Kashgar, Yangihissar, Aksu, Uchturpan, Kucha, Karashar, Turpan and Kumul. It enjoyed continued dominance in the region for about 200 years until it was conquered by the Dzungar Khan, Tsewang Rabtan in 1705.
In the first half of the 14th century the Chagatai Khanate had collapsed; on the western part of the collapsed Chagatai Khanate, the Empire of Timur emerged in 1370, and became the dominant power in the region until its conquest in 1508 by the Shaybanids. Its eastern part became Moghulistan, which was created by Tughluk Timur Khan in 1347 with the capital centered in Almalik, around the Ili River Valley. It comprised all the settled lands of Eastern Kashgaria, as well as regions of Turpan and Kumul which were known at the time as Uyghurstan, according to Balkh and Indian sources of the 16th and 17th centuries. The reigning dynasty of the Yarkent Khanate originated from this state, which existed for more than a century.
In 1509 the Dughlats, vassal rulers of the Tarim basin, rebelled against the Moghulistan Khanate and broke away. Five years later Sultan Said Khan, a brother of the Khan of Moghulistan in Turfan, conquered the Dughlats but established his own Yarkent khanate instead.
This put an end to the dominance in the cities of Kashgaria of the Dughlat emirs, who had controlled them since 1220, when most of Kashgaria had been granted to the Dughlat by Chagatai Khan himself. The conquest of the Dughlats allowed the Yarkent state to become the foremost power in the region.
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty gained control of the region in the middle of the 18th century.By the 19th century, due to its active trade with Ladakh, and an influx of foreign merchants, it became "the largest and most populous of all the States of Káshghar.". Yakub Beg conquered Khotan, Aksu, Kashgar, and neighbouring towns with the help of the Russians in the 1860s. He made Yarkant the capital of the newly founded Turkic state of Yettishar, where he received embassies from England in 1870 and 1873. The Qing dynasty defeated Yakub at Turpan in 1877 after which he committed suicide. Thus ended the Yettishar kingdom, and the region returned to Qing Chinese control.
Chinese merchants and soldiers, foreigners like Russians, foreign Muslims, and other Turki merchants all engaged in temporary marriages with Turki women, since a lot of foreigners lived in Yarkand, temporary marriage flourished there more than it did towards areas with fewer foreigners like areas towards Kucha's east. The Earl of Dunmore wrote in 1894:
Almost every Chinaman in Yarkand, soldier or civilian, takes unto himself a temporary wife, dispensing entirely with the services of the clergy, as being superfluous, and most of the high officials also give way to the same amiable weakness, their mistresses being in almost all cases natives of Khotan, which city enjoys the unenviable distinction of supplying every large city in Turkestan with courtesans.
When a Chinaman is called back to his own home in China proper, or a Chinese soldier has served his time in Turkestan and has to return to his native city of Pekin or Shanghai, he either leaves his temporary wife behind to shift for herself, or he sells her to a friend. If he has a family he takes the boys with him~—if he can afford it—failing that, the sons are left alone and unprotected to fight the battle of life, While in the case of daughters, he sells them to one of his former companions for a trifling sum.
The natives, although all Mahammadans, have a strong predilection for the Chinese, and seem to like their manners and customs, and never seem to resent this behaviour to their womankind, their own manners, customs, and morals being of the very loosest description.
Twentieth century
The Battle of Yarkand took place in Yarkant county, in April 1934. Ma Zhancang's Chinese Muslim army defeated the Turkic Uighur and Kirghiz army, and the Afghan volunteers sent by king Mohammed Zahir Shah, and exterminated them all. The emir Abdullah Bughra was killed and beheaded, his head was sent to Idgah mosque.Almost all the ancient buildings of the old city were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution with only the central mosque, the main gate of the old palace and the royal cemetery surviving.
In July 2014, militants attacked two towns in armed clashes in the county, leaving dozens of people dead.
In August 2015, it was reported by Chinese media that the amount of farmland per capita was increased from per person to after clearing up more arable lands.
Geography
Yarkant is strategically located about halfway between Kashgar and Khotan, at the junction of a branch road north to Aksu. It also was the terminus for caravans coming from Kashmir via Ladakh and then over the Karakoram Pass to the oasis of Niya in the Tarim Basin. The Xinjiang-Tibet Highway China National Highway 219, built in 1956 commences in Yecheng/Yarkant and heads south and west, across Aksai Chin and into central Tibet.From Yarkant another important route headed southwest via Tashkurgan Town to the Wakhan corridor from where travellers could cross the relatively easy Baroghil Pass and Badakshan.