His state had a much better prospect of endurance than the other Mohammedan states.  He had full control of it from 1874.  Turkestan was connected with China only by the few routes that led between the desert and the Tibetan mountains.  The state was supported against China by Russia, which was continually pressing eastward, and in the south by Great Britain, which was pressing towards Tibet.  Farther west was the great Ottoman empire; the attempt to gain direct contact with it was not hopeless in itself, and this was recognized at Istanbul.  Missions went to and fro, and Turkish officers came to Yakub Beg and organized his army; Yakub Beg recognized the Turkish sultan as Khalif.  He also concluded treaties with Russia and Great Britain.  But in spite of all this he was unable to maintain his hold of Turkestan.  In 1877 the famous Chinese general Tso Tsung-t’ang (1812-1885), who had fought against the T’ai P’ing and also against the Mohammedans in Kansu, marched into Turkestan and ended Yakub Beg’s rule.

Yakub was defeated, however, not so much by Chinese superiority as by a combination of circumstances.  In order to build up his kingdom he was compelled to impose heavy taxation, and this made him unpopular with his own followers:  they had had to pay taxes under the Chinese, but the Chinese collection had been much less rigorous than that of Yakub Beg.  It was technically impossible for the Ottoman empire to give him any aid, even had its internal situation permitted it.  Britain and Russia would probably have been glad to see a weakening of the Chinese hold over Turkestan, but they did not want a strong new state there, once they had found that neither of them could control the country while it was in Yakub Beg’s hands.  In 1881 Russia occupied the Ili region, Yakub’s first conquest.  In the end the two great powers considered it better for Turkestan to return officially into the hands of the weakened China, hoping that in practice they would be able to bring Turkestan more and more under their control.  Consequently, when in 1880, three years after the removal of Yakub Beg, China sent a mission to Russia with the request for the return of the Ili region to her, Russia gave way, and the Treaty of Ili was concluded, ending for the time the Russian penetration of Turkestan.  In 1882 the Manchu government raised Turkestan to a “new frontier” (Sinkiang) with a special administration.

This process of colonial penetration of Turkestan continued.  Until the end of the first world war there was no fundamental change in the situation in the country, owing to the rivalry between Great Britain and Russia.  But after 1920 a period began in which Turkestan became almost independent, under a number of rulers of parts of the country.  Then, from 1928 onward, a more and more thorough penetration by Russia began, so that by 1940 Turkestan could almost be called a Soviet Republic.  The second world war diverted Russian attention to the West, and at