After the Qing court pacified Xinjiang, the first thing to do was to sweep away the scattered rebel forces in various places, build cities and pools, and deploy troops to consolidate its rule in Xinjiang;
This was followed by economic development, focusing on solving problems such as grain, livestock, and agricultural tools, so as to restore the normal labor of ordinary people; then, declaring its sovereignty over Xinjiang to foreign states and increasing strategic buffer zones as far as possible to protect the stability of the frontier.
The internal friction of the Quasi-Department and the conquest of the Qing army made Xinjiang at that time full of ruins and broken walls, although the people were already unhappy, but the Veyrat nobles did not give up the restoration, and the forces represented by the descendants of Zhuo were eyeing the tiger, and the neighboring states were also coveting Xinjiang, in this situation of internal and external troubles, the previous Ili generals were bound to take military authority as the center of gravity, with military strength to maintain the Qing court's rule in Xinjiang, so it was natural to build a city to prevent internal worries, and to strengthen border defense to suppress external troubles.
(1) Move Yaer City and build Huiyuan and Huining Cities
As the garrison of general Ili, Ili was also the political, economic, and cultural center of Xinjiang at that time, and there were many officers and soldiers stationed and merchants, so the first Ili general Mingrui presided over the construction of the two cities of Huining and Huiyuan on the basis of the original three cities of Ningyuan, Suiding, and Taleqi, and properly resettled the Chahar and Xibo soldiers who were stationed with their families.
At the same time, for Talbahatai, which has the "land of Xinjiang Ping domain", Mingrui also formulated the garrison according to Qianlong's instructions: "First, build the city in Ya'er; second, set up 1,500 horse soldiers and 500 green battalion soldiers; third, set up a counselor minister and a leader minister; fourth, replace the card with a patrol post; and fifth, set up three major Karen between Ili and Yar." ”
Mingrui's report was approved by the Qing court, and six hundred green battalion soldiers rushed to Ya'er to carry out the work of building the city, but because Mingrui was partial to the partiality of the inspection, he did not realize that the Ya'er place "has always been snowy, and the herding factory is far away." All the acres of land near the city are not enough for five hundred soldiers to cultivate. ”
When Ah Gui was demoted to Ya'er garrison because of the Ush Incident, because Ah Gui was not suitable for building a city to defend, please move Ya'er City to Chu hu Chu, and the Qing court learned that the location of Ya'er City was so bad. Moving the city to the people hurt the money, so the Qing court had to hold the relevant personnel responsible, which made things really interesting, one was Mingrui was Qianlong's nephew, and Mingrui drew and submitted it to the Qing court before the city was built; the second was approved by the Qing court and Qianlong personally gave the name of the city, although Qianlong was very angry, but when the city was founded, "because the ministers and other ministers came to him and asked Erut and so on... That is, to understand Chen Song", but this matter was finally not resolved.
Later, after Ah Gui took office as the general of Ili, he asked the Qing court to set up Ya'er as a post, so that the city of Ya'er was not abandoned, and Ah Gui set up seven platforms under the city of Yar to facilitate the transfer of applied objects from the interior to Ili, which had important border defense significance, so the Qing court approved this plan.
Of course, the above is only the side of Ah Gui's better exercise of power when he was the general of Ili, and at the same time, he also made some mistakes in the exercise of his powers, such as the locust plague in Ili after Ah Gui presided over the construction of Huiyuan City, and the cause of Tuntian was persecuted, so Ah Gui asked Qianlong to temporarily suspend the soldiers, but the house was damaged, so Qianlong criticized Ah Gui for wasting materials, "The former organizer is not."
After the completion of the construction of Huiyuan City, Huining City was put on the agenda again, as mentioned above, Mingrui had participated in the construction of Huining City, and the reason for the construction was that after the Ushi Incident, Qianlong found that southern Xinjiang needed to strengthen its troops, so it decided to add the Bayandai battalion and send the Eight Banners of Xi'an to move, but because of the natural disaster that occurred in Ili Tuntian that year, the grain income was far from enough to supply the relocated flag troops, so the relocation plan was suspended, until Yonggui was the general of Ili, the affairs of the Bayandai man camp were put back on the agenda, and the city walls had been built at that time. There was still a shortage of premises, and Yonggui asked Qianlong to transfer the garrison officers and men in two batches through the construction situation, and Qianlong completed the relocation work in thirty-five years.
Under Yonggui's supervision, Bayandai City was completed on time, and Qianlong gave him the name "Huining City" and added Bayandai's leading minister according to Yonggui's proposal.
(2) Improve the garrison system
General Ili is stationed in the city of Huiyuan in Ili, and the reason why Ili was chosen as the focus of the entire Xinjiang defense is mainly based on the following reasons:
First, the Ili region is rich in water resources, and the Tianshan Mountains block the water vapor of the Atlantic Ocean that drives straight into, making the local precipitation abundant and forming the Ili River;
Second, the soil in the Ili area is fertile, and the Ili River valley formed by the impact of the Ili River is particularly suitable for farming;
Third, the Ili area is easy to defend and difficult to attack, and the Tianshan Mountains surround the Ili area and only leave the west side as an opening, so the entire Ili River Valley is trumpet-shaped, which is a natural place for soldiers; fourth, Ili, as the gateway to Xinjiang, is the only way to enter and leave Xinjiang at that time.
It can be seen from this that Ili at that time had an extremely important strategic position, so in the twenty-sixth year of Qianlong, there were 1,000 Chahar and attached Erut soldiers stationed in Ili with their dependents, 1,000 Chahar soldiers with their dependents stationed in Ili in the 27th year of Qianlong, and 1,000 Xiber soldiers moved to Ili with their dependents after the general of Ili was set up, and when the establishment was gradually completed, a minister of the huining full camp leader was added, and the eight banners of the manying camp were responsible for the garrison affairs of the north road.
The Urumqi area of the East Road was originally under the jurisdiction of the Governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, and was transferred to the jurisdiction of General Ili after the establishment of General Ili, but Ili is far from Urumqi and the East Road is vast and the soldiers and people are concentrated, so Urumqi is set up to be responsible for the affairs of the East Road, and the garrison officers and men of the East Road are still mainly full of camps, supplemented by green battalions.
The Kashgar Counsellor General of the South Road was established in qianlong in the twenty-fifth year, and with the continuous development of southern Xinjiang, the status of Tarbahatai became more and more important, so the Counselor General of Tarbahatai was added to the original structure, but the entire southern Xinjiang was set up with a full battalion of defensive troops, and the green battalion of southern Xinjiang as a supplement accounted for a huge proportion of the green battalion soldiers in the whole of Xinjiang.
At this point, the general garrison pattern formed in the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains is "heavy on the north and light on the south", which can also be understood as "using the north to control the south", that is, in the area north of the Tianshan Mountains, the garrison troops are mainly deployed, and the combat effectiveness of the army is relatively strong; the areas south of the Tianshan Mountains are mainly based on the replacement of defense troops, the total number of troops replaced is small, and the combat effectiveness of the green battalion troops as auxiliaries is extremely poor.
This pattern of troop deployment led to the actual distribution of soldiers in each city in southern Xinjiang was about one or two hundred people, so whenever the city rioted, it was difficult for the Qing army's defenders to control the situation in time, so that the people in other cities were panicked, which triggered a chain reaction, as evidenced by the Ushi Incident, but the strange thing is that even with such a lesson, General Ili did not make major adjustments to the defense, until General Ili rearranged the garrison in southern Xinjiang after the Zhang Ge Rebellion.
(3) Add Karen and strengthen management
In addition to building cities and garrisoning, the later general Ili also paid attention to the addition and management of Karen. At the time of the initial determination of Xinjiang, the prestige of the Qing Dynasty was well-known in Central Asia, so the foreign countries did not dare to have any non-division of the Territory of the Qing Dynasty, in contrast, Karen set up not much, the army responsible for patrolling the border was relatively small in terms of rank and scale, but when Iltu took office as general of Ili, many contradictions hidden by the majesty of the Qing Dynasty were highlighted, such as Kazakh herdsmen crossing the border, the support of the Kokand State and the descendants of Zhuo, and the covetousness of the Russian army for Xinjiang territory, which was the problem that the Ili general Ili had to pay attention to at that time.
In order to deal with these border problems, The way Illetu took was to add Karen and strengthen management: Yiletu first added eleven karen to the original fifteen karen in Ili, and then added to other important places, according to the "Xinjiang Zhiluo" record, "By the beginning of the nineteenth century, There were a total of two hundred and fifty-three karen in Xinjiang, of which 200 in northern Xinjiang and 53 in southern Xinjiang, and Ili, as the center of gravity of the entire Xinjiang, accounted for almost four-tenths of the total number of karen in Xinjiang. ”
For these Karen, Ilitu formulated a strict management system, first of all, in the selection of officers and soldiers stationed in Karen, they must be physically strong, young and strong; secondly, in the selection of Karen officials, the local ministers of affairs and counsellors will transfer the candidates to General Ili, and then General Ili will invite the Qing court, most of these personnel have served as the emperor's bodyguard, escort army staff, and so on;
Thirdly, matters concerning Karen must be directly managed by General Ili, and even when the leading minister inspects the Karen he administers, he cannot cross Karen without the approval of General Ili; again, officials who enter and leave Karen on official business need the consent of General Ili to pass it on as evidence, and any foreigner who does not come for trade needs to inform General Ili and other generals to decide;
Finally, the leaders and ministers must inspect the Karen in charge of them once a year in spring and autumn, and have a detailed plan for the inspection time, route, and officials participating in the inspection, and must also resolve the disputes encountered in the inspection in a timely manner. Overall, the frontier was relatively stable until the early days of Jiaqing, so the successor Ili generals such as Shuhd, Yongbao, and Songjun did not change much except to strengthen their deployment.
If we have to find problems in these subtleties, we need to pay attention to Songjun's tun tian reform in Tarbahatai, when the grain obtained in Tarbahatai Tuntian could no longer meet the needs of the garrison, but it was not taken seriously. It was not until Song Yun became the general of Ili that he went to the Qing court and transferred two hundred soldiers from Urumqi to Tuntian in Tarbahatai, and Song Yun's proposal was approved by the Qing court, and Tuntian was also successful, which to a large extent solved the problem of shortage of food and grass for the garrison troops and was very helpful to the construction of border defense.
However, this also shows that there are many hidden dangers in southern Xinjiang at this time. Shortly thereafter, Song Jun was demoted due to the incident, and the elder who was in charge of taking over as the general of Ili, before taking office, Jiaqing gave the post of "Xinjiang heavy responsibility, to keep to become Ben ... At that time, Karen was still able to effectively resist Zhang Geer's invasion, but the officials of southern Xinjiang were already incurable, and the people and the Qing court were gradually drifting away; by the time Daoguang was four years old, Zhang Ge led five hundred soldiers to sweep through the four cities in western Xinjiang.
(4) Reflections on military authority
As a general of Ili, Mingrui credulously believed the opinion of Erut's descendants to build a city in Yar without much investigation, which was really unbelievable.
Because Mingrui's report at the time of Ya'er's construction of the city was reviewed by the Military Aircraft Department and approved by Qianlong, there were many high-ranking officials involved in the investigation, and even Qianlong himself was difficult to get rid of, so although Qianlong had the resentment of "not condemning it, Yi is equal to he an", he did not thoroughly investigate the responsibilities of the relevant personnel, of course, this also has a certain relationship with Mingrui being Empress Xiaochunxian's nephew.
At the same time, Ah Gui did not have such good luck, although as the only son of the university scholar Aktun, he was also valued by Qianlong, but after he presided over the construction of Huiyuan City during his tenure as general of Ili, the newly built houses in the city were damaged due to the impact of the locust plague and were not inhabited, and Qianlong reprimanded Ah Gui, "After the house is built, it will not be inhabited, and it will be damaged for a long time, and the doors and windows will not be suddenly damaged?" In this way, the material will be wasted also. ”
Qianlong's rebuke is not unreasonable, but compared with Ya'er's mistakes in building the city, we can probably see Qianlong's different attitudes toward the various Ili generals (which may also be Qianlong's way of taming his subjects), and it is not difficult to understand why the Ili generals who served during the Qianlong period had most of their political careers ups and downs.
On the whole, General Ili's work in xinjiang's city-building work is relatively stable, the border defense garrison also has a basis for it, and the patrol work has a set of strict procedures, so why is there still a phenomenon of Zhang Ge invading southern Xinjiang and the rapid fall of the four cities in southern Xinjiang.
I think it can be explained as follows:
First, the Qing court's strategy of "using the north to control the south" was blindly used for border defense; the premise of "controlling the south with the north" was that the southern frontier was already in chaos, so that troops sent from the northern xinjiang could quickly pacify the southern xinjiang with the help of the terrain advantage.
That is, the Qing court has unified the whole territory of Xinjiang, then the border defense strategy should no longer be based on the assumption that southern Xinjiang has been chaotic, this "precautionary" approach actually weakened the current border defense force in southern Xinjiang, but it was not corrected by General Ili until after the Zhang Ge Rebellion, when the then general of Ili was old, the Qing court changed the garrison of southern Xinjiang.
Second, the influence of Tuntian on the combat effectiveness of the army, although this point cannot be accurately proved for the time being, judging from Qianlong's disagreement with Shuhede's reply that "four hundred soldiers of UshTuntian should be ordered to cultivate for another year or two" and Jiaqing's exhortation not to abandon the armaments at a long age, Tuntian did have an impact on border defense to a certain extent, but this influence could not be cut across the board, because the tuntian in Tarbahatai alleviated the shortage of grain and grass for the army.
Third, the bad influence caused by the Ziyadun case handled by Song Jun, which caused some people in southern Xinjiang to deviate from the Qing court, some Bruts even moved away from Xinjiang, and the son of Turdi Maimot became the vanguard of the counterattack against the Qing court; in the Case of Yunus, the Montenegrin faction implicated in the Yunus case was greatly hit, and the efforts to find the descendants of Hezhuo were interrupted, and the forces supporting the restoration of the descendants of Hezhuo were reduced;
Fourth, Bin Jing, as the Counsellor general of Kashgar, used fornication as a matter of ability to force women to "pay more attention", which caused great resentment among the local Hui people; in addition, the corrupt behavior of local officials also made the people unspeakable, and this internal tension made the already weak southern Border Defense even worse.
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