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This paper, using a Turkic-language document, EM 13135, kept in the Ethnography Museum in Ankara and Qing archival documents, describes the actual social conditions of the Turfani community in Guazhou and clarifies their position within Qing strategy towards the northwest. In the early eighteenth century, the conflict between the Qing dynasty and the Junghars intensified around the eastern Tianshan region. In 1732, the Qing launched an initiative to encourage the Turkic-speaking Muslims of Turfan, who had cooperated with the Qing army, to seek refuge in Qing territory. In the following year, about 10, 000 Turfanis, led by Emin Khwāja (1684/85-1777), immigrated to Guazhou in western Gansu. The Turfani refugees received from the Qing government various forms of support such as the construction of towns, the supply and loan of food, farming implements, and livestock, and the construction of irrigation channel and reclamation of waste land. Seen from the Qing point of view, there was an urgent need to develop the western Gansu region, especially the sparsely populated and least-developed Kouwai area west of Jiayuguan, as a supply base for the frontline of the war with the Junghars. In such a situation, the presence of the Turfan refugees fitted exactly with the Qing strategy for the northwest. The Turfani migration to Guazhou may have come about because the Qing, who wished to strengthen their defenses in western Gansu, shared a mutual interest with the Turfanis. After the Qing successfully overthrew the Junghars in 1755, the Guazhou Turfanis were able to return to their homeland. Then Emin Khwāja and his descendants, i. e. the family of the Turfan junwangs, became the most prominent ruler to manage the administration of the local Muslim population in Qing Xinjiang. As the context of EM 13135 has demonstrated, the experience to migrate to Guazhou also had a great effect on their identity in this stage. |
