Indian Antiquary Vol 52

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 156

140
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JUNE, 1923
and painstaking organization which the success of Kao Hsien-chih's operations indisputably attests in that long-forgotten Chinese leader and those who shared his efforts.
The location of Lien-yün near Sarhad, as originally proposed by M. Chavannes, is confirmed by the description of the battle by which the Chinese general rendered himself master of the Tibetan position and of the route it was intended to guard. The three Chinese columns operating, as I have shown, from the west, east, and north, "had agreed to effect their junction on the thirteenth day of the seventh month (August) between seven and nine o'clook in the morning at the Tibetan stronghold of Lien-yün. In that stronghold there were a thousand soldiers ; moreover, at a distance of 15 li (about 3 miles) to the south of the rampart, advantage had been taken of the mountains to erect palisades, behind which there were eight to nine thousand troops. At the foot of the rampart there flowed the river of the valley of Po-le, which was in flood and could not be crossed.20 Kao Hsien-chih made an offering of three victims to the river; he directed his captains to select their best soldiers and their best horses; each man carried rations of dry food for three days. In the morning, they assembled by the river-bank. As the waters were difficult to cross, officers and soldiers all thought the enterprise senseless. But when the other river-bank was reached, neither had the men wetted their standards nor the horses their saddle-cloths.
"After the troops had crossed and formed their ranks, Kao Hsien-chih, overjoyed, said to Pien Ling-ch'êng (the Imperial Commissioner): For a moment, while we were in the midst of the passage, our force was beaten if the enemy had come. Now that we have crossed and formed ranks, it is proof that Heaven delivers our enemies into our hands.' He at once ascended the mountain and engaged in a battle which lasted from the ch'en period (7-9 a.m.) to the 88ŭ period (9-11 a.m.). He inflicted a great defeat upon the barbarians, who fled when the night came. He pursųed them, killed 5,000 men, and made 1,000 prisoners; all the rest dispersed. He took more than 1,000 horses, and warlike stores and arms beyond counting."
The analysis given above of the routes followed by the Chinese columns, and what we shall show below of Kao Hsien-chih's three days' march to Mount T'an-chü, or the Darkot, confirm M. Chavannes in locating the Tibetan stronghold of Lien-yün near the present Sarhad, the last permanent settlement on the uppermost Oxus. It is equally clear from the description of the river crossing that the Chinese concentration must have taken place on the right or northern bank of the Ab-i-Panja, where the hamlets constituting the present Sarhad are situated, while the stronghold of Lien-yün lay on the opposite left bank.
Before I was able to visit the ground in May 1906, I had already expressed the belief that the position taken up by the Tibetan main force, 15 li (circ. 3 miles) to the south of Lien: yün, must be looked for in the valley which debouches on the Ab-i-Panja opposite to Sarhad.21 It is through this open valley that the remarkable depression in the main Hindukush range represented by the Baroghil and Shawitakh saddles (12,460 and 12,560 feet respectively), is gained. I also surmised that the Chinese general, apart from the confidence aroused by the successful river crossing, owed his victory mainly to a flanking movement by which his troope gained the heights, and thus suecessfully turned the fortified line behind which the Tibetans were awaiting them.
30 M. Chavannee has shown (Turca occidentaux, p. 164) that this name Po-k is a misreading oasily explained in Chinese writing for So-18 mentioned elsewhore as a town in Ha-mi or Wakhan.
11 See Ancient Khotan, i. p. 7