tell the Governor-general the fate of Huining. Most of the Huiyuan (Manchu Kulja) fell to the rebels on January8, 1866. The majority of the residents and garrison perished along with some 700 rebels. Mingsioi, still holding out in the Huiyuan fortress with the remainder of his troops, but having run out of food, sent a delegation to the rebels, bearing a gift of 40 sycees of silver and four boxes of green tea, and offered to surrender, provided the rebels guaranteed their lives and allowed them to keep their allegiance to the Qing government. Twelve Manchu officials with their families left the citadel along with the delegation. The Huis and Taranchis received them and allowed the refugees from Huiyuan to settle in Yining ("the Old Kuldja"). However, the rebels would not accept Mingsioi's conditions, requiring instead that he surrender immediately and recognize the authority of the rebels. Since Mingsioi had rejected the rebels' proposal, they immediately stormed the citadel. On March3, the rebels having broken into the citadel, Mingsioi assembled his family and staff in his mansion, and blew it up, dying under its ruins. This was the temporary end, for the time being, of Qing rule in the Ili Valley. Yaqub Beg in Kashgaria As noted by Muslim sources, the Qing authorities in Kashgar had all along intended to eliminate local Dungans, and managed to carry out their preemptive massacre in the summer of 1864. This weakening of the local Dungan contingent was possibly the reason why the initial revolt had not been as successful in this area as in the rest of the province. Although the Dungan rebels were able to seize Yangihissar, neither they nor the Kyrgyzs of Siddiq Beg could break into either the Manchu forts outside Yangihissar and Kashgar, nor into the walled Muslim city of Kashgar itself, which was held by Qutluq Beg, a local Muslim appointee of the Qing. Unable to take control of the region on their own, the Dungans and Kyrgyzs turned for help to Kokand's ruler Alim Quli. Assistance arrived in early 1865 in both spiritual and material form. Spiritual aid came in the person of Buzurg Khoja (also known as Buzurg Khan), a member of the influential Afaqis family of khojas, whose religious authority could be expected to raise the rebellious spirit of the populace. He was heir to a long family tradition of starting mischief in Kashgaria, being