situation in Southern Xinjiang, that was not improved by the refusal of the British Indian Government to send troops to the assistance of the Chinese at Kashgar despite an official request made to the British Consul-General at Kashgar N.Fitzmaurice ( was in office from May 1922 to July 1922 and again from September 1931 to November 1933) by Ma Shaowu on February 25, 1933. It was all too apparent that no help would be forthcoming from Urumchi, after the cutting of telegraph links between Kashgar and Urumchi at Aksu. Brigadier Yang troops were attacked by Hui and Uyghur rebels on march and of his original force, estimated well over 1,000 troops, a mere sixty five had straggled back to Kashgar by April 27. Later the joint Uyghur and Hui force surrounding Kashgar split again, as Ma Zhancang allied with the local provincial authority representative, a fellow Hui named Ma Shaowu (馬紹武), and attacked the Uyghur forces, killing Timur Beg. A Kirghiz rebellion had earlier broken out in Xinjiang in 1932, led by the Kirghiz leader Id Mirab. Ma Shaowu had crushed and defeated the Kirghiz rebels. The Soviet Union had been involved in also fighting against the rebels, who had spilled over to the Soviet side. In March 1932, large number of Kirghiz were driven across the Xinjiang frontier by pursuing Soviet forces. A series of guerrilla counter-attacks against the Soviets were mounted from Chinese territory and in raids on Koksu and two other Soviet posts a total of thirty seven Soviet troops were killed. Establishment of the ETR The Eastern Turkistsan Independence Association in Kashghar ran a newspaper called Independence (Istqlāl). While this was transpiring, in the nearby southern Tarim Basin city of Khotan, three brothers of rich Bughra family, Muhammad Amin Bughra, Abdullah Bughra and Nur Ahmad Jan Bughra, educated in the jadidist tradition, in February 1933 had led a rebellion of gold miners who worked in Surghak mines near Keriya city, also in Yurunkash and Karakash mountain rivers, and established themselves as emirs of the city, having declared the Khotan Emirate and independence from China on March 16, 1933. Leader of Karakash gold miners Ismail Khan Khoja sent message to Governor Jin Shuren: "Foolish infidels like you are not fit to rule. ... You infidels think that because you have rifles, guns ... and money, you can depend on them, but we depend of God in whose