by the local Turkic people. The Han fort, which, unlike many other Xinjiang locations, was inside the town rather than outside it, fell within a few days. Government buildings were burnt and some 1000 Hans and 150 Mongols killed. As neither the Dungan nor Turkic leaders of the revolt had sufficient authority over the entire community to become commonly recognized as a leader, the rebels instead choose a person who had not participated in the revolt, but was known for his spiritual role: Rashidin (Rashīdīn) Khoja, a dervish and the custodian of the grave of his ancestor of saintly fame, Arshad-al-Din (? – 1364 or 65). Over the next three years, he sent military expeditions east and west in an attempt to bring the entire Tarim Basin under his control; however, his expansion plans were frustrated by Yaqub Beg. Only three weeks after the events in Kucha, revolt broke out in the Eastern Circuit. The Dungan soldiers of the Ürümqi garrison rebelled on June26, 1864, soon after learning about the Kucha revolt. The two Dungan leaders were Tuo Ming (a.k.a. Tuo Delin), a New Teaching ahong from Gansu, and Suo Huanzhang, an officer who also had close ties to Hui religious leaders. Large parts of the city were destroyed, the tea warehouses burned, and the Manchu fortress besieged. The Ürümqi rebels then advanced westward through what is today Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, taking the cities of Manas (also known then as Suilai) on July17 (the Manchu fort there fell on September16) and Wusu (Qur Qarausu) on September29. On October3, 1864, the Manchu fortress of Ürümqi also fell to the joint forces of Ürümqi and Kuchean rebels. In a pattern that was to repeat in other Han forts throughout the region, the Manchu commander, Pingžui, preferred to explode his gunpowder, killing himself and his family, rather than surrender. After they learned of the Qing authorities' plan to disarm or kill them, the Dungan soldiers in Yarkand in Kashgaria rose up in the early hours of July26, 1864. Their first attack on the Manchu fort (which was outside of the walled Muslim city) failed, but it still cost the lives of 2,000 Qing soldiers and their families. In the morning, the Dungan soldiers entered the Muslim city, where some 7,000 Hans were forcibly converted to become Muslims or massacred. The Dungans being numerically few compared to the local Turkic Muslims, they picked