The Chinese general (Zhao Hui?) orders cannons, which had been unloaded from camels, to be aimed at the enemy while his cavalry pursues the enemy. The Qing army erects a new bridge on the banks of the Black River Qara usu, near Yarkand. Prior to this event, the Qing army had been besieged for months.

When the Russian influence on the semi-desert steppe and oasis region between the Altai Mountains, the Tian Shan mountain range, and the Ili River Valley – the home of the West Mongolian Dzungar people – grew, Emperor Qianlong waged wars against the local nomadic population in 1755 and from 1756 to 1757. The Chinese conquest of the Dzungar people resulted in the annexation of the “Western Regions” and the territorial integration of the province of Xinjiang (“new frontier”). Emperor Qianlong had his victorious campaigns “documented” by Western court painters in large formats according to Chinese tradition. The pictures were sent to Paris as templates for copperplate prints between 1767 and 1774.

Panel 8

The Battle of Qurman 呼爾满大捷

In 1759, at the Battle of Qurman near the present-day city of Yarkand, troops of the Chinese Empire fought the troops under the Muslim leaders Burhan ad-Din and Khoja Jihan, who lost his life in the battle. After this battle, the entire region fell to the Chinese Empire under the name “Xinjiang”.