Kokandi Traders, Kirghiz Robbers, and Qing Law in the Qianlong Period, 1736–95

In this paper, I analyze several cases from the Qianlong period (1736-95) in which Qing officials stationed in Altishahr (southern Xinjiang) intervened on behalf of Kokandi traders raided by the Kirghiz along the Silk Roads. Neither the Kokandis nor the Kirghiz were Qing subjects, and some of the incidents took place outside the Qing domain, making the very act of Qing intercession surprising. The Qing officials resolved these cases by punishing the Kirghiz robbers and compensating the Kokandi merchants for their losses in property, the latter of which is also unexpected. By analyzing these cases, I draw two broad conclusions. First, sovereignty in early modern Asia was fundamentally different from the modern principle of Westphalian sovereignty. In this borderland, territoriality, subjecthood, and property rights remained flexible and elastic. Second, long-distance overland trade remained vibrant and important in early modern Central Asia, as indicated by the brisk flow of the caravan traffic and the volume of merchandise carried by the caravans, documented in the records of compensation. In arguing this, I am writing against the centuries-long assumption that the Silk Roads went into irreversible decline with the European Age of Discovery, thereby adding to recent work by Scott Levi and other scholars of Central Asia.