ABSTRACT
By the end of May 1912 the Ko-Lao-Hui leaders and their tools, the gamblers, had taken over the administration of the southern oases and Kashgaria had become more or less independent of the provincial government at Urumchi. But at that very time two things happened which were to have far-reaching consequences. The Russians put into action their plan for military intervention in Kashgaria and the President of the Chinese Republic formally appointed the Chief Justice of the province, Yang Tseng-hsin, to act as Governor of Sinkiang in place of the discredited Yuan. Macartney only mentioned this last event casually in his reports to the Resident in Kashmir. He had little use for far-off mandarins anyway, and no knowledge of Yang’s character or the extent to which he had already stepped into Yuan’s shoes. But it was Yang who, eighteen months later, won the last round of the triangular contest for control of the New Dominion.
