Mikhail Chernyayev, having reached the rank of Major-General, makes his famous march with one thousand men across the steppes of Turkestan to Chimkent (Shymkent) in the Khanate of Kokand in 1864, to meet another Russian column from Semipalatinsk (Semey), in Siberia, in conjunction with which he successfully storms Chimkent, then ...

...unsuccessfully attacks Tashkent, one hundred and thirty kilometers farther south.

Chernyayev, a member of a noble family, had been educated at the Nicholas Staff College, entered the army in 1847, and distinguished himself in the Crimean War and in the Caucasus.

After serving as divisional Chief of Staff in Poland, he had gone to Orenburg in 1858 as assistant to the commander of the line of the Syr-Darya, and the following year had commanded an expedition to support the Kazakh tribes on the borders of the Aral Sea against the Khanate of Khiva.

He had served on the staff of the Army of the Caucasus for a time before returning to Orenburg as Chief of Staff.

Once established as Kashgar's ruler, Buzurg and Yaqub send Alimqul an ambassador, Mir Baba, with rich gifts.

Alimqul, born into a family of a Kyrgyz-Kipchak beys in Buchun Bitkan near Kokand ca. 1833, had studied in madrasahs in Andijan and Kokand, earning the title of mullah, and for a while had served as the bey of Qurghan Tepa, near Andijan.

In 1858, Alimqul had helped Malla Beg (Malla Bek) overthrow his brother Khudayar Khan by bringing the Kyrgyz over to Malla Beg's side.

Malla Beg, upon seizing the Kokandian khan's throne in November 1858, had rewarded Alimqul with several successive promotions.

In 1860, already governor of Marghilan, Alimqul had been in charge of a large Kokandian force that had defeated invaders from the Emirate of Bukhara.

An active participant in the struggle for power that ensued after the death of Malla Beg in a February, 1862, coup, Alimqul had soon succeeded in thwarting Bukhara's attempt to bring Khudayar Khan back to power.

Not being of royal blood himself, Alimqul had elevated Malla Beg's minor son, Sultan Sayyid Khan, as a titulary khan, and rules the country himself as the commander in chief of the military (Amir-i Lashkar).

The poorly equipped forces of the khanates can do little to resist Russia's advances, although the Kokandian commander Alimqul had led a quixotic campaign before being killed in May 1865 defending Tashkent, which Chernyayev, aftwer wintering at Chimkent, now captures Tashkent.

This is contrary to his instructions, and although he will be received in St. Petersburg with enthusiasm, and presented with a sword of honor by the tsar, he will not again be employed in the military service, and will retire from it in July 1874.

The main opposition to Russian expansion into Turkestan comes from the British, who feel that Russia is growing too powerful and threatening the northwest frontiers of British India.

This rivalry has come to be known as The Great Game, where both powers compete to advance their own interests in the region.

It does little to slow the pace of conquest north of the Oxus, but does ensure that Afghanistan remains independent as a buffer state between the two Empires.

Khujand, ...

...Jizzakh, and ...

...Samarkand had fallen to the Russians in quick succession following the fall of Tashkent to General Chernyayev as the Khanate of Kokand and the Emirate of Bukhara have been repeatedly defeated during the past two years.

The Governor-Generalship of Russian Turkestan is established under General Konstantin Petrovich Von Kaufman, with its headquarters at Tashkent, in 1867.

Russian interference in Central Asia had been minimal throughout the 1860s, leaving native ways of life intact and local government structures in place for the most part.

With the conquest of Turkestan after 1865 and the consequent securing of the frontier, the Russians have gradually expropriated large parts of the steppe and given these lands to Russian farmers, who begin to arrive in large numbers.

This process is initially limited to the northern fringes of the steppe.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Qing Dynasty had made several campaigns to conquer the Dzungar Mongols.

In the meantime, they had incorporated parts of Central Asia into the Chinese Empire.

Internal turmoil has largely halted Chinese expansion in the nineteenth century.

Yakub Beg had led a rebellion in 1867 that had seen Kashgar declaring its independence as the Taiping and Nian Rebellions in the heartland of the Empire prevented the Chinese from reasserting their control.

Instead, the Russians have expanded, annexing the Chu and Ili Valleys and the city of Kuldja from the Chinese Empire.

The Russians subdue Bokhara and Khiva in 1873 but allow them to survive as vassal-states; both khanates became Russian protectorates.