The New Dominion

The following is a translation of Abdurehim Ötkür’s 1985 historical novel Oyghanghan Zemin, Chapter One, pp. 1-8. It is presented for information and entertainment purposes only. It is also a work in progress — comments are welcome.

The Awakened Land

by Abdurehim Ötkür

trans. by The New Dominion

Chapter One: The Death of Yang Zengxin

The house in which these lords live is called “Opposition”;

Those in Opposition will remain in opposition.

- from the Qutadghu Bilik

It was the year 1928 AD, on a summer’s day, at the time when the July sun, burning steadily bright as a bonfire, had fallen from noon and bowed down.

In the south part of the city of Ürümchi, in the Nanliang neighborhood, before a garden courtyard’s brown-painted door stood an old carriage hitched with two grey steeds. The steeds swished their tails with a quiet whoosh. The driver, his yellow beard shot through with white, lay dozing on his platform in the shadow of the branches of the elm tree that stretched from the courtyard’s wall to the street. Of the eaved house in the deepest part of the courtyard, one of the windows, hung with a sky-blue curtain, stood open. In that very room, adorned with bookshelves, pictures and maps, a table and soft chairs, three people, clearly distinguishable from each other by their clothing and appearances, conversed pleasantly as they looked at the photographs framed in glass that hung on the wall.

One was a man, in his fifties of thereabouts, of medium height, blonde, somewhat hunched; his sparse, thinning hair made his forehead seem even broader. As he fanned himself with the front hem of his thin, grey suit, held in his right hand, he scratched his short, whitening moustache over and over with the tobacco pipe held in his left. This person was one of the first Uyghur intellectuals known to society, Tahirbäg of Pichan.

The second, wheat-complexioned, from whose black sheep eyes gleamed sparks of intelligence, was a broad-shouldered man in his forties or thereabouts, with gaily-cut clothes; his thick, beaver-black hair, oiled and combed to the side, suited him very well. With his hands placed in the pockets of his cream-colored pongee suit, he sat smiling. This man, who had had his eyes opened on his many trading journeys to cities like Shämäy, Tashkent, Qazan, Moscow, and Leningrad, and who was famous in society for his love of knowledge, was Mäxsut Muhiti of Astanä in Turpan.

The third, a man of medium height, on the thin side, with a rather hairless face, wearing a long, light blue satin jacket fastened up with loops at the armpit and light black cloth shoes on his feet, smoothed his sparse beard with his left hand as he fanned himself with the fan in his right. From his appearance, the now-bald head of this man in his fifties seemed a bit too large for him. This was the Mayor of Ürümchi and the Head of the Office of Military and External Affairs of the Subsidiary General’s yamen, Fan Yaonan.

Fan Yaonan, having come back after finishing his university studies in law in Japan in the last days of the Manchu Empire, had been appointed as the head of Xinjiang’s local Judges’ College. Having returned to the Interior after the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, he came again to Xinjiang in 1918 when he was appointed to the mayorship of Aqsu. However, Yang Zengxin, frightened of his own shadow by his ancient logic of “Learned people do not take part in simple matters; danger comes from them,” disallowed him to travel to Aqsu and held him in Ürümchi for a time. After Yang heard the news from informants in Beijing that “The one known as Fan Yaonan is a dangerous element belonging to the ‘progressive school’,” one suspicion being a thousand, he kept a close eye on Fan by appointing him the Mayor of Ürümchi and sending dozens of informants to shadow him.

Of course, after a couple of years had passed, Fan Yaonan’s reputation as a “dangerous element” came to be proven. “The light of the Republic has not fallen upon Xinjiang,” he said. “It seems the overthrow of the Manchu Khan and his lifeless corpse have left Xinjiang in a dark jungle. It seems there is not a trace of education, of culture, of populism. It seems the officials from the Interior have come to Xinjiang only to fill their own pockets. They are like swine who destroy the farmer’s cultivated land and gardens, fill their bellies, and return to the swamp.” His words shocked Yang Zengxin. Especially, as the thickness of the associations between Fan Yaonan and some “suspicious” officials, that is to say with some intellectuals among the local ethnic groups, began to show itself like a terrible shadow of death, Yang Zengxin began to want to make him vanish from his sight. However, rather than use blades in his struggle against his own political enemies, this old general who loved the craft of treachery departed from that opinion and seized on another road:

“It wouldn’t be hard to send Fan Yaonan to the Palace of God!” he thought. “I need only twitch my moustache, and everything will be good and ready. But if I do this, first, I’ll expose myself, which is to say it will give my enemies in Xinjiang and the Interior a scandal, justification to make them call me a stubborn dictator afraid of progressives - I’ll have put grist in their mill myself. Second, is it wise to block the circulation of the strange strains of opinion that flow in from the Interior and from Bolshevik Russia, as well as from the Turk and Arab countries, by killing a Fan Yaonan?! Better to fight fire with fire. It would be ja’iz[1]for me to turn the Fan Yaonan who opposes me into the Fan Yaonan who supports me. There is no brick that does not “drink” water, no bird that does not eat grain, and doesn’t a worm with its own softness eat up the hardest of woods! Where those tough guys who raised armed rebellion, like Tömür Xälpä, could not tolerate this craft of mine in their own time, what would this schoolboy Mr. Fan Yaonan then do? We will yet count our chickens once they’ve hatched. You could call that prudence.”

Yang Zengxin, pleased with his own “wisdom”, began to cackle. The very next day, Yang, inviting Fan Yaonan to his presence and feigning ignorance, happily had a heart-to-heart talk with him. In the end, he invited Fan to lead both the Military Affairs Department and the Office of Foreign Affairs of the General’s yamen, as well as being Mayor of Ürümchi. Ignoring Fan Yaonan’s repeated protestations, Yang said, “Among my administrators, there is no one more capable than you. What’s more, you are very faithful to me. If the God of Heaven puts my mind to rest, in the future, I’ll even want to memorialize the government about making you my own deputy.” He stopped himself abruptly.

From then on, these three titles were like three spider webs, binding his hands and feet, and they began to squeeze his throat. Since he did not fully understand for what purpose Yang Zengxin was doing these things, looking at his inability to do anything while staying in Xinjiang, he began to want to return to the Interior, expose Yang Zengxin, and, using powers from on high, force him down from his throne. So, he asked for permission to go and visit his children. Yang Zengxin, sensing a snake’s presence on the surface of the black earth, perceived the true intent of the request. He said, “Oh, brother, both of us are like wanderers in this desert, walking ghosts. Fate has joined us together as two birds of a feather. If we leave, don’t we leave together? Be patient.” He denied Fan’s request.

The next day, Yang Zengxin called his personal Russian translator. This graying, broad-foreheaded young man was Burhan Shähidi. Yang Zengxin, showing him two strings of gold coins on a table, said, “Go and visit His Excellency Fan in my name and give him this gold. He should send it to his children. His Excellency Fan likes you, isn’t that so? I have faith that you will execute this task very well. However, apart from you, no one may know about this!”

“Alright, I shall go now,” said Burhan Shähidi, carefully wrapping the gold in paper. But, his hands trembled involuntarily. Because he understood well enough that Fan Yaonan was meant to be in that ideological camp opposed to Yang Zengxin. Because of this, Yang Zengxin’s generosity in presenting him a gift of two hundred sär of gold panicked him, as did the way he said “His Excellency Fan likes you.”

“What is this? Did I ask General Yang for money?” asked Fan Yaonan, standing in his own house, gazing into Burhan Shähidi’s eyes.

“I stand before you very much ashamed,” said Burhan Shähidi. “In truth, I myself don’t understand any of this.”

“He wants to buy me, eh?!” said Fan Yaonan, shoving the strings of gold before him to one side.

“My goodness, no!” said Burhan Shähidi. “General Yang said ‘His Excellency Fan likes you. I have faith that you will execute this task very well.’ The words rang in my ears. If you don’t take these strings of gold…”

After Fan Yaonan had collected his thoughts for a moment, he said, “I understand completely. This is all a price paid for my head. General Yang bound my hands and feet with so many titles. Even now once again, his soul still uneasy, he wants to weld my mouth shut with gold, correct? This is all part of General Yang’s talent for controlling people. He really is a talented leader. However, it seems he is not a student of men. I should trust you enough to say to you, in this world, there is something that money cannot buy, that power cannot master, and it is called the ‘soul’. You may say what I have said to General Yang, but it’s good that you have heard it, as you are still young, and the road of life is long.”

In response to these words, Burhan Shähidi grasped Fan Yaonan’s thin fingers tightly, and his eyes did not break from Fan’s for some time. The light of the large kerosene lantern that stood on the edge of the table played on the tiny tears on their eyelashes.

According to some materials, Yang Zengxin sent such gifts to Fan Yaonan several times.

>> Read Chapter 1, Part 2…

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[1] ja’iz جائىز: in Sharia law, not sinful, but without merit.

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