‘Do You Not Bow before Heaven?’: The First Qing- Durrānī Encounter, the Tributary Non-relationship, and Disorder on a Shared Frontier

In 1763, Aḥmad Shāh Durrānī sent an embassy to the Qianlong emperor. The envoy caused offence by refusing to prostrate himself. Still, the Qing court fêted his embassy. It seemed the beginning of a promising relationship, but the two empires never had contact again. The Qing court presented the embassy as a tributary mission, but in the pragmatic world of Qing frontier policy, contact with the Durrānīs was deliberately avoided. Why did no relationship develop? This attitude stemmed from Qianlong’s distrust of Central Asian rulers, and his understanding of the Afghans not as a tributary, but a rival imperial power.


Introduction
Shortly before the celebration of the New Year in February 1763, ambassadors from distant lands from within and without the Qing empire arrive in Beijing.

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' Do You Not Bow before Heaven? ' jesho 66 (2023) 707-741 elements analyzed by Hostetler.10 Another detailed, but still brief, reference is found in the footnotes of Yuri Bregel's edition of the nineteenth-century history of Khwarazm, Firdaws al-Iqbāl. Bregel focuses on Russian primary sources relating to Durrāni-Qing relations.11 A handful of other studies briefly mention aspects of the Durrāni-Qing encounter in wider discussions about Qing policy in Central Asia.12 None of these works engages with much primary or secondary literature on Afghan history. An important contribution which does engage with Persian-language primary texts is David Brophy's chapter on Persian letters in the Beijing Archive, which offers discussion and reproductions of original letters sent by regional rulers, several of which refer to Afghan campaigns in the region. Nevertheless the Afghans are not his focus.13 There is a single dedicated study of the relations between Aḥmad Shāh and the Qing in Chinese. Largely based on Qing primary documents, Li Xiao's 2013 article presents a comprehensive overview of the Afghan embassy to the Qing court, contextualizing it with reference to regional developments such as the rise of Khoqand and the perilous situation of Badakhshān. Li asks why the Qing court failed to confront the rising Afghan threat to its Central Asian frontier.
Li's argument is that the Afghan attempt at diplomacy failed to be recognized as communication on an equal level, because the Qianlong emperor embraced the traditional Chinese view of himself as representative of the Heavenly dynasty.14 As the emperor ruled supreme over the world, all other polities were subordinate to him. As they participated in tributary rituals, the rulers of those polities-and more often, their representatives-recognized the emperor's authority. Consequently, Li reasons, the emperor could only recognize the Afghans' embassy as a submissive tributary mission, and disregarded its requests, and decided to break off contact when a dispute about ritual emerged.15 Secondly, Li states that the Qing empire had only a minor military presence in Altishahr (present-day southern Xinjiang), rendering it unable to intervene in Central Asia. In light of the above, Li concludes that the Qianlong emperor's stance toward the Afghans was conciliatory and aimed at preserving his tenuous hold on the newly incorporated cities of the Tarim basin with little conflict.16 Some of Li Xiao's arguments are at odds with the emperor's actions, and overlook the intricacies of Qing diplomacy.17 Li's emphasis on ritual as a decisive factor in Qing diplomacy echoes the interpretation of Qing diplomacy as channeled exclusively through the Chinese 'Tribute System,' an idea put forward by Jonathan Fairbank.18 In recent decades, Fairbank's model has come under scrutiny. This model emphasized China's rigid and unilateral control of 15 This position is also visible in other Chinese scholarship on the Afghan embassy to Beijing; see for instance Pan Z. P., Haohanguo Yu Xiyu Zhengzhi (Wulumuqi: Xinjiang Renmin Chubanshe, 2006): 30-2. 16 Li, "Qianlong Nianjian Qingchao Yu Afuhan Guanxi  There is by now a substantial body of scholarship that has departed from the sinocentric notion that the "tribute system" formed the sole channel of Qing diplomacy. J. E. Wills, an eminent scholar of Sino-European relations and the tribute system, has even argued that a full-fledged tribute system only functioned between 1425 and 1550. The Qing emperors inherited the Ming ideas of tribute, but applied them cautiously. See J. E. Wills, "Introduction." In China andMaritime Europe, 1500-1800: Trade, Settlement, Diplomacy, andMissions, ed foreign relationships through the 'tribute system,' whose unbending, illusory rituals of Chinese supremacy encompassed and regulated all aspects of diplomatic contact, thereby preventing energetic and resourceful engagement with others, especially European states.19 Fairbank's model was premised on the absolute centrality of Chinese imperial ritual, based on the notion that foreign conquerors of China necessarily and rapidly became sinicized, for this was the only way they might successfully establish themselves as emperors of China. A new wave of scholarship has in recent decades challenged the idea of Qing sinicization, and concurrently drawn attention to the emperor's engagement with various ethnic groups within and without the empire. It has revealed an array of different, nuanced diplomatic relationships between the Qing and other powers, far from the rigid constraints of 'tribute ritual,' but supplemented by layered possibilities for interaction.20 Viewing the Mirhan embassy exclusively in the sinocentric terms of the tributary relationship therefore limits explanations of its events. James Hevia's 1995 conception of Qing guest ritual as the continuous reproduction of an inherently hierarchical Qing cosmology, in which all who visited the Qing court were included as "lesser lords," is especially helpful to our analysis of the Afghan embassy. Through reciprocal action in ritual, in which all lords of the world could be included, the emperor together with the lesser lords reaffirmed the cosmological order.21 It provided an-though not the sole-avenue for Afghan interaction with the Qing court. Tonio Andrade makes the important point that a degree of "deliberate ambiguity" was crucial Aligning with these developments in the study of Qing ideology and diplomacy, we at the same time look to efforts to better integrate the Durrānīs into the history of empire in eighteenth-century South and Central Asia. Often, the Durrānīs are treated as a preliminary episode of Afghan state-building,23 inevitably taking up less space than later, better-documented nineteenth-and twentieth-century developments. In South Asia, much focus has gone into the Durrānī invasions of northern India, and their weakening of native empires prior to major British expansion.24 Jagjeet Lally has argued that framing the Durrānīs as an "exogenous shock" reduces their "constructive agency."25 Especially in recent years, scholars have given greater priority to that agency by examining the empire's construction of a bold imperial self-image.26 A study of the embassy to Beijing and its aftermath will contribute to this expanding literature.
We therefore examine the Durrānī -Qing relationship, firstly by examining the 1763 embassy in light of the two empires' cosmologies. We then explore the implications of Qing non-engagement during the 1768-69 Afghan attacks on Badakhshān. Our guiding question is why no lasting contact materialized between the two empires-either amicable or hostile-after the embassy, despite a shared, contested frontier zone. We argue that, even as the formal world of the Qing court depicted the Afghans as normal tributaries for decades, 22 Andrade, The Last Embassy: 302-3. 23 See for example T. Barfield We begin by approaching the 1763 embassy from the Durrānī perspective and considering its motives. As we lack Afghan sources on the topic, Durrānī aims are rather opaque. The choice of gifts and envoy, or other dimensions of the embassy might be fruitfully (but cautiously) analyzed, but for our purposes it is preferable to engage with the closest thing we have to an Afghan primary source for the embassy: Aḥmad Shāh's letter to the Qianlong emperor. While we lack its original text, the Qianlong emperor's replies to it in his reciprocal letter allow us to glean something of Aḥmad Shāh's position. An embassy allowed Aḥmad Shāh to proclaim his status as a great emperor in his own right. As Waleed Ziad writes, while in contemporary Iran, Central and South Asia "[n] divine mission, tied to his personal qualities, his mystical and spiritual potency, and an exalted status for the Afghans and especially the Durrānīs, which justified his imperial hegemony as 'crown-bestower' (Pe. tāj-bakhsh) over the more established royal houses of Iran and Hindustan.30 The letter Aḥmad Shāh sent to Beijing has clear parallels with the extensive letter addressed to the Ottoman sulṭān Muṣṭafā III in 1762, which makes for a useful comparison. In the latter, Aḥmad Shāh refers to the recipient as "brother" (Pe. barādar), a bold assertion of parity with the self-proclaimed caliph.31 In other royal correspondence, Aḥmad Shāh refers to his "God-given state" (Pe. dawlat-i khudā-dād) or otherwise proclaims the legitimacy of his status. Similar evocations would have adorned the letter to the Qing emperor.32 The Qing ruler's reply to Aḥmad Shāh reflects two distinct themes. One is Aḥmad Shāh's campaigns, particularly his resounding victory at Panipat (1761). "[A]s you have stated, for many years now, you have warred to and fro [Ma. ubade tubade; Ch. gèchù 各處]," writes Qianlong.33 This may refer to Durrānī campaigns in Khurasan and Hindustan, which Aḥmad Shāh discussed in detail in his Ottoman letter and made reference to in his correspondence with the Mughals. These campaigns were framed according to an image of chaos in the wider region, in which rebels and wrongdoers needed to be cowed by the Afghan emperor who would restore order.34 Aḥmad Shāh's detailing of his campaigns and the political situation in the wider region was a way of staking claims to territory and legitimacy. 30 Khoja, "Competing Sovereignties": 550-60, 566-73, C. Here, and in all following instances that we cite from Qianlong's letter to Aḥmad Shāh, the translation is our own. We have based it on the Manchu and the Chinese text, to offer as accurate as possible an English rendition of Qianlong's words.
Panipat, Aḥmad Shāh's single greatest battlefield victory, appears to receive the most detailed treatment, just as it did in the Ottoman correspondence. The Qianlong emperor refers to it in detail: Furthermore, you stated in your letter that when Balaji Baji Rao, ruler of the Marathas, had heard of your conquest of the city of Jahānābād [Delhi], he united his neighboring tribes, combining them into a force of many hundreds of thousands of mounted and foot soldiers. He led all of them to a place called Karnal to do battle with you, but when they heard of your personal presence, they became terrified and ensconced themselves inside the city of Panipat. After a siege of six months, you killed thirty-five great Begs, slaughtered over a hundred thousand troops, and obtained a tremendous amount of tools and vessels, gold, and silver. Balaji was able to assemble such a force and then did not attack, but instead retreated to the fortress-city of Panipat to sit and wait for annihilation. That is a matter I truly cannot understand.35 The timeline, and some details, are somewhat garbled. Still, this passage clearly parallels Aḥmad Shāh's retelling of the battle in his Ottoman letter, and letters to the Rajput chiefs soon after the battle.36 From these retellings, it is clear that Aḥmad Shāh was producing what is known in Persian epistolary (inshā') terminology as a fatḥ-nāma, a 'letter of victory.' The fatḥ-nāma was meant to celebrate and inflate a king's military victory in lucid language, reflecting on his power and the obligation of kings to order human affairs and fight tyranny and unbelief.37 The Qianlong emperor was evidently attuned to the undertones of threat in this fatḥ-nāma section, for he downplays the enormity of the victory by criticizing the Marathas for irrationally "sit[ting] and wait[ing] for annihilation." At the same time, this veiled reply indicates that the two parties were not dealing in open threats. Aḥmad Shāh was playing with ambiguity and allowing his broader assertion of power and status to double as a tacit threat.
The second theme is the Qing conquest of Altishahr and its aftermath. Here, the Qianlong emperor paints a more conciliatory picture of Aḥmad Shāh's words. He presents the Afghan emperor as complimentary of Qing There is good reason to doubt this picture of deference, which was certainly not part of Aḥmad Shāh's image as a universal ruler. Between the lines of the Qianlong emperor's reply, it seems clear he was responding to more pointed remarks from his Afghan counterpart. He felt the need to justify his attacks on the Zunghars and the Khwājas (or Khojas), two brothers and Sufi leaders. Since the seventeenth century, their powerful lineage had wielded political, spiritual, and economic power in the Central Asian territories only recently conquered by the Qing and led a revolt against the Qing in 1759. Well before the seventeenth century, Sufis of the wider Naqshbandiyya order to which the brothers belonged had held great influence in the region.40 Qianlong accused the Zunghars of "la[ying] waste to one another's lands and exterminat[ing] one another," and the Khwājas of "turn[ing] their backs to my graces and lev [ying] false accusations against me, their benefactor."41 This defensive tone seems to reflect Laura Newby's statement that despite Qing glossing, "according to [Aḥmad Shāh], his intention was to address the emperor on the matter of Qing rule in Central Asia and to petition on behalf of the Āfāqī khoja house."42 Jin Noda cites a Russian report concerning a Kazakh envoy to Beijing, who claimed to have heard from Mirhan that Aḥmad Shāh's position was that "such territories claimed by the Qing Dynasty all belong to us, Muslims," evoking the Āfāqī's longstanding legitimacy in Altishahr.43 However, these statements are derived from sources separated from Aḥmad Shāh by several degrees, or by decades. His letter was unlikely to be directly, or exclusively, threatening. Aḥmad Shāh's supposed expression of gladness at the gap between the two empires closing may be overstated, but we need not assume it was fabricated. Treating the occasion as an exchange between Once again, there are signs of calculated ambiguity. From Qianlong's tone, it appears that Aḥmad Shāh's letter did express a desire for conciliation. However, certain sections, especially the fatḥ-nāma passages, emphasize his status and power and offer latent threat. If the more amicable overtures were not reciprocated, however, Aḥmad Shāh had no need to further encourage Qianlong's ideas of Durrānī 'deference,' which were in principle unacceptable to him.47 Since war was on the cards, further ambiguous or friendly embassies would be unnecessary. Aḥmad Shāh was also occupied on other fronts: in 1764 a Russian envoy sent to encourage an anti-Qing campaign by the Afghans turned back after reaching Herat and learning Aḥmad Shāh was busy campaigning in Punjab, with no apparent plans to venture north.48 As we will see in the remainder of this article, the Qing response would depend on a complex interplay of imperial cosmology and on-the-ground developments in Central Asia.

1.2
Reconciling Ritual Hiccups at the Qing Court As Qing officials stood in shock and the Councilors commanded Khwāja Mirhan to bow, the Qianlong emperor pondered the Afghans' intentions. The envoy did eventually prostrate himself, reluctantly, but damage had been done. Afterwards, the emperor wrote: "now that I have witnessed such comportment on the part of [Aḥmad Shāh's] emissary, I understand that the Afghans are not 44 Islam a tribe who comprehend proper customs and reason at all! There is no need to send [them] an emissary to bestow even the slightest bit of favor."49 Li Xiao analyzes this "dispute of ritual" as the point at which the emperor decided to cut ties with the Afghans.50 Yet, no immediate rupture followed. Indeed the Qing court proceeded with all customary guest rituals and showed the Afghan envoy great favor, and long after Khwāja Mirhan had disappeared beyond the Pamirs, the Qing continued to count the Afghans as their tributaries. At the same time, Qianlong was clearly displeased and wary, and hastily ordered precautions to be taken to secure the frontier of Altishahr.51 How and why did this contentious embassy survive and continue to be represented in the formal world of the court?
Of central importance to this question is cosmology. The cosmology of the Qing empire combined traditions of legitimacy and rulership from across China and Inner Asia, as discussed in the Introduction. The Qianlong emperor's position at the apex of the temporal world depended upon constant reiteration and reconfirmation of relationships with all subject peoples. Emissaries participated in and conformed with a coherent collection of ritual actions-prostrations, presenting gifts, accepting the gift of tea-initiated by the emperor, and reciprocated properly. The emperor again reciprocated, confirming the hierarchical relationships between, as Hevia calls them, the world's supreme ruler and lesser lords. Because they required mutual engagement and recognition, subject to negotiation, these actions themselves constituted the production of power relations.52 The formation of these relations was constant, not momentary. Reciprocal and confirmative processes of guest ritual commenced from arrival at the border, where local authorities provided an escort. Banquets in provincial capitals, provisions and transport, housing, and protection were all a demonstration of imperial benevolence.53 Moments of transformative or confirmative ritual action, such as the emissary's turn to perform the koutou, were especially meaningful. Audience with the emperor was the apogee of a single ritual process.
Mirhan had already performed prostrations when he had presented his letter upon arrival in the capital, but he refused to do so before the emperor.54 This indicates that there was no confusion about the physical act of prostration. Rather, Mirhan's refusal came when he understood the emperor was the object of his veneration. This was a grave insult to the emperor's cosmological position. Mirhan may have operated out of religious considerations, finding the prostration explicitly before a human being rather than before Allah impermissible-though other Muslim emissaries had no qualms with prostration. But as the Afghan emissary to Qianlong, his refusal was tantamount to the assertion that Aḥmad Shāh Durrānī was Qianlong's equal: an unthinkable proposition at the Qing court. Mirhan threatened to negate Qing cosmology within the most significant sanctum of imperial ritual,55 and ceased to confirm his role as tribute-bearer even though he had, in the eyes of the Qing officials and emperor, comfortably and knowingly enjoyed the imperial benevolence that accompanied this role since he entered Qing territory. Provincial governors had lavishly banqueted Mirhan in every provincial capital he passed (see map 1), and when he developed an illness of the mouth and throat due to the unbearably cold weather, the emperor ordered that warm winter clothing should be provided.56 While this understanding of Qing guest ritual deepens our sense of the offense caused by Mirhan, it also offers a partial explanation for the continuation of the tribute ritual despite it. An initial "dispute of ritual" was unpleasant and informed the emperor's opinion of the Afghans as unworthy, even duplicitous, but did not justify breaking off the diplomatic process. Completion of the cosmological relationship was key, and Mirhan had crossed the threshold and accepted his position as representative of a lesser lord-however obstinately, and regardless of whether he believed it or not.
Other factors could help ease the tension. Qianlong did not place the blame squarely on Mirhan. As James Hevia has argued, fault for any problem during guest ritual lay also at the feet of those who practiced the universalist 55 Hevia emphasizes the ritual importance of localities for the various spheres over which the emperor ruled. "were reportedly overwhelmed by the hospitality they received all along their route."64 Khwāja Mirhan arrived in Beijing and participated in diplomatic rituals alongside envoys of these and other powers-including Kazakhs, Qirghiz, and Kashgharis, as well as Begs from other Muslim cities of Altishahr, and Mongolian nobles.65 Mirhan witnessed the unquestioned humility and subservience to the emperor of myriad polities, and the representatives of those polities would in turn have witnessed his participation. These considerations went beyond the symbolic. Alitshahr was a recentlyconquered and potentially volatile region, and Qianlong prioritized its stability. Preserving the image of Qing dominance was crucial. So too was communicating that image to the Durrānīs and integrating them into the imperial diplomatic sphere, to prevent them from undermining the carefully balanced stability among the polities of Central Asia. Furthermore, including a new and mighty power in the Qing cosmology broadened Qing imperial authority.66 The weight of all these considerations meant that Mirhan's "dispute of ritual" did not in itself end the formal relationship as envisioned by the court. Rather, the court chose to overlook the mishap, in favor of the relationship's artificial prolongation.  In this sense, despite initial problems, the embassy had proceeded as desired. Aḥmad Shāh's letter and his envoy's comportment had still troubled Qianlong, though, and so before the emperor had said his goodbyes to Mirhan, he made plans to secure the frontier, and economized on imperial favor: "there is no need to provide banquets on his way back."73 There was no longer any use in impressing Mirhan. Even before the relationship had truly begun, Qianlong was pulling the plug on it. Future Qing representation of the Afghans as perpetually intertwined with the imperial hierarchy would contrast with a total lack of engagement on a diplomatic level.  to expand their domains, not to serve their peoples, but to incorporate and register the households. They only steal their possessions and divide their loot, and think of it as profit. They seize their people and sell them off, and think of it as profit. The mighty swallow the weak, the great envelop the small, yet such is their normal condition, and we cannot blame them for it.

Qishiyi, describing Badakhshān in his Records of Things Seen and Heard in the Western Regions.74
Aḥmad Shāh's embassy to the Qing court was ultimately a product of Qing westward expansion. The rulers of Khoqand, Badakhshān, and Bolor's rulers dispatched embassies to the Qing court to formalize ties, which the Qing court codified. Simultaneously, Qing records reflect a more voluminous exchange of envoys locally, between civil and military administrators of Qing frontier cities such as Ili, Yarkand, and Kashghar, and Central Asian rulers. There were thus two parallel registers of diplomacy: first, the imperial register, requiring formal permission, formulaic messages and codified rituals, and secondly a much more discreet and pragmatic register, making use of cooperative local intermediaries sensitive to the particularities of Central Asian politics, culture, and diplomacy.75 Both channels were equal in one respect, however: their functioning was contingent on the emperor's approval.
Focusing on the formal register thus occludes a much more dynamic series of exchanges. Memorials to the emperor about these communications from the stalwart Manchu frontier officials, and the remarkable diversity of policies they suggested, informed the emperor's view of the Qing-Afghan relationship. We have seen how, despite serious difficulties, the Durrānī embassy was incorporated into the highly formalized cosmology of the court. By contrast, on the frontier, where opportunities for communication were more numerous and not as strained by continental distances, no Qing-Afghan contact developed. The emperor did not allow it. To understand why, we must turn to the small mountain emirate which formed the frontier between the Qing and Durrānī empires: Badakhshān, under its ruler Sulṭān Shāh (r. c.1748Shāh (r. c. -1769. 74 Qishiyi, Xiyu Wenjian Lu (1777): 3:12v. Henceforth XYWJL. 75 James Millward has previously also argued that the Qing empire engaged with the polities beyond its northwestern borders pragmatically. J. Millward, Beyond the Pass Economy, Ethnicity, and Empire in Qing Central Asia, 1759-1864(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998: especially pages 7-10, 48-9, 156-9, 197-203. jesho 66 (2023) 707-741

Badakhshān and the Development of Qing Non-interference in Central Asia
Since the early sixteenth century, Badakhshān's rulers (mīrs or amīrs) largely enjoyed independence, even when they nominally submitted to larger powers.76 During the eighteenth century, members of Yārī Beg Khān (d. 1706/7)'s dynasty, to which Sulṭān Shāh belonged, pulled external forces into their succession struggles, including the Uzbeks of Qataghan and the Zunghars.77 However, no outside power established definite control over the region. In 1750/1, Aḥmad Shāh's wazīr (chief minister) Shāh Walī Khān apparently subjugated Badakhshān and imposed tribute, but Afghan rule was superficial.78 Sulṭān Shāh embarked on expansionist campaigns of his own into Chitral and Qataghan at this time.79 It was contact with the Qing court which would put the Badakhshānī ruler at greater risk from Aḥmad Shāh.
In 1759, Khwāja Jahān and Burhān al-Dīn, the two brothers of the Āfāqī Sufi lineage to whom Aḥmad Shāh's letter referred, escaped Altishahr and crossed into Badakhshān as their anti-Qing revolt crumbled. Under vice-general Fude, one division of Qing troops pursued them, "the boom of the guns sounding incessantly."80 Fude commanded Sulṭān Shāh to hand over the brothers. The mīr assented, and attacked his coreligionists: Khwāja Jahān was fatally wounded, and Burhān al-Dīn captured. It is likely Sulṭān Shāh hoped to ensure Qing military support, including against the Durrānīs who Qing records claim were poised to invade on behalf of the holy men.81 Qing officials emphasize their role in spurring on Sulṭān Shāh's actions. However, according to the Tārīkh-i Badakhshān, written at the court of a later mīr in 1809, Sulṭān Shāh had initially welcomed them warmly, but was forced to react to their wanton plundering of Badakhshān.82 Whichever factor played a greater role in the mīr's calculations, Qing officials remained suspicious of him, discovering that the Khwājas had resided in Badakhshān with Sulṭān Shāh's knowledge for months before their defeat.83 Furthermore, Qing records state that Sulṭān Shāh felt it would be "inappropriate to deliver them [to the Qing court], due to the customs of the scripture of the Muslims."84 Word later reached the Qing military encampment on the border that Sulṭān Shāh planned to deliver the Khwājas to Bukhara.85 The emperor issued an uncompromising edict threatening invasion.86 It did not come to this, as on 13 April 1763 Burhān al-Dīn's disinterred remains were conveyed to Yarkand along with three of his wives and three of his sons.87 Still, distrust over these and other offenses (as understood by imperial authorities) would become a permanent feature of Sulṭān Shāh's relationship with his notional overlord in Beijing.
While the slaying of the Āfāqī brothers more than likely made Sulṭān Shāh unpopular with the Durrānīs, we lack Afghan sources for the period, making it difficult to get a sense of local sentiments. Sulṭān Shāh in a letter to a Qing official, Sinju, in 1763 claimed that Aḥmad Shāh was intent on taking revenge on him for the Khwājas' deaths, on behalf of their young son. But the mīr had pragmatic reasons to emphasize his vulnerability and the religious impropriety of his actions, frustrated as he was that the Qing did not offer concrete support and rewards for his loyalty.88 There was no immediate reckoning: Aḥmad Shāh launched no campaign in response, confining his reactions to diplomatic enquiries. He sent an envoy, Sa'īd Beg, to Khoqand to discuss its ruler Irdāna Biy's submission to the Qing in 1763, and the dispatching of Mirhan's embassy was organized in conjunction with Sulṭān Shāh, suggesting that communication was open between their courts.89 These events, and the uneasy situation which set in for the next few years, informed the later lack of communication between the Afghan and Qing empires.
A major development was the transformation of Qianlong's attitude towards the affairs of his regional vassals. Initially, he readily used reprimands and threats of violence to influence them. While the embassies from the Durrānī empire and Badakhshān to Beijing were in full swing in 1763, Qing councilors in Altishahr sent an emissary to Sulṭān Shāh to resolve his conflict with fellow tributary Bolor, whose lands his forces had occupied and pillaged.
To Qianlong, his task was to preserve a harmonious equilibrium between the lesser lords. Sinju, Qianlong's highest representative in Yarkand, accordingly proposed invading Badakhshān immediately.90 Qianlong cautioned against the frivolous use of troops, and ordered Sinju to wait for Sulṭān Shāh to obey his instructions: to bring the children, wives, and earthly remains of Burhān al-Dīn to Yarkand and then Beijing, and to restore the lands of Chitral to Bolor. "If [the people of] Bolor are in distress and beg us to save them, how can we ever win over their hearts and minds if we do not interfere, against all expectations?"91 A lesser lord in need required the supreme lord to act, lest he fail to fulfill his cosmological requirements. Qianlong mediated in the same way in a conflict between the Edegene Qirghiz and Khoqand.92 Over time, however, Qianlong became increasingly irritated by the Central Asian rulers beyond his borders, whom he could not effectively control. Irdāna Biy of Khoqand held on to the city and pasturelands of Osh, which he had taken from the Qirghiz in exchange for their pillaging of Andijan.93 Conflicts broke out between the brothers of the erstwhile ruler of Bolor, and the emperor was outraged when one requested support from imperial troops.94 In 1765, the large Altishahri city of Uch-Turfan rebelled, and quelling the revolt was an enormous effort.95 The following year, Sulṭān Shāh requested Qing Qing troops in Altishahr were spread thin. Instead of active military intervention and the imposition of the Qing cosmology on Central Asia, the Qianlong emperor prioritized the security of Altishahr, and sought only to maintain stable relationships with the Central Asian polities, forgoing the peaceful equilibrium between them that he had sought during Mirhan's embassy. Qianlong would distance himself from the trepidations of Central Asian affairs, which he felt was "the regular state of affairs amongst them" (Ma. ceni dorgi an i baita).97 Using the example of enmity between Khoqand and the Kazakhs, he elaborated: There is no point in interfering in their mad behavior toward one another. Ablai [the Kazakh khan] and Irdāna [of Khoqand] pillage and plunder one another['s territories]. As some generals and officials were still paying attention to this, I have issued an edict instructing them that they may not interfere.98 Non-interference (Ma. daci ojorakû) became emblematic of Qianlong's approach: the incorrigible Central Asians could do as they liked, as long as they did not threaten peace in Qing-controlled territories. The emperor did not find such a threat likely: "The mutually murderous conduct among them is all the normal state of affairs. Since the Muslim territories [Altishahr; Ma. hoise i ba] are far removed from them, they absolutely will not dare to come hither."99 One hears echoes of the emperor's earlier judgment of Mirhan and the Afghans: "not a tribe who comprehend proper customs and reason at all." Where did that leave Qianlong cosmologically? Ambiguity played an important role. He was happy to receive Central Asian envoys and go through the guest rituals, confirming the cosmological relationships. It was clear, however, that the practical implications of those relationships were limited. At best they accomplished a tacit acceptance of the status quo: the Qing empire controlled Altishahr, but relinquished its role as mediator between Central Asian polities. The Afghan threat, looming over the jagged horizon of the Pamirs, would both demonstrate the extent of Qianlong's non-interference policy and draw out uncomfortable realities about the imperial cosmology's limitations. The lands of Badakhshān are subject to us, so they may not be given up in allotment to anyone else. From among the Begs of Yarkand and Kashghar, I will appoint one or two to take a message to enlighten Aḥmād Shāh of the Afghans, explaining the benefits and drawbacks. If Aḥmad Shāh, who desires to occupy the territories of Badakhshān, does not submit, we will invade and pacify the lands of Badakhshān. I will make him forget his pretensions! I will prepare a total of eight thousand troops!103 Yunggui's logic was perfectly in line with Qing cosmology. Nevertheless, the emperor again emphasized that this state of chaos was "normal" (Ma. an i). Military intervention would "be unreasonable" (Ma. dara kooli akû). Qianlong instructed Yunggui how to respond to three hypothetical outcomes of the invasion. All three strategies were aimed at reaffirming the status of Badakhshān's mīr as a subservient ally in the region through diplomacy, whoever might occupy that position once the dust had settled. No scenario involved Qing military action.104 In his next communiqué to Yunggui, Qianlong wrote that "because we are not interfering at all with the matter of Sulṭān Shāh, there is also no need to send a delegation to the Afghans."105 That Qianlong opted for further non-interference is striking because, even though Shāh Walī had not attacked Qing domains, the Afghan advance threatened the empire. The TB and Tārīkh-i Aḥmad Shāhī, Aḥmad Shāh's the Afghans were, as he had first suspected in 1763, a hostile imperial formation bent on supporting the Āfāqī lineage.117 Despite the 'benevolent' edict bestowed on him, the Afghan shāh had never behaved like a tributary. Qianlong recognized this, and outside of Qing historiography, Aḥmad Shāh was never treated like one. Instead, Qianlong suspended, and prevented, all communications. When Afghan armies invaded Badakhshān, rather than protecting it as the orderer of the cosmos should, Qianlong justified the Afghan invasion. Stretched garrisons, long distances, and frustrations with the region's powers had stayed Qianlong's hand. In justifying his inaction, the incompatibility between the two cosmologies, left ambiguous at Mirhan's audience, had become explicit. Now understanding Central Asia as a region of irreconcilable, incessant conflict menaced by a rival power outside his influence, Qianlong was primarily concerned with consolidating the security of the Qing hold on Altishahr. He counted on the distance and difficult terrain between the Qing oasis cities and the Afghans for their safety.

Conclusion
Khwāja Mirhan's visit to the Qing court had been a fateful one, never to be repeated. The Durrānī and Qing empires had both reached the zeniths of their power, and reaching out further than ever before, they briefly touched. In due course, the Durrānī embassy proved a transformative moment for the Qing emperor's cosmological position in Central Asia. While historiographically embracing the Afghans as tributaries, in reality the emperor distanced himself from them, going so far as to forbid any diplomatic contact even as they attacked his vassal in Badakhshān.
Mirhan's challenge to Qing ritual during the audience had provided the first impetus for Qianlong's parochial and charged perception of the Afghans, likely also informed by his consideration of the threatening subtext of Aḥmad Shāh's letter. Qianlong in his reply evoked Durrānī deference to fit Aḥmad Shāh into the Qing cosmological framework, and so too would court historiography and artistic production for decades. But Aḥmad Shāh never accepted a submissive tributary position. For him, it was enough that the embassy had constituted an assertion of imperial authority and legitimacy. Mirhan's embassy and its reception had made use of a calculated ambiguity that allowed for the possibility of amicable Qing-Durrānī relations. However, Afghan expansionism and tensions around Qing cosmology in Central Asia erased that possibility. jesho 66 (2023) 707-741 The dual position of Badakhshān as tributary of the Qing, yet firmly entrenched in the Muslim world order of Central Asia, had rendered it a proxy for the Qing-Durrānī relationship-a position that ultimately proved untenable, as it fomented distrust and animosity from both its powerful neighbors and led to Qing disengagement and Badakhshān being invaded by the Afghan empire. Qianlong's justification of the Durrānī capture of his own tributary's lands dispels any suspicion that he may have viewed the Durrānīs as his tributaries, rather than a rival imperial formation.
He did, however, avoid stating this outright, instead decrying the supposed violent natural order of Muslim polities and professing his aversion to futile interventions in Central Asia. Such dissociations were a tacit acknowledgement of Qianlong's inability to successfully integrate the Central Asian polities into Qing cosmology. By the 1790s, as Khoqand became the center of Āfāqī resistance to the Qing and as Afghan power waned, the relationship between the empires dissipated entirely. No further embassies would come to Beijing; no edicts or warnings would ever reach the Afghan shāhs. Only in the Qing court would the fictive tributary relationship live on, given form by ink, paint, and wood in records and artworks-masking the uncomfortable realities about the empire's limitations that Qianlong had faced decades before.