Rediscovering Hendustan - a TL
- Thread starter 江南紳商
- Start date
Here's a very simple map of Ming Zen's little stroll, 1760 - 1761. Please don't take it as gospel, it's really hard to find a good map of 18th-century Central Asia so I had to draw points and lines on a borderless map. I'm sure some of those lines go through mountains or glaciers, but it's just so you get the general idea.
1- Yarkand. The trading city of Yarkand had very recently been one of the strongholds of an anti-Qing revolt, but was now a center of Chinese authority as one of the two headquarters of the councillor of the Southern Circuit along with Kashgar. Ming Zen set out from this city to reach Hindustan in September 1760.
2 - Badakhshan. This small and mountainous country just west of the Qing empire was ruled by Sultan Shah. The leaders of the aforementioned anti-Qing revolt had fled to Badakhshan, but instead he decided to curry favor with the Chinese by delivering the rebels' heads to the Qianlong emperor. This act won him general infamy as a puppet of infidels among Central Asian Muslims, so Sultan Shah was preoccupied with winning secure Chinese support against possible invasion. In November 1760 Ming Zen - probably under the emperor's orders - promised Sultan Shah that Beijing would support him if he was unjustifiably attacked. This made Sultan Shah's reputation in Islamic Central Asia drop even more.
3 - Kashmir. In February 1761 Ming entered this country, at the time ruled by Sukh Jivan who had recently betrayed the Afghans, his former overlords. So like Shah Sultan, Sukh Jivan was also preoccupied with acquiring Chinese support against invasion. Sukh Jivan fed the Chinese exaggerated information demonizing the Afghans. His ambassy also accompanied the Chinese back to Beijing, ostensibly to pay tribute but in reality seeking the promise of Chinese protection against Afghan invasion.
1- Yarkand. The trading city of Yarkand had very recently been one of the strongholds of an anti-Qing revolt, but was now a center of Chinese authority as one of the two headquarters of the councillor of the Southern Circuit along with Kashgar. Ming Zen set out from this city to reach Hindustan in September 1760.
2 - Badakhshan. This small and mountainous country just west of the Qing empire was ruled by Sultan Shah. The leaders of the aforementioned anti-Qing revolt had fled to Badakhshan, but instead he decided to curry favor with the Chinese by delivering the rebels' heads to the Qianlong emperor. This act won him general infamy as a puppet of infidels among Central Asian Muslims, so Sultan Shah was preoccupied with winning secure Chinese support against possible invasion. In November 1760 Ming Zen - probably under the emperor's orders - promised Sultan Shah that Beijing would support him if he was unjustifiably attacked. This made Sultan Shah's reputation in Islamic Central Asia drop even more.
3 - Kashmir. In February 1761 Ming entered this country, at the time ruled by Sukh Jivan who had recently betrayed the Afghans, his former overlords. So like Shah Sultan, Sukh Jivan was also preoccupied with acquiring Chinese support against invasion. Sukh Jivan fed the Chinese exaggerated information demonizing the Afghans. His ambassy also accompanied the Chinese back to Beijing, ostensibly to pay tribute but in reality seeking the promise of Chinese protection against Afghan invasion.
Hopefully the new update clears things up
But will they try a maritime route a la Zheng He?
Hmm. Probably not - the Qianlong emperor knows (and cares) a lot more about Central Asia and Tibet than the sea. The Qing also don't have an effective navy for operations in open sea, so it wouldn't express the "awe of the state" well enough whereas Qing power is widely known in Central Asia and Tibet.
But for private voyagers this isn't necessarily the case - for someone in Suzhou it's much better to go to India by sea than by land.
Hm. Merchant princes on the South China Sea, perhaps some with ties to Manila?
The Panchen Lama in his court
While Sukh Jivan's Kashmiris were being carefully interrogated, the Qianlong emperor decided to order another expedition into Hindustan, this time from Tibet to Bengal. This was a controversial move. Officials memorialized that these Indian expeditions were wastes of money with no benefit to China, while others pointed out that it could draw the suspicion of potential enemies such as Ahmad Shah Durrani. But the emperor was the emperor, after all, and he cast aside such objections. In the 12th month of 1761 Ming Zen was sent back west, this time to meet the Qing Resident in Tibet as well as the Tibetan government.
There was a peculiarity in this expedition, however. Because the officials had made what the Qianlong emperor viewed as a "fuss" about the costs of this "worthless" endeavor, Ming Zen had been ordered to convince the Panchen Lama[1] to fund half the costs for the expedition. So this trip to Hindustan would have to include a large Tibetan motive and component.
Thankfully, the Panchen Lama turned out to be eager to support such a journey to Bengal. Besides the benefits of greater trade, the sixth Panchen Lama was a major proponent of renewed interest in Indian Buddhism and wanted to organize pilgrimages of Tibetans to the ancient sites of their religion, such as Bodh Gaya where Gautama Buddha had attained enlightenment. Now that Bengal had non-Muslim de facto rulers and the Chinese were willing to fund half the costs, the time seemed ripe to acquire permission from the Bengalis for widespread Tibetan access to Buddhist sites in India. So in the 9th month of 1762, a combined Sino-Tibetan mission descended to Bengal.
Interestingly, Ming Zen asked the Lama about recent circumstances in Bengal. An excerpt of the conversation (excluding honorifics and the like) is included here. With this it should be quite clear why Ming Zen failed to link the British in Guangzhou with the British in Bengal:
Panchen Lama: Here one calls the East India of the Chinese "Bengal." In high antiquity the Lord Buddha reached enlightenment in this region in the place known as Sri Vajrasana [Bodh Gaya]...for centuries it has been ruled by the mlecchas, and for this reason there remain not even small remnants of the Buddhist teaching. But now the power of these malodorous mlecchas is no more. Now, at this time in Bengal there were the Pherengi[2], who had a merchant house in the place called Calcutta in the east of Bengal. The Pherengi belong to many nations - there are the Parsisi, the Hurmuju, the Rukma, the Purabma, the Holandhaisai, the Urusu, the Engeraichi, and many others - and most of them are merchants. This last, the Engeraichi, are the most eminent, for which reason the mlecchas gave them Calcutta...now as the mleccha lords had fallen in the city of Delhi, the commander of Bengal could no more protect the merchant house of the Pherengi. The Engeraichi being the most eminent of the Pherengi, they feared they would fall to the daggers of their enemies were they simply to observe without acting. Finally the merchants brought soldiers from the land whence they came, and they brought the commander [of Bengal] under their protection...The king of the Engeraichi lives in a lone and distant island, and this king descends from the Pandava.
Ming Zen:...Therefore are these Pherengi people a nation from India, or do they originate outside of India?
Ming Zen:...Therefore are these Pherengi people a nation from India, or do they originate outside of India?
Ming Zen must have known about the English at Guangzhou, but for too many Chinese intellectuals, the heavily Indianized terminology of the Tibetans was impossible to discern.
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[1] Lobsang Palden Yeshe, the sixth Panchen Lama. In 1761 the Panchen Lama would have been the central figure of Tibetan Buddhism, as the Dalai Lama was a toddler.
[2] Means "European" but etymologically comes from "Frank."
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Emperor RyRy
Banned
Just letting you know, it's 9th, as in ninth.
Otherwise, oh damn good to see the Qing actually exploring and being good Chinese. Why didn't they IRL?
Thanks for the catch!
Well, the expedition to Kashmir in 1860 was actually planned by the Qing IRL but was scrapped because they realized Hindustan was in total chaos. The POD here is that the Qianlong emperor realizes early on that Hindustan is India, so the possibility of getting envoys from India strokes his ego (I was trying to imply that with that bit of narrative with his consort, though it was probably pretty bad since I'm not good with personal writing). In OTL, by contrast, Hindustan was just one of the bigger - but still not very important - Muslim kingdoms to the west. So he sends that expedition despite the dangers, and then it all butterflies from there.
Once they reach Bengal and encounter the EIC the envoy will see the great merchant fleets and their methods to acquire power and wealth.
By this time the Qing were still a mighty and respected power by the Europeans. If they can buy or get some tech or books it could very well change history in Asia.
By this time the Qing were still a mighty and respected power by the Europeans. If they can buy or get some tech or books it could very well change history in Asia.
We must now leave Ming Zen in Tashilhunpo Monastery with the Panchen Lama and go back a few months in time, because groundbreaking events were occurring in Central Asia throughout the early 1760s.
Some background is necessary. There was no one hegemonic power in all of Central Asia of the mid-18th century, although there were many players who could influence the entire region. China, of course, ruled the eastern part of the area. Central Asian attitudes towards the Chinese were complex; on one hand they were infidels who were conquering their Muslim brothers, while on other hand the allure of Chinese goods was hard to resist.
On the Muslim side of things, major powers included Khoqand, a newly risen kingdom just west of Chinese Central Asia. Irdana, ruler of Khoqand, knew the Chinese would be too cautious to decisively defeat him so he engaged in passive-aggressiveness to win both territorial and commercial concessions from Beijing. In the north the Qazaq[1] hordes, who had a mutually beneficial trade relationship with the Chinese, were important powers. West there were two important countries that did not border Chinese territory, Bukhara and Khiva.
But the mightiest of Central Asian Muslims was Ahmad Shah Durrani, who, as we have seen, was also deeply involved in India. Ahmad Shah's views towards Chinese Central Asia appears to have been simple: infidels had no business ruling over hundreds of thousands of Muslims. He was not alone in this view, for the ruler of Khoqand, a minor ruler in Transoxiana, and a Qazaq khan had together sent Ahmad Shah a letter asking him to "to deliver the Muslim world from the attack of non-believers."
With Chinese envoys scuttling across Kashmir, confrontation may have been inevitable.
The fate of Raja Sukh Jivan
Raja Sukh Jivan's backstory has already been told, but what came to him after February 1761 has not. The raja's meeting with the Chinese infuriated Ahmad Shah, who feared a collusion between Kashmir and the Qing. Almost immediately after returning from Panipat, the Afghan ordered his armies to overrun Kashmir and bring Sukh Jivan to him, dead or alive. Sukh Jivan's army met the Afghans in Awantipur just south of the capital of Srinagar, but after the Afghans fired a cannon towards the enemy the terrified Kashmiri army fled en masse. Srinagar itself fell three days later without combat.
Sukh Jivan had barely managed to escape detection by donning a burqa and disguising himself as an insane woman. Once most of the Afghan army had left, he took off his burqa, cut his beard, and pretended to be a wandering fakir. This way, in October 1761 he arrived safely at Yarkand with a few select members of his court and revealed his true identity to the Qing authorities. Rather disappointingly, they were immediately put them under arrest as the Chinese feared that Ahmad Shah would invade if Sukh Jivan was treated hospitably. The raja and his men languished in jail in Yarkand for over an year.
Meanwhile, the authorities in Beijing had finished their interrogations of the Kashmiri envoys and correctly concluded that Kashmir had taken the Chinese for gullible fools and dared to attempt to deceive the Emperor of China himself. Surely Sukh Jivan should learn a lesson. Representatives from Beijing arrived in Yarkand in the 10th month of 1762, and the former raja of Kashmir and his subordinates who had accompanied him were all brought in chains to the Afghans. Ahmad Shah had them brought to Kandahar where they were all skinned alive.
But even this measure did not convince Ahmad Shah to think positively of the Qing presence in Central Asia.
A Central Asian Axis
Ahmad Shah Durrani was infuriated by Chinese contact with Sukh Jivan. Or perhaps he was not truly as infuriated as he seemed, but simply used it as an excuse to pick a fight with the Qing. Ahmad Shah left behind no memoirs, so we cannot know for sure. In any case, we do know that he sent the following letter to the ruler of Khoqand in 1761 where he said:
Irdana, ruler of Khoqand, responded positively and nominally submitted to Durrani authority. Ahmad Shah's ouvertures were not limited to the Khoqandis. Importantly, he resolved significant diplomatic hurdles with the Uzbeks in Bukhara, gained the support of many Qazaqs, and even unsuccessfully attempted to draw the attention of the Porte. A pan-Islamic alliance with Ahmad Shah at its head appeared to be coalescing. Some officers pointed out that the Indian campaigns had strained the Durrani state, and that a war against China might be somewhat on the excessive side. Regardless, preparations were made. The Afghans of Ahmad Shah were not simple mountain warriors. They had, after all, put the greatest Indian empire to rout. During the Third Battle of Panipat, Ahmad Shah's forces had used volley fire and demonstrated immense, disciplined firepower both with guns and field artillery. They would be a formidable match for any Qing army.
Badakhshan kept the Chinese informed of these developments. And the question was: what would Beijing do?
---
[1] Kazakhs, as in Kazakhstan
[2] Quran 9:73
Some background is necessary. There was no one hegemonic power in all of Central Asia of the mid-18th century, although there were many players who could influence the entire region. China, of course, ruled the eastern part of the area. Central Asian attitudes towards the Chinese were complex; on one hand they were infidels who were conquering their Muslim brothers, while on other hand the allure of Chinese goods was hard to resist.
On the Muslim side of things, major powers included Khoqand, a newly risen kingdom just west of Chinese Central Asia. Irdana, ruler of Khoqand, knew the Chinese would be too cautious to decisively defeat him so he engaged in passive-aggressiveness to win both territorial and commercial concessions from Beijing. In the north the Qazaq[1] hordes, who had a mutually beneficial trade relationship with the Chinese, were important powers. West there were two important countries that did not border Chinese territory, Bukhara and Khiva.
But the mightiest of Central Asian Muslims was Ahmad Shah Durrani, who, as we have seen, was also deeply involved in India. Ahmad Shah's views towards Chinese Central Asia appears to have been simple: infidels had no business ruling over hundreds of thousands of Muslims. He was not alone in this view, for the ruler of Khoqand, a minor ruler in Transoxiana, and a Qazaq khan had together sent Ahmad Shah a letter asking him to "to deliver the Muslim world from the attack of non-believers."
With Chinese envoys scuttling across Kashmir, confrontation may have been inevitable.
The fate of Raja Sukh Jivan
Raja Sukh Jivan's backstory has already been told, but what came to him after February 1761 has not. The raja's meeting with the Chinese infuriated Ahmad Shah, who feared a collusion between Kashmir and the Qing. Almost immediately after returning from Panipat, the Afghan ordered his armies to overrun Kashmir and bring Sukh Jivan to him, dead or alive. Sukh Jivan's army met the Afghans in Awantipur just south of the capital of Srinagar, but after the Afghans fired a cannon towards the enemy the terrified Kashmiri army fled en masse. Srinagar itself fell three days later without combat.
Sukh Jivan had barely managed to escape detection by donning a burqa and disguising himself as an insane woman. Once most of the Afghan army had left, he took off his burqa, cut his beard, and pretended to be a wandering fakir. This way, in October 1761 he arrived safely at Yarkand with a few select members of his court and revealed his true identity to the Qing authorities. Rather disappointingly, they were immediately put them under arrest as the Chinese feared that Ahmad Shah would invade if Sukh Jivan was treated hospitably. The raja and his men languished in jail in Yarkand for over an year.
Meanwhile, the authorities in Beijing had finished their interrogations of the Kashmiri envoys and correctly concluded that Kashmir had taken the Chinese for gullible fools and dared to attempt to deceive the Emperor of China himself. Surely Sukh Jivan should learn a lesson. Representatives from Beijing arrived in Yarkand in the 10th month of 1762, and the former raja of Kashmir and his subordinates who had accompanied him were all brought in chains to the Afghans. Ahmad Shah had them brought to Kandahar where they were all skinned alive.
But even this measure did not convince Ahmad Shah to think positively of the Qing presence in Central Asia.
A Central Asian Axis
Ahmad Shah Durrani was infuriated by Chinese contact with Sukh Jivan. Or perhaps he was not truly as infuriated as he seemed, but simply used it as an excuse to pick a fight with the Qing. Ahmad Shah left behind no memoirs, so we cannot know for sure. In any case, we do know that he sent the following letter to the ruler of Khoqand in 1761 where he said:
The infidels have brought their accursed hand over innumerable numbers of Muslims, over Yarkand, Kashmir, and many other cities belonging to the abode of Islam, and made these places unlawful...the abode of Islam must be saved through the means of holy war from the great onslaught of paganism and tyranny; victory must be achieved and Islam must be reopened...now they seek to gain Kashmir, and through this province seize all of Hindustan, to launch yet another blow to the Muslims...If you, the ruler of Khoqand, were to accept my authority, our forces combined will be sufficient to lay low the pillars of heathenism and to make the armies of China mere mountains of corpses...Indeed, "fight against the disbelievers and the hypocrites. And their refuge is Hell, and wretched their destination.[2]"
Irdana, ruler of Khoqand, responded positively and nominally submitted to Durrani authority. Ahmad Shah's ouvertures were not limited to the Khoqandis. Importantly, he resolved significant diplomatic hurdles with the Uzbeks in Bukhara, gained the support of many Qazaqs, and even unsuccessfully attempted to draw the attention of the Porte. A pan-Islamic alliance with Ahmad Shah at its head appeared to be coalescing. Some officers pointed out that the Indian campaigns had strained the Durrani state, and that a war against China might be somewhat on the excessive side. Regardless, preparations were made. The Afghans of Ahmad Shah were not simple mountain warriors. They had, after all, put the greatest Indian empire to rout. During the Third Battle of Panipat, Ahmad Shah's forces had used volley fire and demonstrated immense, disciplined firepower both with guns and field artillery. They would be a formidable match for any Qing army.
Badakhshan kept the Chinese informed of these developments. And the question was: what would Beijing do?
---
[1] Kazakhs, as in Kazakhstan
[2] Quran 9:73
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well I don't know much about these events, I'm going to say it would be difficult for the Qing to fight a war in Central Asia.
would they have the logistics for it?
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Thanks for the feedback!
Just on logistics, I haven't done enough research into this. There's time left though, since based on chronological reasons there will be a section on Ming Zen in Bengal before war breaks out between China and the Afghans. But basically the Qing had amazing logistics during the conquest of Xinjiang, so they could send in a few tens of thousands with little problem - I believe the conquest of Dzungaria in the 1750s involved something like 50,000 Qing troops. Once the Qing realize how formidable the Afghans actually are they might try sending even more.
But Afghanistan is a much more formidable force than Dzungaria for multiple reasons. They have a strong leader, Ahmad Shah, whereas the Dzungars were fighting each other after the death of Galdan Tseren. Because Ahmad Shah is a Muslim he has a natural justification for convincing local rulers and populations into joining his side: "holy war against infidels." He has also shown, in Panipat, that he can win.
Panipat might be a good upper limit for the armies that the Durranis can mobilize. According to my sources, he had around 60,000 men at Panipat (Wikipedia suggests 100,000 but that seems incredulous) and around a quarter of those weren't his soldiers but instead Rohilla Afghans under Najib Khan, and he got some support from other indigenous rulers as well. So overall it seems that the Durranis might not have been able to field much more soldiers than 50,000.
According to some sources Ahmad Shah OTL was supposedly mobilizing an army of one hundred thousand soldiers in order to invade China. But that doesn't seem very plausible at all, one of my sources puts "[sic!!!]" after that statement.
From the Jahangirnama:
It was on Rabi' II 1176 that Ming Zen and his several dozen Chinese and Tibetan men came down to Kathmandu. From there they wished to proceed to this country and sent forth riders to inform my father of their arrival. My father was then preparing to break free of the English, and to this purpose he sent men to intercept the Chinese. In some place in the hills north of this country the Chinese were informed of the evil disposition of the Franks. The men also spoke of how my father would soon put their debaucheries to an end. How wrong would they be!
The riders thus returned to Kathmandu. There there was strife between the Chinese on one hand, and the Tibetans on the other. The former wished to meet men from my father without advancing down the hills, whereas the other contended that it was absolutely necessary to meet the English. The former prevailed, for Tibet is a province that submits to the ruler of China, and Ming Zen remained in the cities of the Mallas - which now all belong to the Gurkhas - to meet my father's officers. They had been dispatched illicitly to avoid the eyes of the English.
In Kathmandu the officers told the Chinese of the depredations of the English. I do not know the many details of the meeting. How could I, when I was not yet born? But what is important is that the Chinese felt pity for our people, and that my father thus became a secret vassal of the ruler of China. The Chinese never reached Bengal on the year 1176; the English for their part did not learn of the Chinese until several years later. This association with the Chinese did little for us at Buxar, and my father was gravely disappointed. But many years later - long after the death of my father - they would prove to be of great use to our cause, as will be mentioned. Indeed, there is none but God who knows what the distant future may bring.
The riders thus returned to Kathmandu. There there was strife between the Chinese on one hand, and the Tibetans on the other. The former wished to meet men from my father without advancing down the hills, whereas the other contended that it was absolutely necessary to meet the English. The former prevailed, for Tibet is a province that submits to the ruler of China, and Ming Zen remained in the cities of the Mallas - which now all belong to the Gurkhas - to meet my father's officers. They had been dispatched illicitly to avoid the eyes of the English.
In Kathmandu the officers told the Chinese of the depredations of the English. I do not know the many details of the meeting. How could I, when I was not yet born? But what is important is that the Chinese felt pity for our people, and that my father thus became a secret vassal of the ruler of China. The Chinese never reached Bengal on the year 1176; the English for their part did not learn of the Chinese until several years later. This association with the Chinese did little for us at Buxar, and my father was gravely disappointed. But many years later - long after the death of my father - they would prove to be of great use to our cause, as will be mentioned. Indeed, there is none but God who knows what the distant future may bring.
Ming Zen never reached Bengal. He was intercepted in Kathmandu by an embassy ordered by Mir Qasim, the nawab of Bengal, who was secretly looking for ways to oust the British from his realm. The Bengalis convinced the Chinese of the nefariousness of the British and persuaded the moralistic Ming into not seeking to communicate directly with the East India Company. One feature of British hegemony in Bengal seems to have shocked Ming the most; it was a state run by merchants. He commented:
Ming Zen also failed to realize that the Ferengi that the Bengalis spoke of were actually the English of Guangzhou, and in his reports he merely transcribed the word as Feileng.
The Tibetans thought quite differently. According to the Book of Jahangir Sultan (or the Jahangirnama), a famous primary source for the era, "there was strife" between the Tibetans and the Chinese. Chinese sources do not corroborate this, but overall it seems the Tibetans may have been less trusting of the mlecche. But the Tibetans too finally conceded that British power was likely to be transitory, as the British were neither Muslims nor Hindus. It was better to please Mir Qasim now and receive concessions from him once he had expunged the British.
Neither the Chinese nor the Tibetans, then, truly comprehended the Company.
Mir Qasim's embassy even reached Beijing in 1763, where they acquired status as a Chinese tributary. The Qianlong emperor promised to protect the nawab as due a tributary king if he ever had to flee to Tibet. But when the Bengalis asked for Chinese support for a possible war with the "Franks," the Qing government was much less welcome. The Bengalis eventually returned home in the summer of 1764 with much grandiose words, but only one definite promise; the Chinese would not extradite Mir Qasim. Beijing could not afford to spend resources helping a minor tributary. The Chinese had bigger fish to fry, and that fish was named Ahmad Shah Durrani.
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[1] The Chinese word 仁 ren and its analogues in other East Asian languages are often translated as "benevolence," so I'm following that precedent here. But it's a bit more complicated. Just to quote a note from this translation of Confucius, "the word ren 仁 is perhaps the most fundamental concept in Confucian thought. It has been translated into English as 'benevolence,' 'altruism,' 'goodness,' 'humaneness' etc. It is a difficult concept to translate because it doesn't really refer to any specific type of virtue or positive endowment, but refers to an inner capacity possessed by all human beings to do good, as human beings should. It is the quality that makes humans human, and not animals."
[2] Analects 4:5
It is most unnatural that merchants should conquer a country and rule it as if they were its original kings. In many ways merchants are as important as officials, but they should not emulate each other. The merchant must not seek to rule a country, and the official must not seek to earn money. Neither can be sustainable...It would seem that the Franks seek only riches; they think only of gold and not of benevolence[1], they think only of the riches of the people and not of their hearts. Therefore their conquests will not last. The Sage once said, "Wealth and high rank are what people desire, but if they are attained by not following the dao, do not dwell in them."[2] Who could ever believe that these Franks are abiding the dao? Are they keeping even the most basic principles of morality?
Ming Zen also failed to realize that the Ferengi that the Bengalis spoke of were actually the English of Guangzhou, and in his reports he merely transcribed the word as Feileng.
The Tibetans thought quite differently. According to the Book of Jahangir Sultan (or the Jahangirnama), a famous primary source for the era, "there was strife" between the Tibetans and the Chinese. Chinese sources do not corroborate this, but overall it seems the Tibetans may have been less trusting of the mlecche. But the Tibetans too finally conceded that British power was likely to be transitory, as the British were neither Muslims nor Hindus. It was better to please Mir Qasim now and receive concessions from him once he had expunged the British.
Neither the Chinese nor the Tibetans, then, truly comprehended the Company.
Mir Qasim's embassy even reached Beijing in 1763, where they acquired status as a Chinese tributary. The Qianlong emperor promised to protect the nawab as due a tributary king if he ever had to flee to Tibet. But when the Bengalis asked for Chinese support for a possible war with the "Franks," the Qing government was much less welcome. The Bengalis eventually returned home in the summer of 1764 with much grandiose words, but only one definite promise; the Chinese would not extradite Mir Qasim. Beijing could not afford to spend resources helping a minor tributary. The Chinese had bigger fish to fry, and that fish was named Ahmad Shah Durrani.
---
[1] The Chinese word 仁 ren and its analogues in other East Asian languages are often translated as "benevolence," so I'm following that precedent here. But it's a bit more complicated. Just to quote a note from this translation of Confucius, "the word ren 仁 is perhaps the most fundamental concept in Confucian thought. It has been translated into English as 'benevolence,' 'altruism,' 'goodness,' 'humaneness' etc. It is a difficult concept to translate because it doesn't really refer to any specific type of virtue or positive endowment, but refers to an inner capacity possessed by all human beings to do good, as human beings should. It is the quality that makes humans human, and not animals."
[2] Analects 4:5
Interesting. Taking on the Durrani empire may be logistically a bridge too far for the Qing right now, but the Chinese have an advantage in durability - China is going to remain coherent and strong for a while yet, while the Duranni Empire OTL went into swift decline. (That might be butterflied, but long-term stability isn't probably the way to bet at this time). Even if they get a bloody nose, the Qing might be in a position to extract some tasty crunchy revenge 20 years down the line or so.
After any prolonged contact they almost certainly would be able to put two and two together. However as long as there isn't direct or prolonged contact between the two groups I think the confusion could persist.