Major political changes took place in Central Asia in the second half of the 18th century, after Nadir Shah’s death in 1747. In Bukhara Muhammad Rahim Atalïq Manghït had Abu’l-Fayz Khan killed the same year. After the brief nominal rule of his two Chinggis successors, during which Muhammad Rahim Atalïq remained the actual ruler of the country, Muhammad Rahim organized his own enthronement as a khan in 1756, thus founding a new ruling dynasty in Bukhara, usually known under its tribal name Manghït. This was a drastic break with the five-centuries-old Central Asian political tradition, according to which only the members of the Chinggis clan, the direct agnatic descendants of Chingis Khan, had a legitimate right to become supreme sovereign rulers with the title of khan. Such a change became possible because of the rise to power of Özbek tribal chieftains.
Who had been almost independent rulers of their tribal territories since the end of the 17th century (see map No. 28), with the concomitant decline of the authority of the Chingisids. Nevertheless, the royal charisma of the Chingisids was still an important legitimizing factor, so that Muhammad Rahim, before his enthronement, married a daughter of Abu’l-Fayz Khan, to add at least some legitimacy to his usurpation. He had no male offspring, and when he died in 1758, his infant grandson from a daughter, named Fasil Tore, was enthroned, while Muhammad Rahim’s uncle Danial Biy ruled with the title of atelia (chief amir). Soon, after a rebellion of Uzbek tribes, Fasil Tore was deposed, and Danial Biy continued to rule retaining the title of atelia. He was succeeded by his elder son, Shah Murad (1785-1799), who abandoned any claims to Chinggis legitimacy altogether and stressed his role as an Islamic ruler, having assumed the title of amir—not as the usual general title of tribal chieftains, but hinting at the title of the caliphs, amir al-mumanin, “The Commander of the Faithful.

While Mavarannahr, Khorezm and Ferghana were gradually overcoming the century-long political and economic crisis, the Qazaq zhuzes entered a period of decline and social turmoil. Although the Junghar threat was eliminated after 1758 (see below), the political situation of all three hordes remained unstable. Russia took advantage of this to expand her influence, which at first met with only partial success. In the Junior Horde, Russian influence extended only over the northern half of the horde. The ruler of the Middle Horde, sultan (from 1771 to 1781, khan) Ablay took an oath of allegiance to both Russia and China, but remained practically independent. By the end of the century, however, the authority of the Qazaq Chingisids was undermined by social unrest (especially in the Junior Horde, where a rebellion, both anti-Chinggis and anti-Russian, under a tribal leader named Bator Scrim Dato continued, with some interruptions, during the 1780s and 1790s) and increased Russian pressure.
The Qazaq nomads were cut off from some of their best pasture lands by continuous lines of Russian fortifications, and the khans in both the Junior and Middle hordes were appointed by the Russian government, while the Senior Horde (or most of it) was subordinate to Yunus Khoja of Tashkent. In Eastern Turkestan the Junghar state, after a brief period of internal strife, was crushed by China. In 1755 Manchu troops occupied Jungharia, but the same year a rebellion began there; it was brutally suppressed by 1759, and almost all the Junghars were slaughtered.
During their campaigns against the Junghars, the Manchu troops entered some regions in the Altay as well as the eastern parts of the Qazaq steppes, demanding submission from the rulers of these regions, but they were unable to remain there.
By 1760 the Manchus also occupied Kashgharia and put an end to the rule of the khojas of Yarkend, pursuing the last Khaja rulers, who fled from them, as far as Badakhshan. Eastern Turkestan became a part of the Chinese Empire.