China

Muslim rebellions

Muslim rebellions in Yunnan and in Shaanxi and Gansu originated from clashes between the Chinese and Muslims in those provinces. Religious antipathy must be taken into account, but more important were social and political factors. In the frontier provinces the late-dynastic confusions were felt as keenly as elsewhere, which aggravated the problems between the Chinese and the Muslims. Yunnan had been haunted by Muslim-Chinese rivalries since 1821, but in Shaanxi small disturbances had been seen as early as the Qianlong reign. Government officials supported the Chinese, and the Muslims were obliged to rise up against both the Chinese and the authorities.

Rivalry between the Chinese and Muslim miners in central Yunnan triggered a severe clash in 1855, which developed into the slaughter of a great many Muslims in and around the provincial capital, Kunming, the following April. This triggered a general uprising of Yunnan Muslims, which lasted until 1873. Lack of a unified policy weakened the Muslims, and the rebellion was brought to an end partly through the pacifiers’ policy of playing the rebel leaders off against one another.

Another Muslim uprising, in Shaanxi in 1862, promptly spread to Gansu and Xinjiang and lasted for 15 years. The general cause of the trouble was the same as in Yunnan, but the Taiping advance to Shaanxi encouraged the Muslims to rebel. The first stage of the uprising developed in the Wei River valley in Shaanxi; in the next stage the rebels, defeated by the imperial army, fled to Gansu, which became the main theatre of fighting. Encouraged by the Nian invading Shaanxi at the end of 1866, the core of the rebel troops returned to Shaanxi, and sporadic clashes continued in the two provinces. In the last phase, Zuo Zongtang, a former protégé of Zeng Guofan, appeared in Shaanxi with part of the Huai Army and succeeded in pacifying the area in 1873.

There were many independent Muslim leaders in Shaanxi and Gansu at that time, but they had neither a common headquarters nor a unified policy, nor were there any all-out revolutionaries. Pacification was delayed because the imperial camp was preoccupied with the Taiping and the Nian and could not afford the expenditure needed for an expedition to the remote border provinces.