The Muslim Revolt

As with other long-running dynasties, the Qing, too, began to decline after its mid-18th century apogee. Corruption and maladministration became equally rampant. Discontent spread to all classes. And the imperialist powers were greedily awaiting the opportunity to stake out territorial claims. In 1851 the Taiping Rebellion broke out and in two years the rebels had captured Nanjing and proclaimed their Kingdom of Heavenly Peace. In 1842 Britain humiliated China in the Opium War. Meanwhile in Yunnan avaricious officials were plundering the province’s commerce in the form of exorbitant taxes and transport levies. This fell heaviest on the Hui community, who ran most caravans.

As descendants of Mongol army soldiers, the Hui in Yunnan were never trusted by the Qing government. They suffered the harshest exactions and repressive measures of any community. In 1856, following several atrocities and retaliations, the Hui raised the banner of revolt. The spiritual leader of this long and bloody attempt to turn Yunnan into an independent, Muslim-run state was a Dali-born Kunming mullah named Ma Dexin. Its military chief, who came from a village near Dali, was Du Wenxiu, who renamed himself Sultan Suleiman of the newly born peaceful Southern Kingdom (Ping Nan Guo). Du's forces conquered most of western Yunnan, all the way to the Burmese border, and besieged Kunming several times, capturing it briefly in 1863 before being driven back.

Du Wenxiu

The two sides waged war back and forth across central Yunnan, taking turns laying siege to the walled cities. It was the last major conflict in the world where wars were fought in this manner.Inhabitants were mostly slaughtered in the cities captured, while whole village populations were exterminated if they lay on the path of advancing armies. The other minorities stayed aloof from the conflict, which basically affected the area between Tengchong and Qujing and as far south as Mojiang and Jianshui. The Hui themselves were far from united. An important faction in the Kunming area fought on the government side, while jealousies and quarrels squandered temporary advantages won by the rebels.

Du's high point came when he besieged Kunming in 1868. But the capital held out, forcing Du to abandon the siege the following year, From then on a series of defeats led to the attack on Dali itself in 1872. The following year the city fell and the victorious Qing beheaded the erstwhile Sultan. It will took another year to pacify the area and annihilate the last recalcitrant resistors. The government troops then took a terrible revenge on the Hui, massacring them in the thousands. Hui were forbidden to live within Dali again. In Tengchong,Qing troops rounded up Muslims and hurled them over the waterfall to their deaths. The disruptions of the Revolt and its aftermath, followed by a famine and a total breakdown in commerce (it was years before the caravans recovered) reduced the population from eight million in 1855 to three million twenty years later.