Bai Lang Rebellion

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Bai Lang Rebellion
Date1911–1914
Location
China
Result Defeat of Bai Lang and his bandit army
Belligerents

Bai Lang's army

Allies:
Commanders and leaders
 Bai Lang
Units involved
 Various bandit groups[4]
Strength
12,000[4] Bai Lang's army: c. 5,000 (early 1913)[1]
Casualties and losses
Thousands of civilian casualties

The Bai Lang Rebellion was a Chinese "bandit" rebellion lasting from mid 1913 to late 1914. Launched against the Republican government of Yuan Shikai, the rebellion was led by Bai Lang. His rebel army was an eclectic mix of anti-Yuan Shikai troops and rebels, bandit groups and Gelaohui (secret society) members. As a unit, they were allied to southern Guangdong based revolutionaries.

Naqshbandi Khufiyya Sufi Muslim general Ma Anliang took advantage of the war to allow the massacre of the rival Muslim Xidaotang sect and then to execute the Muslim leader of the Xidaotang, Ma Qixi and his family.

Bai Lang: The individual

Bai Yung-chang or Bai Langzai, more commonly known by his pseudonym Bai Lang, was born in 1873, in

bandit militiaman.[clarification needed
] Nevertheless, his life changed in 1897 when he was arrested for getting into a fight with a man named Wang Zhen who died during the altercation. After getting out of jail, Bai Lang was only dissuaded from becoming a bandit by his family, instead, turning his martial interests towards a legal outlet (namely, military service).

During the last years of

better source needed] After a series of storms ravaged the region's crops in late 1911, Bai and other local people fell in with the bandit Du Qibin
.

Before Bai Lang defected to the Republicans and became Henan's governor, he was originally a Qing loyalist.[7]

The rebellion

Bai Lang and his forces allied themselves with the

Anhui Province towards Shanghai was seen by some as a bold effort to link up with Revolutionary interests now holed up in Shanghai and to provoke a possible "Third Revolution" against Yuan.[9]

Bai's actions caused mixed outpourings of mass support and popular outrage, with his army variously called by itself and supporters "The Citizen's Punitive Army", "Citizen's Army to Exterminate Bandits" and "The Army to Punish Yuan Shikai", among others. As his fame grew, deserters, bandits and revolutionaries bolstered his divisions and he swiftly moved through Henan, Anhui,

Tongguan Pass into Shaanxi Province, possibly with an eye toward sympathetic linkage there.[11] Instead, his group was forced even further west into Gansu. Upon entering Gansu, the rebellion encountered strong civil and military resistance.[12]

Yuan Shikai ordered Ma Anliang to block Bai Lang (White Wolf) from going into Sichuan and Gansu by blocking Hanzhong and Fengxiangfu.[13] Yuan Shikai managed to induce Ma Anliang to not attack Shaanxi after the Gelaohui took over the province and accept the Republic of China under his presidency in 1912. Ma Anliang ensured Gansu remained loyal to Yuan Shukai during the Bai Lang (White Wolf) rebellion. During the National Protection war in 1916 between republicans and Yuan Shikai's monarchy, Ma Anliang readied his soldiers and informed the republicans that he and the Muslims would stick to Yuan Shikai until the end.[14]

Here, the traditionalist and Confucianist Muslim generals

Táozhōu but Muslim general Ma Anliang slaughtered Muslim sect leader Ma Qixi and his family after the war.[17] The Muslim Generals were reported to be reactionary.[18]

Protracted warfare and this lack of public support led to a reversal in the rebels' treatment of the population; there was an increase in acts of looting and pillage, as well as strikingly brutal massacres.[19]

Eventually, Gen. Ma Anliang's passive defence, rather than chasing the far more agile rebel army, succeeded in wearing down Bai. The Tibetans attacked and drove Bai's army into retreat, with Ma Qixi's troops chasing them out of the Province.[20] According to Gansu legend, Bai Lang committed suicide at Daliuzhuang, he corpse was decapitated and his head put on display.[21] However, official Chinese documents say he vanished in Shanxi and his body was never found. Yuan Shikai ordered Bai Lang's family tombs destroyed, and had the corpses cut to pieces.[22] Bai's headless body was left to rot.[23]

The remnants of Bai's forces were dispersed in Hunan late 1914,[5] with his last forces being destroyed by Yan Xishan.

Atrocities done by Bai Lang's bandit gangs

Bai Lang's forces raped, killed and pillaged.

The North China Herald and Reginald Farrer accused Ma Anliang of betraying his fellow Muslims by letting them get slaighterd at Taozhou. Ma Anliang then arrested Ma Qixi after falsely accusing him of striking a deal with Bai Lang and had Ma Qixi and his family slaughtered.[26] Mass rape, looting, and killing also took place in Minzhou.[27]

Support from southern revolutionaries

Staunchly against Yuan Shikai's government, Bai developed an alliance with Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. Huang Xing, a friend of Sun, sent letters to Bai as well as weapons and ammunition.[28][29] Sun hoped for further bandit uprisings in Shaanxi, calling on the population to "return to glory" like Bai Lang's gangs.[30] Yuan Shikai's Beiyang regime knew of Bai Lang's connections with Sun Yat-Sen, but refused to make public of them for fear it would cause greater support for the rebellion.[31]

Though Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing promised to make him

Governor of Gansu,[32] outside of arms and supplies, Sun's influence on Bai Lang's bandit troops was minimal. Mostly uneducated, his troops could be divided between Robin Hood
"freedom fighters" who believed they were taking on a corrupt regime and brigands who lived for plunder and survival.

However, when Sun Yatsen turned to the Soviets for support, and resurrected the

single-party model, and organized the Northern Expedition
without the help of bandit gangs like Bai Lang. This nationalist Kuomintang later included the Muslim warlords who Bai Lang fought against.

After another Muslim warlord, Ma Zhongying attacked and massacred the rival Muslim Xidaotang and seized their headquarters and also attacked Tibetans, Xidaotang followers fled into ethnic Tibetan populated areas of Qinghai for safety. The Xidaotang then pledged allegiance to the reformed Kuomintang in 1932 and Xidaotang leader Ma Mingren met with Kuomintang Muslim general Bai Chongxi and leader Chiang Kai-shek in 1941 in Chongqing while supplying the Kuomintang government with leatger and other products while fighting against the Japanese.[33]

Aftermath

The campaign, especially the government forces' inability to crush a smaller force of bandits, greatly damaged the reputation of the Beiyang Army. This gave President Yuan who had already started to distrust the army's commanders of disloyalty, the opportunity to reorganize the Chinese military. He disempowered and then replaced Duan Qirui as head of the Beiyang Army, while raising a new army which was loyal only to him and his family. Though he managed to reduce the power of other military leaders in the short term, these policies alienated parts of the Beiyang Army from his regime, weakening it in the long run.[34]

References

  1. ^ a b c Billingsley (1988), p. 57.
  2. ^ Billingsley (1988), pp. 56, 57, 59.
  3. ^ Billingsley (1988), pp. 57, 59.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Sheridan (1966), p. 51.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Ch'en (1972), p. 160.
  6. ^ Tony Whitehorn, unpublished papers, Arizona State University, 1971
  7. ISBN 0-295-97644-6
    .
  8. ^ Tony Whitehorn, unpublished papers, Arizona State University, 1971
  9. ^ Tony Whitehorn, unpublished papers, Arizona State University, 1971
  10. ^ Billingsley (1988), p. 12.
  11. ^ Tony Whitehorn, unpublished thesis, University of Kansas, 1974
  12. ISBN 0-674-01240-2
    . Retrieved 2010-11-01.
  13. ^ The National Review, China: Literary and educational supplement, Volume 15. National Review. 1914. p. 482. General Ma An - liang to take his Muhammadan requesting that the disbandment be postponed troops to Fenghsiangfu and ... also that all latter reached Sianfu by forced marches from asking for information regarding the statements local ...
  14. ^ Teichman, Eric (1921). Travels of a Consular officer in North West China; with original maps of Shensi and Kansu and illus. by photographs. pp. 120, 121, 122.
  15. ISBN 0-7007-1026-4
    . Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  16. ISBN 0-7007-1026-4
    . Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  17. ISBN 0-674-59497-5
    . Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  18. ISBN 0-8047-1406-1
    . Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  19. ISBN 0-7007-1026-4
    . Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  20. ISBN 0-295-97644-6
    . Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  21. ISBN 9780765604453
    . Retrieved 2010-11-01.
  22. ^ Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (London, England) (1970). China now, Issues 1-47. Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding. p. 124. Retrieved 2010-11-01.
  23. ISBN 0-8047-1406-1
    . Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  24. ISBN 0-8047-1406-1
    . Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  25. ISBN 0-8047-1406-1
    . Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  26. ISBN 0-295-97644-6
    . Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  27. ISBN 0-295-97644-6
    . Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  28. ISBN 9780765604453
    . Retrieved 2010-11-01.
  29. ISBN 0-7867-1484-0
    . Retrieved 2010-11-01.
  30. ISBN 0-8047-1406-1
    . Retrieved 2010-11-01.
  31. ^ JSTOR (Organization) (1984). Theory and society, Volume 13. Elsevier. p. 439. Retrieved 2010-11-01.
  32. ISBN 9780765604453
    . Retrieved 2010-11-01.
  33. ISBN 0-295-97644-6
    . Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  34. ^ Ch'en (1972), p. 161.

Bibliography

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