| Amdo - Ma clique conflicts | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Republic of China | Amchok and Golok Amdo Tibetans | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Unknown | |||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Tribal Ngolok fighters | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
TheMa clique fought a series of military campaigns between 1917 and 1949 against unconquered Amchok andNgolok (Golok) tribal Tibetan areas ofQinghai (Amdo), undertaken by twoHui commanders, Gen.Ma Qi and Gen.Ma Bufang, on behalf of theBeiyang andKuomintang governments of theRepublic of China. The campaigns lasted between 1917 and 1949. The conflict was spurred by multiple factors, notably for economic and socio-political reasons (including intertribal tensions) rather than by any racial or religious enmity.[2]
GeneralMa Qi was aHui Chinese commander who joined theKuomintang after theNorthern Expedition in 1927–1928. His forces were composed entirely of Hui Chinese, organized in theNinghai Army, which was then turned into aNational Revolutionary Army division.
Ma Qi occupiedLabrang Monastery in 1917, the first time non-Tibetans had seized it.[3] Ma Qi defeated the Tibetan forces with his Hui Chinese troops.[4] His forces were praised by foreigners who traveled through Qinghai for their fighting abilities.[5] The Labrang monastery had strong connections to the unpacified Ngolok Tibetan tribals who refused to submit to Chinese rule.[citation needed]
After ethnic rioting between Hui andTibetans erupted in 1918, Ma Qi defeated the Tibetans. He heavily taxed the town for eight years. In 1925 a rebellion broke out, and thousands of Tibetans drove out the Hui. Ma Qi responded with 3,000 Hui Chinese troops, who retook Labrang and machine-gunned thousands of Tibetan monks as they tried to flee.[6] Ma Qi besieged Labrang numerous times but the Tibetans and Mongols fiercely resisted his Hui forces until Ma Qi gave it up in 1927.[7] However, that was not the last Labrang saw of General Ma. The Hui forces looted and ravaged the monastery again. In revenge Tibetan nomads skinned alive many Hui soldiers. One of the most common practices was to slice open the stomach of a living soldier and then put hot rocks inside the stomach. Many Hui women were sold to the ethnicHan andKazakhs. Children were adopted by the Tibetans.[7]
Austrian-American explorerJoseph Rock witnessed the carnage and aftermath of one of the battles around 1929. The Ma Muslim army left Tibetan skeletons scattered over a wide area, and the Labrang monastery was decorated with severed Tibetan heads.[8] After the 1929 Battle ofXiahe near Labrang, severed Tibetan heads were used as ornaments by Chinese Muslim troops in their camp, 154 in total. Rock described how the heads of "young girls and children" were staked around the encampment. Ten to fifteen heads were fastened to the saddle of every Muslim cavalryman.[9] The heads were "strung about the walls of the Moslem garrison like a garland of flowers".[10]
Ma Bufang, the son of Ma Qi, was aKuomintang warlord who dominated Qinghai. He served as ageneral in theNational Revolutionary Army and sought to expand theRepublic of China's control over all of Qinghai, as well as bringingTibet back into the Republic by force. With the backing of the Kuomintang government, Ma Bufang launched seven expeditions intoGolog, killing thousands of Ngolok Tibetans.[11][12] Ma and his army, having established an Islamic state-within-a-state in Qinghai, exterminated many Ngolok Tibetans in northeastern and eastern Qinghai.[13] During one such attack in 1941 Ma Bufang sent Hui troops to destroy Sekar Gompa monastery, killing their highest ranking Lama and 300 tapas. They sacked the compound, burning it to the ground, and sold all of the property for gold and silver.[14]
From 1918 to 1942 the Ma warlords waged intensive, violent war against the Ngolok tribal inhabitants of Golog. Ma Bufang also manufactured conflicts by giving pasture to Tibetan and Mongolian groups at the same time, which spread internal conflicts.[15] Ma established the Kunlun middle school, which recruited mainly Han and Hui but also Tibetan students who were subjected to a harsh military life. Ma wanted to use them as translators as he expanded his military domain over land inhabited by Tibetans.[16]
During the pacification, a war broke out betweenQinghai and Tibet. Tibet attempted to capture parts of southernQinghai province, following contention inYushu, Qinghai, over a monastery in 1932. Ma Bufang's army vanquished the Tibetan forces and recaptured several counties inXikang Province.
Ma Bufang succeeded in acquiring a personal monopoly on the Qinghai economy such as gold, wool, furs, animal skins, herbs. He also established trade relations and trade offices with Lhasa and Japanese-controlled Inner Mongolia. Tibetan tribals in southern Qinghai revolted against Ma Bufang's newly levied taxes in 1939–1941, but they were crushed by Ma cavalry forces' "suppression campaigns" and massacred, which caused a major influx of 2,000 households of Tibetan refugees into Tibet from Qinghai. This exodus triggered a crisis when Central Tibetan authorities feared that Ma Bufang might attack to pursue the refugees, but Ma resolved the matter by granting "amnesty" to "his Tibetan subjects".[17]
Under orders from the Kuomintang government ofChiang Kai-shek, Ma Bufang repaired theYushu airport in southernQinghai Province, close to the border with Tibet, to prevent Tibetan separatists from seeking independence.[citation needed] Chiang also ordered Ma Bufang to put his Hui soldiers on alert for an invasion of Tibet in 1942.[18][19] Ma Bufang complied, and moved several thousand troops to the border with Tibet.[20] Chiang also threatened the Tibetans with aerial bombardment if they did not comply.
A former TibetanKhampa soldier named Aten who fought Ma Bufang's forces gave an account of a battle. He described the Hui as "fierce". After he and his troops were ambushed by 2,000 of Ma Bufang's Chinese Muslim cavalry, he was left with bullet wounds and "had no illusions as to the fate of most of our group", the majority of whom were wiped out.[21][22] Aten also asserted that "the Tibetan province ofAmdo" was "occupied" by Ma Bufang.[23]
The Golog tribes were deeply resentful of the Muslim Ma warlords of Qinghai due to the brutality of the conflict. In response, in 1939, 1942 and 1949 Golog chieftains frequently sent appeals to Chinese central government representatives, including Tibetan communist leaders outside of Qinghai, to transfer the Golog lands from Qinghai province to Xikang (Kham) province and hence evade the Ma warlords' suppression. These requests were not acted upon, however, although the Golog in the early period People's Republic did not rebel as they perceived it as an improvement over the Ma warlords.[24]
ma qi muslim.
The soldiers were the fierce Hui Hui, or Chinese Muslim horsemen (formerly soldiers of the warlord, Ma Pu Fang), and were mounted on the sleek, powerful horses from the grasslands of Sining. I lay there in the gully drowsing fitfully.
chinese muslim General Ma pu fang occupied tibetan province amdo.
