In 1894, in the Xunhua area, the conflict between the old and new factions broke out again. This time, the old-school people set fire to many of the houses of the new school, causing the new school to report to the government in Xunhua and Xining. Tang Yanhe, the chief soldier of Hezhou, as a subordinate of Dong Fuxiang, was a Han Chinese, and believed that this was only an internal affair of the Flower Temple, so he entrusted Ma Yonglin, an old-school leader and businessman living in Linxia, to mediate.
Ma Yonglin, who had long been rebellious, saw the Qing army in Gansu moving eastward due to the First Sino-Japanese War, and thought that this was a great opportunity for him to achieve hegemony. Instead, he encouraged the old Xunhua side to continue to cause trouble, which led to the killing of two new imams. This time, the new faction decided to ask for help directly from the Lanzhou Governor's Office. Lanzhou immediately sent several Xining Taoists to investigate and deal with it.
After seeing the burned new school villages along the way, the Taoists sumptuously killed 11 old school leaders and put their heads on public display without detailed investigation. This act angered the Hui and Salar Muslims of the old school of the local flower temple and triggered a new war. It was only 20 years after the last large-scale upheaval.
Back in the Tongzhi period, many Han landlords and militia warlords in Shaanxi and Gansu expressed dissatisfaction with Zuo Zongtang's fair and generous attitude, jokingly calling him"Left Imam"。Tang Yanhe had a similar opinion to Zuo Zongtang, who believed that the eunuchs of Huasi were not good people as a whole, so he ordered"Regardless of the old and the new, they will all be suppressed""Don't caress it"。As everyone knows, this policy has instead prompted the Huasi eunuchs to unite and jointly deal with external oppression.
In the feudal era, when the government killed innocents indiscriminately without a fair trial, this kind of behavior often triggered strong resistance and resistance from the people, which should have been taken for granted. However, Ma Yonglin, the behind-the-scenes leader who participated in the planning of the chaos, did not sincerely ask for the people's lives, but had personal power ambitions.
In order to achieve this ambition, Ma Yonglin's first goal was to seize River State. Linxia is known as the "wheat gar" because of the large number of Islamic sects and religious academic centers that are located here. Ma Yonglin knew that if he succeeded in capturing Linxia, he would be able to attract careerists from other sects to join him with the help of the banner of "holy war" and the material and spiritual resources here.
Garrisoned in Hezhou City was Guyuan Admiral Lei Zhengxuan, a veteran who had come to the northwest with Duolonga in the early years of Tongzhi and had rich experience. Ma Yonglin tried to eliminate Lei Zheng's army through field ambushes, luring him to send troops out of the city many times, and even did not hesitate to use various despicable means. However, these schemes were all seen through by Lei Zhengjuan, a veteran, and failed to succeed.
The most combat-effective army in the northwest region, led by Dong Fuxiang, Ma Anliang and others, this army is composed of multi-ethnic and multi-faith soldiers, with a total strength of dozens of battalions, known as the Gan Army. In the autumn of 1895, the main force of the Gan army appeared in the Lintao area, demonstrating its strong military might.
On the 10th day of the 11th lunar month in 1895, Ma Yonglin, his subordinates and his family were killed. Subsequently, the Gan army began to innocently kill the rebels and civilians who had laid down the **, so as to risk the military merit. Ma Anliang took the initiative to propose to Dong Fuxiang that the target of 27 heads must be completed every day. After this incident, Ma Anliang also forcibly collected three pieces of atonement silver from the people in the Hehuang area, totaling more than 300,000 taels, and forcibly donated a large amount of grain to Hezhou City, totaling 1,000 and hundreds of stones. Although the silver and grain were nominally used to compensate the Han people for repairing houses and relieving the refugees, in reality, only a few gentlemen in Hezhou City received a few hundred taels of silver each, while the rest of the wealth was filled by the Gan military bureau-level officers.