The rise of Ma Zhongying Ma Zhongying joined a Muslim militia in 1924 when he was 14 years old. Ma Zhongying seized
Hezhou and vanquished the forces of Ma Lin, who had been sent to recapture Hezhou from him. However, he was relieved by his commander—who was also his uncle—Ma Ku-chang, for acting without orders to take Hezhou. Ma Zhongying seized Gansu's capital (
Lanzhou) from the Guominjun in April 1929 but was eventually defeated and expelled by them. Hui Muslims belonging to the
Xidaotang sect and Tibetans in Taozhou were attacked by Ma Zhongying and his own Hui Muslim soldiers, causing an exodus of panicked Xidaotang Hui Muslims. During Ma Zhongying's 1928 revolt, a blaze destroyed the
Multicolored Mosque. Ma revolted in a period of famine and heavy taxation and seized Hezhou after besieging it. While most local Hui did not participate in the revolt, they did provide supplies and food to his invading army consisting of many conscripted
Salars. Zhao Xiping (赵席聘), commander of the 17th division of the National People’s Army, under Feng Yuxiang (an ally of the Hezhou government), retaliated by burning the city, including its twelve mosques. Ma attended the
Whampoa Military Academy in
Nanjing in 1929.
Xinjiang during the 1930s "He was like the rider on the pale horse, which appeared when the fourth seal was broken: 'And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with hunger and death, and with the beasts of the earth.'"
Sven Hedin on Ma Zhongying
Yulbars Khan asked for Ma Zhongying's help in overthrowing Gov. Jin Shuren after Jin abolished the
Kumul Khanate and set off the
Kumul Rebellion. Ma fought in Xinjiang for a while, was wounded and returned to Gansu where he forced
Mildred Cable,
Francesca and
Eva French to tend to his wounds. He returned to Xinjiang in the summer of 1933. Ma and the 36th Division fought the forces of Gov. Jin and the White Russians in the
Kumul Rebellion. The KMT wanted Jin removed since he had signed without its approval an arms treaty with the
Soviet Union. During the siege of Hami, Ma sent W. Petro a
European to get the garrison to surrender. The Garrison Commander inquired "
Is it true that Ma Chong Yng is only twenty years old?" and W. Petro replied affirmatively. This made the garrison commander – an 81 year old man who had also placed his trust in a sorcerer – unwilling to surrender despite the urging of his staff and the miserable situation in the besieged city. Ma's military actions were carried out by Hui officers and included atrocities toward Han and Uyghur civilians in Xinjiang during the fighting. Also, local Han and Uyghur were conscripted in his forces and sent to the front lines where they were subjected to heavy enemy cannon fire. The Soviets and Sheng Shicai claimed that Ma was being supported by the Japanese and using captured Japanese officers serving with his army. Despite this, Ma officially proclaimed his allegiance to the Chinese government in Nanjing. Due to his severe abuse and brutality, the Turkis (Uyghurs) and Han Chinese hated the Hui officer Ma Zhongying had placed in charge of Barkul, Western traveller
Peter Fleming reported that in 1935 Xinjiang was the only Chinese territory where Japanese agents were not active. After originally fighting against Ma Zhongying, Han Chinese Gen.
Zhang Peiyuan and his Han Ili army defected to Ma Zhongying's side to fight against the provincial government and the Russians. Ma Zhongying then fought against the Russians in the
Soviet invasion of Xinjiang.
Downfall Sven Hedin's truck caravan encountered Ma's forces while he and his New 36th Division were retreating south from the Soviet Invasion of Xinjiang. While Hedin was detained by Ma, he met Gen.
Ma Hushan and
Kemal Kaya Effendi. Ma's adjutant claimed to Hedin that Ma had the entire region of Tien-shan-nan-lu (southern Xinjiang) under his control and Hedin could pass through safely without any trouble. Hedin did not believe this assertion. Some of Ma's Tungan (Chinese-speaking Muslim) troops attacked Hedin's expedition by shooting at their vehicles. In April 1934, after his forces had stormed Kashgar during the
Battle of Kashgar (1934), Ma Zhongying himself arrived in the city and gave a speech at
Id Kah Mosque, telling the
Uyghurs to be loyal to the Chinese
Kuomintang government at Nanjing. "Ma denounced
Sheng Shicai as a Soviet puppet, and reaffirmed his allegiance to the Chinese government of Nanjing". During the
Soviet invasion of Xinjiang Ma Zhongying played a major role in fighting the invaders but his troops had to withdraw again and again. The last defense line was set up around
Khotan, from where he was generally believed to have fled to Soviet territory and was not seen again in Xinjiang.
Aftermath Vladimir Petrov, a Soviet NKVD agent posted in Yarkand in 1937, gives a different version of Ma Zhongying's disappearance. In his memoir
Empire of Fear, published in 1956 after defection to the West, Petrov describes how Ma was lured from Khotan onto a plane he believed was a Kuomintang flight, but was in fact staffed by Soviet agents who abducted him first to Yarkand NKVD headquarters, where he was forced to issue false orders to his own remnant troops in Khotan that would lead to their defeat, then flown on to Moscow where his fate was not known. There was no voluntary flight to the Soviet Union. The book "Who's Who in China" erroneously claimed that Ma Zhongying came back from the Soviet Union in 1934 to
Tianjin, China, and was residing there that year. British telegrams from India in 1937 said that Tungans like Ma Zhongying and Ma Hushan had reached an agreement with the Soviets, whom they had fought before, that since the
Japanese had begun full-scale warfare with China, the Tungans, led by Ma Zhongying and Ma Hushan, would help Chinese forces battle Japan, and that Ma Zhongying and Ma Hushan would return to Gansu, Ma Zhongying being sent back to Gansu by the Soviets, who had been keeping him in Russia. In 1936
Zhang Guotao's forces crossed the
Yellow River in an attempt to expand the Communist base into Xinjiang and make a direct connection with the USSR. Some sources allege that Ma Zhongying enlisted in the
Red Army and became a high-ranking special adviser to the proposed Soviet force that was planning to take action, according to Zhang Guotao's forces. Ma Zhongying's tasks were, reportedly, to advise the Soviets on the situation in Xinjiang and to help them negotiate with his cousins
Ma Bufang,
Ma Hongbin and their families so that these warlords would not hinder Zhang Guotao's forces. However, the Soviet plan did not materialize because Zhang Guotao's communist force was met by a coalition of 100,000 troops assembled by
Chiang Kai-Shek from the forces of Ma Bufang's Kuomintang Army from
Qinghai, a remnant of Ma Zhongying's forces from Gansu and
Ma Hongkui and Ma Hongbin troops from
Ningxia. The combined force annihilated Guotao's army. Guotao's own 21,000-man Fourth Red Army collapsed first, followed by
Mao Zedong's 8,000-man First Red Army.
Sheng Shicai sent requests to the Soviets to turn him in, but they refused. Nothing more was heard from Ma Zhongying after 1936. There are at least five stories of Ma's end: • Ma was killed in a crash prior to
World War II. • Ma was executed after being taken to Moscow in 1936. • Ma was imprisoned at a labor camp and later executed during the
Great Purge of the Army in 1937–1938. • Some writers, such as Red Army Gen.
Konstantin Rokossovsky, allege that Ma was first arrested during the Great Purge but was later released and participated in the
Great Patriotic War. • According to Sheng Shicai's memoir,
Sinkiang: Pawn or Pivot? (Michigan University Press, 1958) Ma, together with all his staff, was executed in
Moscow on orders of
Joseph Stalin during the summer or spring of 1937. == Personal character ==