This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
A series of Muslim uprisings against Qing dynasty rule swept Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia and parts of Xinjiang from 1862 to 1877, led chiefly by the Hui community known to Russian and Central Asian sources as Dungans, though Han Chinese, Salar and other groups were drawn into the fighting on both sides at different points. The revolt began in Shaanxi in 1862 amid friction between Han and Hui communities and widened into sustained anti-Qing rebellion, with local Hui leaders, including Ma Hualong at Jinjipu in Ningxia and the Ma-clan commanders of Gansu, organizing prolonged resistance.
The Qing general Zuo Zongtang led the protracted reconquest of the region through the 1870s, employing scorched earth tactics, mass resettlement and, in several sieges, the execution of surrendered garrisons; Ma Hualong and his commanders were executed after Jinjipu's surrender in 1871, and the reconquest was complete by 1877. Qing authorities resettled surviving Hui populations under closer state supervision, and the northwest's Hui and Han populations alike took generations to recover the numbers and prosperity the revolt and its suppression had destroyed.