What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
In our traditional geographical concept, Qinghai and Tibet are part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and both are Tibetan settlements, which are basically very similar in terms of geographical environment and terroir culture. So, how did Qinghai become an independent province?
01 Mongolia into Qinghai
At the beginning of the 13th century, the Mongol Empire swept through the Central Plains and made an alliance with the Tibetan Tubo tribes in Liangzhou, using military power to bring the snowy plateau under control. As the Mongol tribes moved south, a large number of Mongols began to enter the northwest region as nomadic, and gradually entered the northern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau along the Huangshui Valley. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Heshuo and Dzungar tribes of Western Mongolia successively entered the hinterland of Tibet from Qinghai, and the Mongol tribes they belonged to spread in large areas along the shores of Qinghai Lake and the Qaidam Basin in the north.
By the early years of the Qing Dynasty, the ethnic structure of the northern Tibetan Plateau had changed dramatically, and the proportion of Mongol tribes in the Qinghai region was extremely expanded. In the first year of Yongzheng (1723), Lobzang Tenzin, the grandson of Gushi Khan of the Heshuo Special Department, rebelled and was put down by the Qing army the following year.
Photo: Qinghai in the Qing Dynasty
For the sake of strategic stability in the Qinghai region and to effectively play a role in clamping in Tibet. The Qing government set up Chincha to handle the affairs of Qinghai Mongolian Fanzi (Qinghai Affairs Minister), and the prime minister of Qinghai Mongolian banners and Fanren (Tibetan) affairs. The Minister of Affairs of Xining ruled over the Twenty-Nine Banners of Qinghai Mongolia and the Yushu and other forty ethnic toasts, which basically formed the outline of today's Qinghai.
02 Qinghai province established
In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, the northwest land was in turmoil, and contradictions between the Hui and Han dynasties and local disputes emerged in an endless stream, and the Ma family in the northwest continued to develop in the competition for local forces, and gradually grasped the real power in Gansu, Ningxia and other places. In the first year of the Republic of China (1912), the Beiyang government changed the xining office minister to the qinghai office chief, and the last xining office minister QingShu stayed in office. With the escalation of the conflict between the local revolutionary party and the traditional forces, the Beiyang government, with a pragmatic attitude, changed the chief of the Qinghai office to the Mengfan Xuanwei envoy in 1915, and Ma Qi, the guard envoy of Ninghai Town in Ganbian, also served as the envoy.
Photo/ Ma Jiajun
As a powerful Hui warlord in Xining, Ma Qi combined with ethnic and religious forces during his time in Xining, gained absolute rule over the Sala, Hui and other people in the area, and actively participated in the construction of administrative divisions in the Yushu area in the southern region of Qinghai, and effectively managed the Tibetans in the Goluo and Xiahe areas. More importantly, Ma Qi relied on the qingma clique warlord army established by his younger brother Ma Lin, Zi Ma Buqing, Ma Bufang, nephew Ma Buyuan, and Ma Zhongying of the same clan, forming a solid military rule. In 1920 and 1925, Ma Qi submitted to the Beijing government the "Opinions on the Operation of Qinghai" and the "Opinions on the Development of Qinghai", which actually began to consider the political and economic considerations of Qinghai's separate construction.
03 Qinghai Province
In June 1928, after the Nationalist government established the capital in Nanjing, Chiang Kai-shek became the chairman of the Nationalist Government, and Feng Yuxiang became the vice president of the Executive Yuan, believing that "Qinghai relations are of paramount importance to national defense", so he vigorously promoted the Nationalist government in Nanjing to strengthen its control over the Qinghai region. At the beginning of 1928 (the 17th year of the Republic of China), Gao Shuxun led the Second Army of the National Revolutionary Army into Xining and forcibly seized the nominal rule of Ma Qi. In December of that year, Feng Yuxiang personally ordered Sun Lianzhong to go to Qinghai as the chairman of Qinghai Province. At the beginning of the following year, Qinghai Province was officially established.
Photo/ Xining during the Republic of China period
The establishment of Qinghai Province is closely related to the changes in ethnic distribution caused by the large-scale entry of Mongol forces into the Qinghai region since the Ming and Qing dynasties.
The nomadic Mongol tribes changed the pattern of the single distribution of Tibetans on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, allowing the Qing government to establish an independent administrative region of Qinghai. The formal establishment of Qinghai Province during the Republic of China period is closely related to the political intention of the Nationalist government to strengthen its control over the northwest region, and more importantly, both the central and local governments will effectively control Qinghai as an important starting point for controlling Tibet's strategic stability.