The bloody battle of life, the history of moving forward, is like the formation of coal, when a large amount of wood was used, but the result was a small piece of coal. --Lu Xun
Most of the netizens' understanding of the Northwest Ma Jiajun is concentrated on the absurdity and cruelty and perverse behavior of Ma Bufang, Ma Hongkui and so on. In fact, the Ma family ruled the northwest for 82 years, and it was only in the Republic of China that it became notorious, and before that, it was all shown as the pillar of the country.
Although Ma Hongkui and Ma Bufang have been in the northwest for decades, they are at best known as the "King of Ningxia" and "King of Qinghai", which is much inferior to the "Northwest Tianzi" of their previous generation leader Ma Anliang.
Ma Anliang, formerly known as Ma Qiwu, was the true founder of the Northwest Ma Family Army. From the name "Ma 75", it can be seen that Ma Jiajun is a grassroots counterattack, only because he met a nobleman named Zuo Zongtang.
Speaking of the rise of Ma Jiajun, we must start from the Hui people's anti-Qing movement in the late Qing Dynasty. In the 1860s, under the influence of the Taiping Army and the Twist Army, the Shaanxi-Gansu Huimin, who had been oppressed by the Qing court, also rose up.
Ma Anliang's family is a religious family, Ma Zhan'ao was a well-known grand imam when he was young, so not long after the Hezhou uprising, he was elected as "All Solicitation", leading the rebel army to defeat the Qing army many times, becoming one of the important leaders of the northwest Hui anti-Qing rebel army.
The reason why the uprising in Shaanxi and Gansu was able to become a spark of fire was that in addition to the corrupt rule of the Qing court, it was also because the Taiping Army was making too much noise in the southeast, and the imperial court had to temporarily tolerate the northwest. After the Xiang army regained Nanjing and destroyed the Twist army, Zuo Zongtang immediately waved the elite of the Xiang army into Shaanxi and Gansu to quell the rebellion.
At the beginning of Zuo Zongtang's entry into Shaanxi and Gansu, he believed that "the chaos has not been punished for ten years, and it is even more fearless to be jealous, and such a chaotic people are not deeply hurt by creation, and it is difficult to hope that they will be permanently obedient." Therefore, Zuo Zongtang refused all the begging requests of the large rebels, and after overcoming Ma Hualong in Jinji fort with heavy troops, he divided into three armies and went straight to Ma Zhan'ao in Hezhou.
Zuo Zongtang mobilized 40 battalions of troops and adopted the strategy of fighting steadily and step by step, and besieged the Hezhou rebels at the Taizi Temple. Ma Zhan'ao, in a hurry, made a surprise move, using the tactic of "black tiger digging out his heart" to defeat the Qing army to the ground, killing two Qing commanders, eight generals, four deputy generals, three staff generals, and three guerrilla generals, a total of twenty-six generals.
The Battle of the Prince Temple was the most painful defeat in Zuo Zongtang's life, but to everyone's surprise, Ma Zhan'ao actually made a request to recruit An at this time. Zuo Zongtang was in a dilemma, and it was very likely that he would be demoted and punished like his predecessor, so this news made him overjoyed.
In order to prevent the rebels from surrendering, Zuo Zongtang put forward harsh conditions. However, Ma Zhan'ao not only took the initiative to hand over 4,000 mules and horses and 14,000 spears, but also sent the sons of the eldest son, Ma Qiwu, and ten other rebel leaders to the Qing army camp as hostages, which is the famous "Ten Young Masters Entering Stability".
Ma Zhan'ao had to send his eldest son out, but unexpectedly provided him with a stage to show his talents. Zuo Zongtang ordered the sergeant to "open his bow and watch, raise his sword and sheath it, and list it in the middle of the road", but Ma Qiwu, who was only 17 years old, had no fear and answered like a stream.
Zuo Zongtang saw the situation and said to his staff: "Ma Zhan'ao Guhui Zhongzhijie, his father and son are extraordinary, in the future to suppress Hezhou, in the Ma family father and son Hu!" And immediately changed its name to "Ma Anliang", which means to eliminate violence and anliang.
Since climbing the tall branch of Zuo Zongtang, the Ma Anliang family has truly entered the northwest political arena. In the twenty-first year of Guangxu, another peasant uprising broke out in the Hehuang area, and Ma Anliang took the opportunity to suppress the chaos to fight dissidents and gather religious rights and one body.
When the Eight-Power Alliance entered Beijing, Ma Anliang accompanied Dong Fuxiang, the leader of the Gan Army, to resist foreign invaders and protect Empress Dowager Cixi from fleeing westward. Because Dong Fuxiang became a victim of the Qing court's compromise with the foreigners, Ma Anliang took the opportunity to break away from the Gan army and become a veritable "Northwest Tianzi".