Ma Fuxing

Ma Fuxing (1864–1924) was a Hui Muslim commander from Yunnan who rose through the Qing armies and, under Governor Yang Zengxin, ruled Kashgar in southwestern Xinjiang as its Titai from 1916 to 1924. His government there was notorious for its cruelty. When Yang grew suspicious of him in 1924, he sent Ma Shaowu to remove him; Ma Fuxing was shot and his body tied to a cross for display. ^{1 2}

There is no Arabic or Urdu article on him; this page rests on the English and Chinese articles, as stated in its sources.

He was born in Yunnan — the Chinese article specifies Jianshui County — and the two articles disagree on his birth year: the English article and Wikidata give 1864, the Chinese article 1866. The Chinese article gives his courtesy name as Shenzhi and traces a chequered early career: a military degree in his youth, posts in Yunnan, Henan and Zhejiang, disgrace and exile to Xinjiang in 1901, pardon in 1905, and farming near Dihua. The English article instead brings him to Xinjiang through the Kansu Braves, under Ma Fulu's command, fighting the foreign forces during the Boxer Rebellion at the siege of the legations and the Battle of Peking. After the Qing fell he recruited Dungan troops for Yang Zengxin from 1911 and was posted to Kashgar in 1916, appointed commander of some 2,000 Hui soldiers. ^{1 2}

His rule at Kashgar was repressive and extravagant. He kept a harem of Uyghur wives, displayed the severed limbs of his victims on the city walls with notices of their offences, and — in the Chinese article's telling — amassed grassland, farmland and houses, kept seventeen wives and concubines, and styled himself a pasha. At the same time he developed the region's resources, opening oil wells and a refinery and coal and copper mines, and set up government monopolies, petroleum among them, obliging people to buy paraffin wax. He demanded that people address him as padishah, "king". ^{1 2}

In 1924 Yang Zengxin intercepted correspondence between Ma Fuxing and the Zhili clique and resolved to remove him. He sent Ma Shaowu, another Hui commander, who attacked Kashgar, captured Ma Fuxing and shot him personally on Yang's telegraphed order; the body was tied to a cross and displayed. The Chinese article dates the killing at Kashgar's north gate to 2 June 1924, while the Chinese article on Ma Shaowu dates the assault to 31 May — a one-day tension between the two texts that is recorded unresolved. Ma Shaowu then replaced him in the government of Kashgar. ^{1 2 3}

His faith is recorded as unknown. The Chinese article's lead calls him a leader of the Khufiyya "old teaching" of Islam, but that description stands in a single text: the English article names no school and no order for him, calling him a Yunnanese Muslim and a Hui, and Wikidata carries no religion value for him at all. One text is not enough to record an affiliation. ^{1 2 4}

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.