Bai Lang Rebellion | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Republic of China Jahriyya menhuan Xidaotang |
Gelaohui | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Yuan Shikai Ma Anliang Ma Qi Ma Yuanzhang Ma Qixi Yang Jiqing |
Bai Lang |
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Strength | |||||||
Beiyang Army Han chinese and Muslim Hui militia Tibetans |
Bai Lang's army, approx 30,000 strong | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
thousands of civilian casualties |
The Bai Lang Rebellion, was a Chinese "bandit" rebellion that lasted from mid-1913 to late-1914. Launched against the Republican government of Yuan Shikai, the rebellion was led by Bai Lang (which can be translated as "White Wolf", hence the rebellion's more common title of White Wolf Rebellion in western media). His army was an eclectic mix of anti-Yuan Shikai troops and rebels, bandit groups, and Gelaohui (secret society) members, and also allied to southern Guangdong based revolutionaries.
Bai Yung-chang, more commonly known by his pseudonym Bai Lang, was born in 1873, in Henan, to a wealthy family. As a youth Bai took a variety of "hands-on" jobs including employment a government salt transporter and service as an anti-bandit militiaman. Nevertheless, his life changed in 1897 when he was arrested for getting into a fight with a man named Wang Zhen, who died during the altercation. After getting out of jail Bai was only dissuaded from becoming a bandit by his family, and instead turned his martial interests towards a legal outlet (namely, military service). During the last years of Manchu rule he served in China's Beiyang Army and was trained in tactics and weaponry in Japan. Upon his return he served as an adjutant to Wu Lu-chen, Imperial commander at Shijiazhuang. During the Chinese Revolution of 1911 the pro-revolutionary General Wu was assassinated by Manchu or Beiyang Army troops loyal to Yuan Shikai, and Bai was forced to return home. After a series of storms ravaged the region's crops in late-1911, Bai and other local people fell in with the bandit Du Qibin
From 1913, Bai was leading the bandit group. During the Second Revolution he threw his lot in against Yuan Shikai's government. For a year his troops waged a guerrilla war, evading government Beiyang Army troops and ravaging no less than fifty cities in central China. His actions caused mixed outpourings of mass-support and popular outrage, with his army variously called by itself and supporters "The Citizen's Punitive Army", "Citizen's Army to Exterminate Bandits" and "The Army to Punish Yuan Shikai" among others. As his fame grew, deserters, bandits and revolutionaries bolstered his divisions and he swiftly moved through Henan, Anhui, Hubei, Shaanxi, Gansu, disrupting swathes of Northern China. In Henan, the city of Yuxian, famed for its vital pharmaceutical industry, was ransacked of everything from medicine to guns and the military governor, Chang Chen-fang, was dismissed for his failure to suppress the uprising. Support from peasants grew due to Bai's anti-gentry and anti-tax stance (slogans like "take from the rich and give to the poor" increased rural support, as did the murder of magistrates and the distribution of grain stores). Upon entering Gansu, however, the rebellion encountered strong civil and military resistance.