Qing Dynasty Warfare and Military Authority: Discipline and the Ethnic Cleansing of 1860s Shaanxi

During the 1850s and 1860s, the Qing empire re-established political authority after a series of major rebellions that nearly toppled the dynasty. While the Taiping Rebellion was larger in scope, the campaign in Shaanxi is critical to understanding late Qing military history and the complex relationship between warfare, ethnicity, and demographic change in the late nineteenth century. The Qing reconquest of Shaanxi in 1863 resulted in the near elimination of the Muslim population in the province, which was not the intent of senior Imperial commanders, but a byproduct of Qing patterns of warfare and larger ethnic tensions in Shaanxi.