page_title: Zuo Zongtang
section_title: Success and appointments
hierarchical_section_title: Zuo Zongtang / Biography / Success and appointments
caption_attribution_description: English: The map showing the Dungan Revolt (1862 - 1877) of Qing dynasty during the reign of Tongzhi Emperor in northwestern China.
context_page_description: Zuo Zongtang, Marquis Kejing, sometimes referred to as General Tso, was a Chinese statesman and military leader of the late Qing dynasty.
  Born in Xiangyin County, Hunan Province, Zuo sat for the imperial examination in his youth but obtained only a juren degree. He then spent his time studying agriculture, geography and military strategy. In 1851, he started his career in the Qing military by participating in the campaign against the Taiping Rebellion. In 1862, he was recommended by Zeng Guofan to serve as the provincial governor of Zhejiang Province. During his term, he coordinated Qing forces to attack the Taiping rebels with support from British and French forces. For this success, he was promoted to Viceroy of Min-Zhe. After capturing Hangzhou from the Taiping rebels in 1864, he was enfeoffed as a first class count. In 1866, as part of the Qing government's Self-Strengthening Movement, Zuo oversaw the construction of the Fuzhou Arsenal and naval academy. That same year, he was reassigned to serve as the Viceroy of Shaan-Gan, where he oversaw industrialisation in Gansu Province. In 1867, he was appointed as an Imperial Commissioner in charge of military affairs in Gansu.
context_section_description: Zuo's successes continued. In 1867, he became Viceroy of Shaanxi and Gansu provinces and Imperial Commissioner of the armed forces in Shaanxi. In 1884, his fellow Xiang Army officer, Liu Jintang, was appointed as the first governor of Xinjiang Province. The Governor of Xinjiang was the subordinate to the Viceroy of Shaanxi and Gansu.
  In these capacities, Zuo succeeded in putting down another uprising, the Nian Rebellion, in 1868.
  After this military success, Zuo marched west with his army of 120,000, winning many victories with advanced Western weapons in the Dungan Revolt in northwestern China (Shaanxi, Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang provinces) in the 1870s.
  Several Hui Muslim generals, such as Ma Zhan'ao, Ma Anliang, Ma Qianling, Dong Fuxiang, and Ma Haiyan from Hezhou, who had defected to Zuo's army, helped him crush the "Muslim rebels". Zuo rewarded them by relocating the Han Chinese from the suburbs of Hezhou to another place and allowing their troops to stay in the Hezhou suburbs as long as they did not live in the city itself.
  In 1878, Zuo successfully suppressed Yakub Beg's uprising and helped to negotiate an end to Russian occupation of the border city of Ili. He was vocal in the debate at the Qing imperial court over what to do with the Xinjiang situation, advocating for Xinjiang to become a province, in opposition to Li Hongzhang, who wanted to abandon what he called "useless Xinjiang" and concentrate on defending China's coastal areas. However, Zuo won the debate, Xinjiang was made a province, and many administrative functions were staffed by his Hunan officers.
  Zuo was outspoken in calling for war against the Russian Empire, hoping to settle the matter by attacking Russian forces in Xinjiang with his Xiang Army. In 1878, when tension increased in Xinjiang, Zuo massed Qing forces toward the Russian-occupied Kuldja. The Canadian Spectator stated in 1878, "News from Turkestan says the Chinese are concentrating against Kuldja, a post in Kashgar occupied by the Russians... It is reported that a Russian expedition from Yart Vernaic has been fired upon by Chinese troops and forced to return." The Russians were afraid of the Qing forces, thousands of whom were armed with modern weapons and trained by European officers. Because the Russian forces near the Qing Empire's border were under-manned and under-equipped, they agreed to negotiate.
  Zuo's Xiang Army troops were armed with modern German Dreyse needle rifles and Krupp artillery, as well as a few experimental weapons.
  For all his contributions to his nation and monarch, Zuo was appointed a Grand Secretary to the Grand Secretariat in 1874 and elevated to "Second Class Marquis Kejing" in 1878.
caption: The map showing Zuo's campaign against Dungan rebels and Yaqub Beg in Xinjiang
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