fled into areas controlled by the Red Spears. This mutiny was followed by a full-blown rebellion of demobilized ex-warlord troops led by Zhang Zongchang who wanted to regain control of Shandong. This insurgency devastated the northern Shandong Peninsula, as over 50 villages and six towns were destroyed by rebel troops. Both Zhang's followers as well as Liu's soldiers plundered, murdered and raped civilians, while captured women and girls were sold as slaves on Huangxian's market for 10–20 Mexican dollars (the Mexican silver dollar was the main currency used in China at the time). This chaos allowed the Red Spears to further increase their power, as the desperate rural population flocked en masse to their cause in order to receive at least some protection from the rampaging soldiers and bandits. By the time Liu Zhennian managed to crush the warlord rebellion in summer 1929, the Red Spear Society had grown so powerful that it had set up a proto-state in Dengzhou county. There, it had established a headquarters, named a magistrate, taken over the local administration and introduced land as well as head taxes in order to fund itself. In several other counties the peasant rebels at least prevented tax collection by government officials. The Red Spears also introduced compulsory membership to a certain degree, so that at least one member of every family in those villages the insurgents controlled had to be a Red Spear. Those among the rural population who worked at Zhifu were also forced to pay a special tax which was used by the Red Spears to buy weapons and ammunition. Access to the insurgent areas was tightly controlled, and anyone wearing a government or military uniform was shot on sight. At this point, even those who did not speak the local dialect and therefore appeared to be outsiders, no longer dared to venture into the Red Spears' territory. The peasant insurgents even came to behave like a mafia, looting, raping, robbing and kidnapping for ransom. The victims of these activities mostly belonged to the wealthier upper class or were Christians, who consequently fled into the city of Dengzhou. As historian Lucien Bianco noted, secret societies in rural China had the "chronic tendency to degenerate into gangs", though at least some of the peasant rebels' criminal activities may have stemmed from military necessity. The number of Red Spears on the Shandong Peninsula had grown to about 50,000–60,000