treaty with the emir in 1874. Qing reconquest of Xinjiang The Qing decided to reconquer Xinjiang in the late 1870s. Zuo Zongtang, previously a general in the Xiang Army, was the commander in chief of all Qing troops participating in this counterinsurgency. His subordinates were the Han Chinese General Liu Jintang and Manchu Jin Shun. As Zuo Zongtang moved into Xinjiang to crush the Muslim rebels under Yaqub Beg, he was joined by Dungan (Hui) General Ma Anliang and General Dong Fuxiang. Qing forces entered Ürümqi unopposed. Yaqub's subordinates defected to the Qing or fled as his forces started to fall apart, and the oasis fell easily to the Qing troops. The mass retreat of the rebel army shrank their sphere of control smaller and smaller. Yaqub Beg lost more than 20,000 men either though desertion or at the hands of the enemy. In October 1877, after the death of Yaqub Beg, Jin Shun resumed his forward movement and encountered no serious opposition. General Zuo appeared before the walls of Aksu, the bulwark of Kashgaria on the east, and its commandant abandoned his post at the first onset. Qing army then advanced on Uqturpan, which also surrendered without a blow. Early in December, all Qing troops began their last attack against the capital city of the Kashgarian regime. The rebel troops were defeated and the residual troops started to withdraw to Yarkant, whence they fled to Russian territory. With the fall of Kashgaria Qing's reconquest of Xinjiang was completed. No further revolt was encountered, and the reestablished Qing authorities began the task of recovery and reorganization, including the establishment of the Xinjiang province in 1884. The use of Muslims in the Qing armies against the revolt was noted by Yang Zengxin. The third reason is that at the time that Turkic Muslims were waging revolt in the early years of the Guangxu reign, the ‘five elite divisions’ that governor general Liu Jintang led out of the Pass were all Dungan troops [Hui dui 回队]. Back then, Dungan military commanders such as Cui Wei and Hua Dacai were surrendered troops who had been redeployed. These are undoubtedly cases of pawns who went on to achieve great merit. When Cen Shuying was in charge of military affairs in Yunnan, the Muslim troops and generals that he used included many rebels, and it was because of them that the Muslim revolt in Yunnan