also given jurisdiction over Guizhou. In the next decade he consolidated his power, and by 1670 his influence had spread to include much of Hunan, Sichuan, Gansu and even Shaanxi. Two other powerful defected military leaders also developed similar powers: Shang Zhixin in Guangdong and Geng Jingzhong in Fujian. They ruled their feudatories (territories) as their own domains and the Qing government had virtually no control over the provinces in the south and southwest. By 1672, the Kangxi Emperor had determined that these feudatories were a threat to the Qing regime. In 1673, Shang Zhixin submitted a memorial requesting permission to retire and in August of the same year, a similar request arrived from Wu Sangui, designed to test the court's intentions. The Kangxi Emperor went against the majority view in the Council of Princes and High Officials and accepted the request. News of Wu's rebellion reached Beijing in January 1674. White Lotus Rebellion The White Lotus Rebellion (1796–1804) was an anti-Qing uprising that occurred during the Qing dynasty. It broke out among impoverished settlers in the mountainous region that separates Sichuan province from Hubei and Shaanxi provinces. It apparently began as a tax protest led by the White Lotus Society, a secret religious society that forecasted the advent of the Buddha Maitreya, advocated the restoration of the Ming dynasty, and promised personal salvation to its followers. At first, the Qing government, under the control of Heshen, sent inadequate and inefficient imperial forces to suppress the ill-organized rebels. On assuming effective power in 1799, however, the Jiaqing Emperor (r. 1796-1820) overthrew Heshen's clique and gave support to the efforts of the more vigorous Qing commanders as a way of restoring discipline and morale. A systematic program of pacification followed in which the populace was resettled in hundreds of stockaded villages and organized into a militia by the name of tuanlian. In its last stage, the Qing suppression policy combined pursuit and extermination of rebel guerrilla bands with a program of amnesty for deserters. Although the Qing finally crushed the rebellion, the myth of the military invincibility of the Manchus was shattered, perhaps contributing to the greater frequency of rebellions in the 19th century. Eight Trigrams uprising of 1813 The Eight Trigrams uprising of 1813 broke out in China under the Qing dynasty. The rebellion was started by some elements of the millenarian Tianli Sect (天理教) or Heavenly Principle Sect, which