Ma clique
(Redirected from Xibei San Ma)
The Ma clique (Traditional Chinese: 馬家軍; Simplified Chinese: 马家军; pinyin: Mǎ Jiājūn; literally "Ma family army") was a family of warlords who ruled the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia from the 1910's until 1949. The three most prominent warlords were Ma Bufang, Ma Hongkui, and Ma Hongbin, collectively known as the Xibei San Ma (lit. Three Mas of the Northwest); other prominent Ma's included Ma Qi, Ma Lin, and Ma Zhongying. The Three Mas took control of the region during the Warlord Era, siding first with the Guominjun and then the Kuomintang; they fought against the Red Army during the Long March and the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War. During the final stages of the Chinese Civil War they fought for the Kuomintang side until the communists emerged victorious and established a unified Chinese state (the People's Republic of China) in 1949. Upon the arrival of communist forces, Ma Hongbin defected to the communists while Ma Bufang and Ma Hongkui fled with the Kuomintang.
The Ma's were all ethnic Hui, an ethnic group in China noted for its adherence to Islam.
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Warlord cliques in Republican China