A Brief History of the Tujia: The Tujia During the 1911 Revolution and Republican Era (Part 2)
II. Politics in Tujia Areas During the Republican Era — (1) Tujia Struggles Against Yuan Shikai's Restoration of Monarchy: After Yuan seized power and ruled with brutality, the assassination of Song Jiaoren in March 1913 sparked national outrage and Sun Yat-sen's call for a punitive expedition.
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II. Politics in the Tujia Areas During the Period of the Republic of China
(1) The Tujia People's Struggle Against Yuan Shikai's Restoration of the Monarchy
After Yuan Shikai usurped political power, he carried out bloody rule over the people of all ethnic groups throughout the country. In March 1913, Yuan Shikai sent someone to assassinate the Kuomintang member Song Jiaoren. After the "Song case" was made public, domestic public opinion was in an uproar, and Sun Yat-sen advocated raising troops to punish Yuan and launched the "Second Revolution." In July, Jiangxi military governor Li Liejun first organized the "Army to Punish Yuan" and sent telegrams denouncing Yuan. Then Sichuan and other provinces declared independence, Xiong Kewu established the "Army to Punish Yuan" in Chongqing, and military and civilian people throughout Sichuan rose up in response; the Tujia, Miao, and Han people of Youyang County rose up under the leadership of Zou Jie and joined in punishing Yuan. Soon afterward, they were suppressed by Hu Jingyi, who had thrown in his lot with Yuan Shikai.
In December 1915, Yuan Shikai restored the monarchy, arousing intense anger and resistance among the people of all ethnic groups throughout the country. Cai E raised troops in Yunnan and launched the National Protection War against Yuan Shikai's proclamation of himself as emperor. The Tujia, Miao, and Han people of Youyang County rose up at Gongtan under the leadership of Li Shanbo, Wang Zilü, and Wang Ziliu, calling themselves the "Revive China Revolutionary Army" and carrying out the struggle to punish Yuan. Yuan Shikai urgently ordered a battalion of Beiyang troops to go from Hubei to suppress them. Wang Zilü and others led the righteous army in a brave counterattack, and the Beiyang troops were defeated and routed, so they captured Youyang, Xiushan, and other counties. At this time, Shi Qingyang, ordered by Sun Yat-sen, returned to Sichuan and served as commander of the eastern Sichuan area; he led troops to Youyang, and Li Shanbo and other righteous armies came under Shi Qingyang's leadership. In May, Shi Qingyang led troops from Youyang to Pengshui and stationed them at the Quanxue Institute, when he suddenly heard that Zhou Mazi, a battalion commander under Li Shanbo, had mutinied and engaged in street fighting in Youyang with detachment commander Tang Zimo. Shi Qingyang, together with Secretary-General Zhang Zuochen and more than thirty others, traveled day and night to Youyang, assembled Tang Zimo's troops, and also took in several thousand men from Tang Pengcheng's troops, marched out through Qianjiang, Shizhu, and Fuling, and pressed toward Chongqing.
In February 1916, Yuan Shikai dispatched Beiyang troops from Hunan and Sichuan in two routes to attack Yunnan and suppress Cai E's National Protection Army. When the Beiyang Army's Sixth and Twentieth Divisions reached western Hunan preparing to advance into Guizhou, the Guizhou National Protection Army led by Dai Ji attacked into western Hunan from Guizhou, and the two sides engaged in fierce fighting around Zhijiang and Mayang. Yuan Shikai hastily appointed Xiong Xiling as Pacification Commissioner for Western Hunan. Through mediation, the two sides briefly ceased fire, and part of the Guizhou army withdrew back to Guizhou. At this time, the people of all ethnic groups in western Hunan rose up one after another, stubbornly resisting the Beiyang Army and opposing Yuan Shikai's restoration of the monarchy. Luo Jianqiu of Dayong County, under the banner of the Western Hunan Independence Army, contacted secret societies and gathered over 1,500 to 1,600 people of the Tujia, Miao, and Han ethnic groups to raise troops against Yuan. Luo Jianqiu took advantage of the widespread discontent among the people of Yongshun caused by County Magistrate Che Geng's "verification of old land deeds" and his continual raising of verification fees, as well as the withdrawal of patrol garrison troops and the emptiness of the city's defenses. On March 19, he led over 300 men to capture Yongshun county town. After entering the city, he immediately proclaimed to the residents the principle of "eliminating corrupt officials" to reassure the people. But fearing a counterattack by the Zhen'gan patrol troops, Luo Jianqiu withdrew his forces from the city in less than two days.
On April 25, secret society leaders Zhang Yutang and Wu Shaoqing gathered over a thousand people at Yalü Tan in Longshan County, captured Longshan county town, and declared independence. Zhang proclaimed himself Commander-in-Chief of the Western Hunan National Protection Army. After order in the city was stabilized, Zhang Yutang appointed Wu Shaoqing as Commander, leading over 500 men to garrison at Biandan Gorge on the border with Yongshun, and appointed Xiang Yanqing as Regiment Commander, leading over 1,000 men to guard Fulong Mountain on the border with Yongsui (present-day Huayuan), to prevent attacks by the Beiyang Army and the Zhen'gan patrol troops. At the same time, he sent people to contact the Guizhou National Protection Army, the Sichuan Youyang Independence Army, and Zhang Xueji, who had declared independence in Qiancheng, so as to coordinate mutual support. The Beiyang Army's Liu Huchen, stationed at Yongshun, and the Yongsui garrison commander Xiang Tianjue each led troops to attack Biandan Gorge and Fulong Mountain respectively. After fierce fighting, the Beiyang Army was defeated and retreated.
On May 5, Tujia, Miao, and Han peasants in Longtou, Baojing County, rose in revolt, stormed the police station, seized guns and ammunition, and elected police officer Luo Zhendong as Commander of the National Protection Army Independent Regiment, declaring independence. Within a very short time, three to four hundred peasants from various townships attacked the county town and drove out the magistrate appointed by Yuan Shikai's confidant Tang Xiangming. Baojing County Magistrate Wang Ne led over a hundred soldiers to Longtou to suppress the uprising, and the Beiyang Army stationed at Yongsui also came to reinforce. After fierce street fighting, the peasant army suffered too many casualties and was forced to withdraw from Longtou.
Because the people of all ethnic groups in western Hunan rose up one after another against Yuan, although the Beiyang Army in western Hunan held superior military strength, they could neither enter Guizhou nor control western Hunan. The pro-Yuan Western Hunan Garrison Commissioner and Commander of the Zhen'gan Army, Tian Yingzhao, finding himself in an unfavorable position, was forced to declare western Hunan's independence on May 21.
(II) Endless Internecine Warfare Among Warlords
After the end of World War I, the imperialist powers—the United States, Japan, Britain, France, and others—intensified their aggression against China, cultivating forces and turning the Beijing government and local warlords into their tools. Under the support and manipulation of the imperialists, the various warlord factions controlling the Beiyang government pursued a policy of "military unification" and sent troops against the southwest; local warlords in Hunan, Sichuan, and other provinces, under the banners of "Hunan for the Hunanese," "Sichuan for the Sichuanese," and "joint provincial autonomy," seized the opportunity to carve out territory for themselves, fighting for turf, resulting in continuous and unending internecine warfare. The Tujia region, situated at the junction of Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, and Guizhou, became an important area of fierce contention between northern and southern warlords and between local and outside warlords.
In June 1919, the Guangxi warlord clique supported Tan Yankai as Hunan Military Governor. After Tan Yankai established a firm foothold in Hunan, he wanted to further unify western Hunan; but the warlords entrenched in western Hunan, each controlling their own territory, refused to accept Tan's orders. Tian Yingzhao, the Western Hunan Garrison Commissioner controlled by the Guizhou army stationed in western Hunan, proclaimed himself Director of the Western Hunan Military and Political Office and Commander-in-Chief of the First Army of the Hunan National Salvation Allied Army. Zhang Xueji, the Daoyin of Chenyuan Circuit, proclaimed himself Director of the Western Hunan Civil Affairs Office. Zhou Zefan, the Deputy Western Hunan Garrison Commissioner close to the Guangxi clique, proclaimed himself Commander-in-Chief of the Western Hunan National Protection Army. In November of the same year, Tian Yingzhao instigated Liao Xiangyun, a regiment commander under Zhou, to kill Zhou. Zhou's subordinate officers Cai Juyou and Liu Xuyi then raised troops against Liao with Tan Yankai's support, and Liao Xiangyun was defeated and fled. Using this as a pretext, Tan Yankai sent Wu Jianxue to move troops toward western Hunan, preparing to unify western Hunan by force. Soon afterward, the Zhili-Anhui War broke out, and Tan's plan to use military force in western Hunan could not be realized.
In 1920, Yunnan warlord Tang Jiyao ordered Yunnan and Guizhou troops to attack Sichuan warlord Xiong Kewu's forces, attempting to seize Sichuan. Li Tiancai, Commander-in-Chief of the Western Hubei National Salvation Army and Commander of the Second Army, and Lan Tianwei, Commander of the First Army, unable to maintain their position in western Hubei, fled into Sichuan and attached themselves to Tang Jiyao, stationing respectively in Wanxian, Kuizhou, and Wushan. Xiong Kewu united various Sichuan warlord factions, drove the Yunnan and Guizhou armies out of Sichuan, and also repelled the Western Hubei National Salvation Army stationed at Wanxian and Kuizhou. Li Tiancai's army retreated to Jianshi and Lichuan, while Lan Tianwei's forces retreated to Enshi and Hefeng. In July of the same year, Chang-Li Garrison Commissioner Wang Zhengya was killed by troops sent by Deputy Commissioner Qing Heng. His son Wang Yuyin raised troops at Dongyueguan in Cili County to avenge his father, proclaimed himself Commander-in-Chief of the Chang-Li National Protection Army, and captured Dayong, Cili, and other counties. Wang, knowing his prestige was insufficient, had Lin Xiuhai serve as Commander-in-Chief of the Western Hunan National Salvation Army while he took the position of Deputy Commander. In October, Lin Xiuhai's army attacked Changde and Lixian from Dayong and other places. Tan Yankai urgently dispatched Brigade Commander Song Hegeng to lead troops against him, successively capturing Cili, Dayong, Sangzhi, and other counties, and routing Lin's army.
In 1921, Zhili warlord Wu Peifu pursued a "military unification" policy, sent troops to Yichang, and pressed toward Sichuan. Hunan and Sichuan organized a "Punitive Expedition Against Hubei Army." Sichuan troops occupied Badong and other counties and entered western Hubei. Soon afterward, the "Aid Hubei Army" was defeated and promptly withdrew.
In 1922, the "War of the First and Second Armies" broke out in Sichuan between Xiong Kewu and Dan Maoxin on one side and Liu Xiang and Yang Sen on the other. As a result, Liu Xiang stepped down, and Yang Sen led his remnants into Shinan and Lichuan in Hubei, attaching himself to Wu Peifu. This internecine warfare among Sichuan warlords created conditions for the Zhili warlord Wu Peifu to seize Sichuan.
In February 1923, Wu Peifu took the opportunity to send Eighth Division Commander Wang Ruqin and Eighteenth Division Commander Lu Jinshan from western Hubei to attack eastern Sichuan, while Yang Sen crossed the river from Lichuan to attack Wanxian. At this time, the Guizhou army under Yuan Zuming, occupying the Fenghuang area of western Hunan, retreated into Shinan in western Hubei, and Wu Peifu ordered him to cooperate with Yang Sen. In June of the same year, Sun Yat-sen appointed Tan Yankai as Hunan Provincial Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Hunan Army to punish Zhao Hengti and take charge of Hunan's administration. Zhao Hengti, in turn, requested Wu Peifu's aid, preparing to eliminate Western Hunan Garrison Commissioner Cai Juyou and Western Hunan Green Standard Army Commander Chen Quzhen. Tan Yankai ordered Cai Juyou, Chen Quzhen, and others to declare western Hunan's independence, accusing Zhao Hengti of attaching himself to the Beiyang Army, and organized a punitive army against Zhao, dispatching troops from western Hunan in three routes to attack Zhao Hengti.
In the autumn of 1924, the Sichuan army under Xiong Kewu, on Sun Yat-sen's orders, passed through western Hunan from Sichuan on the Northern Expedition. Hunan Military Governor Zhao Hengti, seeing that the Sichuan army had long been stationed in western Hunan without leaving, sent Hunan army units under Ye Kaixin and He Yaozu to press toward the Sichuan army; and secretly ordered Chen Quzhen, stationed in the Baojing and Qiancheng area, to attack the Sichuan army. After fierce fighting, Chen's forces suffered heavy casualties and retreated to Qiancheng.
In February 1925, Yang Sen, with the support of the Zhili warlord clique, grew increasingly powerful and attempted to eliminate rivals and unify Sichuan by force, but was defeated by the combined forces of Liu Xiang, Liu Wenhui, and the Guizhou army under Yuan Zuming. Yang Sen's remnants retreated to western Hubei, and over ten counties in eastern Sichuan, including Xiushan and Youyang, were occupied by Yuan Zuming. The Guizhou army under Yuan Zuming, due to unfair distribution of spoils, attacked Liu Xiang. Liu Xiang then united with Yang Sen to drive the Guizhou army out of Sichuan, and Yang Sen reoccupied eastern Sichuan.
In 1926, after Yuan Zuming withdrew from Sichuan, he sent his loyal subordinates Wang Tianpei and Peng Hanzhang to station in western Hunan, vainly attempting to expand outward. Hunan Superintendent Tang Shengzhi demanded that Yuan's forces move to western Hubei and return the western Hunan garrison area, but Yuan ignored him. Thereupon, Zhou Lan, Commander of the Training Division of the Eighth Army, shot Yuan Zuming dead in Changde and surrounded and disarmed his troops. The remnants, led by Li Shen, fled to the border region of the three provinces of Hunan, Hubei, and Sichuan.
In June of the same year, the Ye Ting Independent Regiment, directly led by the Chinese Communist Party, advanced from Guangdong into Hunan as the vanguard of the Northern Expeditionary Army. Yang Sen, trimming his sails to the wind, expressed willingness to join the Northern Expedition. The various Sichuan warlord factions, relatively united on the issue of opposing Wu Peifu, pushed Yang as Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Expedition Sichuan Army, attempting to go with the flow and expel him from the province; while the Guangzhou National Government, in order to have Yang Sen contain the Beiyang Army in western Hubei, appointed Yang as Commander of the Twentieth Army and Commander-in-Chief of the Sichuan-Hubei Border Defense. Yang then led his troops to western Hubei.
In March 1928, while the Guangxi clique attacked Hunan, they also sent the Second Army under Lu Diping to organize a "Western Expedition Army," contacting the newly submitted Thirtieth Army under Wei Yisan and Forty-Third Army under Li Shen to attack western Hubei, engaging in fierce battles with Yang Sen's Sichuan army. Yang's army withdrew from western Hubei and retreated to eastern Sichuan for garrison duty, with its defense area including Youyang, Xiushan, Qianjiang, and other places. These warlords' so-called "Northern Expedition" was merely a game of allying with one to topple another, and allying with another to topple a third. Fierce wars and intricate political struggles caused the rise and fall of various warlord forces to change rapidly, and territorial gains and losses to fluctuate greatly.
The prolonged internecine warfare among various warlord factions brought extremely severe disasters to the people of all ethnic groups in the Tujia region. Troops came and went in endless streams—one army had just left when another arrived. As soon as troops arrived, they levied heavy taxes and contributions, forcibly conscripted soldiers and laborers, and those who showed the slightest resistance were bound, beaten, or even killed. Thus, military disaster became a major scourge of society in the Tujia region. The people regarded soldiers as they would tigers. Due to years of military disaster, peasants were displaced, and "above Chenzhou there were stretches of over a hundred li of barren land with no one to cultivate it." The losses inflicted on the lives and property of the Tujia people by warlord warfare are incalculable.
Chen Quzhen, who had long entrenched himself in western Hunan, and the warlords Liu Xiang and Yang Sen, who occupied eastern Sichuan and western Hubei, turned their respective jurisdictions into "states within a state." They cultivated loyal followers, appointed officials, and controlled local administrative and financial powers, allowing no outside interference; or they appointed and dismissed local officials without the provincial government being able to decide without their approval. During Chen Quzhen's domination of western Hunan, he established various military schools to train mid- and lower-ranking officers, set up arsenals to manufacture modern weapons; established general merchandise and merchant protection bureaus in each county and important market towns along land and water transportation routes, controlling trade and monopolizing tax revenue; and successively opened the Western Hunan Rural Bank in Baojing and Fenghuang, issuing paper currency to manipulate finance, turning western Hunan into his own "independent kingdom."
(III) The Kuomintang's Brutal Exploitation of the Tujia People
In 1928, the four factions of the new Kuomintang warlords—Chiang Kai-shek, Li Zongren, Feng Yuxiang, and Yan Xishan—failed in negotiations over the distribution of territory and the "reorganization and demobilization" of troops, resorted to force, and a new round of warlord warfare erupted. In March 1929, Chiang's troops surrounded and absorbed the Guangxi clique forces occupying western and central Hubei, directly ruling western Hubei. In 1930, after the Central Plains War between Chiang, Feng, and Yan ended, Chiang Kai-shek's power grew increasingly strong. The warlords of Sichuan and western Hunan, confined to a corner, attached themselves to Chiang Kai-shek and, with a sudden transformation, became senior officials of the Kuomintang local government. The Kuomintang's rule in the Tujia region was gradually established.
In 1935, in order to strengthen direct rule over the western Hunan region, the Kuomintang established the Western Hunan Pacification Office in Yuanling, with Liu Jianxu as its director. Under the name of "rectifying official administration, pacifying the local area, and increasing administrative efficiency," it divided the area into five administrative inspection districts, each with a commissioner directly governing the political and military affairs of the counties, with officials at all levels subject to periodic assessment. In April 1938, the Pacification Office was abolished and the Yuanling Administrative Office was established, with Chen Quzhen as director. In August of the same year, the Kuomintang, under the name of "rectifying the rear and training new soldiers," established the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou Border Region Public Office in Yichang, appointing Liu Zhi as director and Mao Bingwen as deputy director. Under the pretext of "developing the border region of four provinces," they actually sought to strengthen their rule over the Tujia region. Police bureaus, courts, and prisons were established in each county; garrison brigades and security brigades were set up; district offices were established in each township, equipped with armed guards; the baojia system was tightly organized in rural areas, with repeated household registration checks and the implementation of collective punishment by baojia. At the same time, organizations such as the Kuomintang and the Three People's Principles Youth League, as well as intelligence agencies such as the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Military Statistics Bureau, were correspondingly established. In addition, mass organizations such as labor unions, peasant associations, chambers of commerce, and educational associations, directly controlled and manipulated by the Kuomintang, were established, forming a complete system of rule. From towns to villages, in industry, agriculture, commerce, and education, in every trade and profession, none escaped the Kuomintang's brutal rule.
After the War of Resistance Against Japan ended, the Kuomintang reactionary clique, on the one hand, launched civil war and attacked the liberated areas on a large scale; on the other hand, it played the fraud of "returning power to the people" and prepared the so-called "National Assembly" to resist the Chinese Communist Party's correct proposition of establishing a democratic coalition government. The local gentry, reactionary military officers, and politicians of each county engaged in life-and-death struggles to compete for the position of "National Assembly Representative." In Dayong County, local gentry Li Youqi and Peng Zhengyu competed to be "National Assembly Representative," each gathering hundreds of henchmen and using armed force in the county's Beigu Township, fighting each other, with over ten casualties on both sides. The darkness of Kuomintang politics was thus evident.
Under the brutal exploitation and dark rule of the warlords and the Kuomintang, the tax burden on the Tujia people increased daily and became ever heavier.
In 1923, Yongshun County's land tax was changed from two collections (summer and autumn) to one, merging the autumn tax into the summer tax and collecting it ahead of schedule. In addition to the land tax, there were numerous taxes and levies with various names, such as local taxes, special militia contributions, salaries for assembly members, police contributions, education contributions, and receipt fees. At the same time, a general merchandise tax bureau was established in the county town, with branch offices in rural markets and at key land and water transportation points, specifically for tax collection. People's daily production and living necessities, as well as imports and exports such as cowhide, gallnut, cotton, cotton yarn, kerosene, and all valuable goods, were all subject to taxes and levies. Even slaughtering a pig in a village required 1.2 silver dollars; slaughtering a cow required 3 silver dollars; even if pigs or cattle died of disease, half the tax was still collected. "With such heavy taxes and short deadlines, the people's burden is unbearable!" In order to wage war, some Sichuan warlord factions in their own defense areas collected land taxes in advance amounting to forty or fifty years' worth. In Youyang, Xiushan, Qianjiang, and other places in eastern Sichuan, which had always been Liu Xiang's defense area, peasants, in addition to paying 6 yuan in regular tax, were also levied 30 yuan for military expenses, 20 yuan in surtax, 10 yuan in temporary contributions, 6.3 yuan in opium acreage tax, and 6.5 yuan in militia defense fees—over 70 yuan in total. Add to this the successive surcharges by township and baojia heads, layer upon layer of exploitation, and one dou of grain could actually require payment of over 90 or 100 yuan in taxes and levies.
During the period of direct Kuomintang rule, even more pretexts were invented, and taxes and levies increased rather than decreased, making the burden on the Tujia people unbearable. In Xianfeng, Enshi, Jianshi, Laifeng, Lichuan, and other counties, in addition to continuing to collect land taxes, the Kuomintang government, based on land registration, added a land value tax. In Baojing County, the business tax and the tobacco and liquor license tax both more than doubled, and the slaughter tax increased by more than one-fifth. Other taxes and levies with numerous names and ever-changing forms were too many to count, leaving the Tujia people with old taxes not yet paid off while new taxes followed close behind. Kuomintang tax collectors came in one batch after another to market towns and rural areas, pressing for collection. Old taxes and new levies, "pursued with the urgency of fire," caused "rural areas to wither and the people's strength to be exhausted." In addition, the conscription of laborers, the forcible seizure of able-bodied men, currency depreciation, and soaring prices inflicted incalculable damage on the Tujia people.
(IV) Rampant Banditry
From the period of warlord warfare to the eve of the founding of New China, unbridled banditry was another major social scourge in the Tujia region.
Due to the brutal exploitation and oppression by warlords and the Kuomintang, the vast majority of peasants were on the verge of bankruptcy. Local ruffians coerced some bankrupt peasants and handicraftsmen with no means of livelihood into taking desperate risks, gathering in the mountains and forests to rob and plunder. The large number of guns abandoned and scattered among the people from prolonged warlord warfare provided bandits with a source of weapons and ammunition for organizing armed gangs. The border region of the four provinces of Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, and Guizhou, with dense forests, interconnected caves, inconvenient transportation, and strategic terrain, was convenient for bandits to appear and disappear at will. However, the warlords and the Kuomintang, who long entrenched themselves in this region, indulged and nurtured bandits, harbored and recruited them—this was the main root cause of the prolonged banditry. Thus, in the Tujia region, a bloody rule of the trinity of bureaucrats, landlords, and bandits was formed.
Warlords and Kuomintang bureaucrats used the incorporation and reorganization of bandits as a means to expand their power and consolidate their rule. Once any bandit gang grew strong, the warlords and Kuomintang bureaucrats would incorporate it, granting the bandit leaders of various sizes official titles and ranks—such as battalion commander, regimental commander, division commander, or commander—so that reorganizing bandits became a major source of troops for them. Some landlords and local gentry took pride in raising, funding, harboring, and protecting bandits, colluding with one another and using bandit forces to dominate a region. "The bandit leaders first banded together, incited and gathered followers, and once they had gained considerable strength, the local gentry came forward to feed and keep them, and corrupt officials likewise sheltered them, so the bandits' power expanded accordingly." "As for the corrupt and the local bullies, they trampled on the simple country folk as a matter of habit, and colluded with and harbored bandits without the slightest scruple." Some landlords and local gentry were themselves great bandit leaders who carved out territory and ruled as kings, or hardened bandits guilty of countless crimes. According to statistics from Longshan County, of 12,031 landlords, 6,554 had joined reactionary organizations, accounting for 54.48 percent of the total; 1,994 had been bandit leaders or hardened bandits, accounting for 16.57 percent of the total; and those who colluded with, funded, harbored, or protected bandits were even more numerous. And bandit leaders of various sizes regarded committing banditry as a shortcut to promotion and wealth. "To become an official, first be a bandit, then accept amnesty," and "With guns comes power, with power comes office; to be an official one must be a bandit, and as a bandit one can become an official"—these were the creeds followed by bandit leaders great and small. Using the weapons in their hands, bandit leaders raided homes, robbed merchants and travelers, seized farmland by force, forced peasants to grow opium, and levied taxes, thereby becoming great landlords with vast tracts of land and becoming officials of the warlords and the Kuomintang. For example, the hardened bandit Peng Yuqing started out as a bandit with nothing and grew rich. The bandit leader Zhang Ping of Guzhang County, who killed more than 500 innocent civilians, became a Kuomintang military officer after being incorporated, and was later appointed county magistrate of Guzhang County. Relying on his bandit soldiers and official power, he plundered wantonly and seized more than 2,000 mu of farmland by force, becoming one of the greatest landlords. Qu Bojie of Longshan County, who had only "a few broken houses and not a single possession," started out as a bandit and became a giant bandit with more than ten thousand men and guns, and was later incorporated by the Kuomintang and appointed a column commander.
The warlords' and the Kuomintang's policy of indulging bandits and harming the people made bandit forces increasingly rampant and caused lasting harm. No fewer than several dozen bandit gangs operated in the Tujia areas at one time or another. Youyang County had three major gangs—led by Rao Yuqing, Wu Nanqing, and Zhang Shaoqing—each with five or six hundred guns, plus more than ten smaller gangs with thirty to fifty guns each, totaling nearly 3,000 bandits. The bandit leader Xiang Zuo'an ruled as king in Laifeng County. In western Hunan there were more than ten giant bandit gangs, "the large ones with more than two thousand men, and the small ones with more than two hundred." These gangs each had their own sphere of influence, using mountains and rivers as boundaries, each dominating its own territory and lording it over others; crossing the boundary meant immediate war, mutual annexation, and vendetta killings, through which they seized the chance to expand their strength and territory. In 1926, the giant bandit Xiang Zuo'an, who had carved out his own kingdom in Laifeng County, even built an arsenal to manufacture weapons and gradually extended his power into neighboring Longshan County. Meanwhile, the bandit gang leader Shi Xingwang, entrenched in Longshan County, after annexing the followers and territory of the bandit leader Liu Ziliang, expanded his strength and became ambitious, attempting to swallow Laifeng and continue expanding, and so launched fierce battles with Xiang Zuo'an in the border area between Longshan and Laifeng. Because the bandit gangs constantly annexed and undercut one another, their strength rose and fell greatly, and moreover, as the warlords and the Kuomintang carried out a policy of pacification and incorporation, some gangs were incorporated and given official posts while others continued their banditry, so although the number of gangs gradually decreased, their capacity for activity and the harm they caused grew ever greater. By around 1936, the power of the bandit leader Qu Bojie of Longshan County was growing daily, wreaking havoc in Longshan, Laifeng, Xuan'en, Hefeng, and other counties. Giant bandits such as Yang Shucheng and Zhang Shaoqing caused harm in the Youyang, Xiushan, and Qianjiang area. Every harvest season, these gangs robbed opium and grain everywhere and extorted taxes and levies. They then bought weapons and expanded their strength. In 1937, Qu Bojie's gang captured Longshan County town and held it for 23 days; in 1940, he styled himself commander and led his bandits into Laifeng, plundering all the tung oil and other goods in Baifu, the tung oil distribution center of western Hubei. Kuomintang security units were surrounded and disarmed by the bandits by whole regiments and battalions. The bandits gained men and guns, and their strength expanded even more. These large bandit gangs attacked cities and seized territory and besieged security units, seriously threatening Kuomintang rule and bringing even deeper disaster to the local people.
In 1941, Chiang Kai-shek, in the name of maintaining public order along the highways, appointed Fu Zhongfang as commander-in-chief for bandit suppression, leading three divisions and directing part of the security units of the three provinces of Hunan, Hubei, and Sichuan, and stationed them in the Tujia areas; in 1946, he again ordered Pan Wenhua to lead three divisions to hunt down and encircle bandits along the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan border. The Kuomintang army claimed to be suppressing bandits but in fact harmed the people. They forcibly conscripted laborers, levied additional taxes, and built blockhouses and fortifications; they burned down houses, destroyed villages and merged hamlets, forced peasants to concentrate together, and stationed troops to guard them, guarding against the people more than against the bandits; they arbitrarily pinned charges on innocent peasants, falsely accusing them of colluding with, harboring, or following bandits, and seized the opportunity to extort and blackmail, beat and shoot people, and apply every cruel punishment imaginable. As they suppressed bandits back and forth in this way, "the bandits were not wiped out, but the local common people were tormented to the extreme," and "those who had joined the bandits were left with no home to return to, and nursing the hatred of a destroyed family and a murdered father, their resolve only grew firmer; some innocent common people, thinking that either way they could not survive once the Kuomintang army came, simply joined the bandits, hoping to eke out a slim chance of survival." As a result, the bandit scourge was not only not eliminated, but the more the bandits were suppressed, the more there were, and the harm they caused grew ever more serious. When the Kuomintang army withdrew, the bandits who had scattered and hidden or fled elsewhere gathered again, returned to their old haunts, and recklessly pinned the crime of colluding with the Kuomintang army on innocent people, plundering, burning, and killing on a large scale. Bandits and the Kuomintang army came and went in turn, and the people suffered, so that in the countryside of Longshan, Yongshun, Youyang, and other counties there were often stretches of dozens of li with no sign of human habitation. "In Pianyan, Baixi, Ganxi, Mawang, and other places in Youyang County, the peasants were preyed upon, and there appeared the phenomenon of the old dying and the strong fleeing, with nine out of ten households empty."
Under the reactionary rule of the Kuomintang, military disasters and bandit scourges came one after another, "and added to this were the oppression of the local bullies and the extortion of the corrupt, so that most people groaned on the edge of survival and struggled on the road to death. In deep water and scorching fire, they could not extricate themselves." The Tujia people lived extremely miserable lives, wandering homeless, suffering cold and hunger, and generally lacking grain for more than half the year, relying entirely on digging fern roots and kudzu to get by. Poor peasants were dressed in rags, often wearing a single garment that had been worn by several generations, and in the bitter cold of winter they had no choice but to cover themselves with straw rain capes and tattered burlap, and at night they rolled themselves in corn husks or burned firewood to get through the night. They lived in low, damp thatched huts or small shelters of woven wood and bamboo open to the wind on all sides. When they met with military disasters, bandit disasters, and natural disasters, they fled in all directions. Taoziping in Longshan County had been a village of more than 300 households decades earlier, but by the founding of New China only six or seven households remained.