This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
The Panthay Rebellion of the Hui Muslim community of Yunnan province in southwestern China against Qing dynasty rule was sparked by an anti-Hui massacre the provincial government sanctioned in the Yunnanese capital Kunming in 1856. The rising was led by Du Wenxiu, who took the title Sultan Suleiman and established an independent state, the Pingnan Guo, governed from the city of Dali and drawing support from Hui, Han, Bai and other communities across the province. The massacre that sparked the rising was itself part of a longer pattern of ethnic tension between Yunnan's Hui and Han communities under Qing administration, tension the provincial government's own sanctioned violence in 1856 brought to open revolt.
Qing forces, reinforced from 1871, retook Yunnan province through the early 1870s and besieged Du's capital, Dali, which fell in January 1873. Du took a fatal dose of opium as the city fell and was beheaded by Qing troops regardless, ending the eighteen year rebellion. The fall of Dali ended the Pingnan Guo and restored Qing rule over Yunnan, and the reconquest that followed was marked by large scale killing of Hui civilians across the province, a reprisal severe enough to leave a lasting demographic mark on Yunnan's Hui population.