Kenneth Pomeranz (Professor of Modern Chinese History - The University of Chicago)

When China was convulsed by ethnic civil wars in the mid-19th century, the southwest was no exception: both the Panthay Rebellion in Yunnan (1856-73) and the Guizhou Rebellion of 1854-73 strained Qing resources to the limit, and ended with massacres that seemed likely to produce at best a rather sullen peace. A decade later parts of Yunnan and Guangxi also suffered invasion by French and/or French backed troops. Cen Yuying, the military leader who reconquered Yunnan for the Qing and then became a dominant political figure until in the region until his death in 1889 laid out a far less ambitious agenda for reconstruction than, for instance, the one promulgated by Zuo Zongtang after he reconquered the Northwest in the 1870s...(more details at the line above)