Bai Yanhu

Bai Yanhu (, ; 1830–1882), also known as Mohammed Ayub , was a Hui military commander and rebel from Shaanxi, China. He was known for leading a group of Hui people across the vast lands of northwestern China to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan under Russian rule. The descendants of him and his followers live in still Central Asia to this day and are known as the Dungan people.

Life Bai Yanhu was a commander of a battalion of Hui Muslim forces from Shaanxi during the Dungan Revolt. After being pushed out of Shaanxi by Qing forces under the command of Zuo Zongtang, he fled to the Jahriyya stronghold of Jinjipu (near modern-day Wuzhong, Ningxia). After the surrender of Jinjipu, Bai and his followers fled to Hezhou (today's Linxia). After the surrender of Hezhou, he fled to Xining. In 1873, Bai decided to leave Xining and flee to Xinjiang. The exact number of his followers at this time is unknown but it was likely several thousand, and some sources claim that it was between thirteen and thirty-five thousand. Bai lived in Russian territory until his death several years later.

Bai Yanhu's tribe's first settlement was located 8 kilometres from Tokmak. Bianhu named the colony "Yingpan"(Literally "Camp"). After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yingpan lies within the border of Kazakhstan. Today, the town is known as Masanchi (Karakunuz), named after the Dungan Communist revolutionary Magaza Masanchi.

The Dungan poet Iasyr Shivaza claimed in 1985 that Bai died in Masanchi, and a wooden dummy was buried in his grave. The Dungans then took his body to Bishkek where they buried him in the yard of his son's house at Dzerzhinsky Avenue (today called Erkindik Boulevard/Бульвар Эркиндик).