Qinghai 223 Incident

[1][2][3][4] On February 23, 1967, thirteen military companies from the Qinghai Military District of the People's Liberation Army attacked and took over the base of Qinghai Daily which was previously occupied by the local unarmed rebel group, killing 169 civilians (and 4 soldiers) and injuring 178 within one day.

[1][3][4][5] An additional 12 students were killed or injured at Qinghai Ethnical College on February 24.

[3][7] Starting from the January Storm in 1967, rebel groups began to seize power from local governments and Communist Party committees.

[1][2][3][10] From February 14 to 22, the military besieged the newspaper base while the rebel civilians refused to submit to the military, and thus on February 23, the military under General Zhao Yongfu declared city-wide martial law in Xining and moved on to seize the newspaper building by force, but claiming that the rebel civilians opened fire on troops first.

[4][10] However, on March 24, 1967, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai read out the Decision from Beijing regarding the Qinghai Issue, which stated that Zhao Yongfu had used conspiratorial methods to usurp military power which constituted a "counter-revolutionary coup" within the provincial military district leadership.