Sheng Shicai was a Manchurian-born Han Chinese, educated in Tokyo, Japan, where he studied political economy and later attended the Imperial Japanese Army Academy.

With the Kumul Rebellion ongoing, Jin was overthrown in a coup on 12 April 1933 and Sheng was appointed duban or Military Governor of Xinjiang.

The culmination was the coup staged by the White Russians[21] and a group of provincial bureaucrats led by Chen Zhong, Tao Mingyue and Li Xiaotian on 12 April 1933, who overthrew Jin, who escaped to China proper via Siberia.

Without conferring the Chinese government, the coup leaders appointed Sheng the Commissioner of the Xinjiang Border Defence,[20] i. e., Military Governor or duban on 14 April 1933,[22] resurrecting the old title.

Without clearly stating whether it recognized the changes in Xinjiang, the government appointed Huang Musong, then a Deputy Chief of General Staff, a "pacification commissioner" in May 1933.

[26] Sheng exploited the rumours and charged that Huang, an agent of Wang Jingwei had plotted with Liu, Zhang and Ma to overthrow the provincial government.

[26] Shortly afterwards, in August Chiang sent Foreign Minister Luo Wengan, as a sign of goodwill, to preside over Sheng's inauguration ceremony as a Commissioner of the Xinjiang Border Defence.

[26] Luo's left Xinjiang in early October,[27] and his departure marked the beginning of the era of deep alienation between Sheng and the Chinese government.

[28] In September 1933,[29] Sheng accused Civil Governor Liu Wenlong of plotting with Ma and Zhang through Luo with Nanjing in order to overthrow him.

With their aid, Sheng again defeated Ma's forces, who retreated south from Tien Shan, in a region controlled by the East Turkestan Republic (ETR).

Hoja-Niyaz, president of the ETR escaped upon the arrival of Ma's troops to the Xinjiang-Soviet border, and in town Irkeshtam signed an agreement that abolished the East Turkestan Republic and supported Sheng's regime.

[34] In January, the Chinese government approved Huang Shaohong's plan for military operation in Xinjiang,[35] in order to put the province under its effective control.

[47] In August 1934, Sheng affirmed that the nine duties of his government are to eradicate corruption, to develop economy and culture, to maintain peace by avoiding war, to mobilise all manpower for the cultivation of land, to improve communication facilities, to keep Xinjiang permanently a Chinese province, to fight against imperialism and Fascism and to sustain a close relationship with Soviet Russia, to reconstruct a "New Xinjiang", and to protect the positions and privileges of religious leaders.

[49] The Policies guaranteed his previously enacted "Great Eight-Point Manifesto"[44] and included "anti-imperialism, friendship with the Soviet Union, racial and national equality, clean government, peace and reconstruction".

[44][49] Sheng referred to them as "a skillful, vital application of Marxism, Leninism, and Stalinism in the conditions of the feudal society of economically and culturally backward Xinjiang".

[60] To reassure the local population and to give himself additional time to consolidate his power in the northern and eastern parts of the province, Sheng appointed Muhiti as the overall Military Commander for the Kashgar region.

[61] Also Sheng's educational reform which attacked basic Islamic principles, as well as atheistic propaganda, contributed to the alienation of the Xinjiang's Muslim population.

[62] Also in 1936, in the Altay region in northern Xinjiang, local Muslim nationalists, led by Younis Haji, founded the Society of National Defence.

The CCP members were mostly employed in high-level administrative, financial, educational and cultural ministerial posts in Ürümqi, Kashgar, Khotan and elsewhere, helping to implement Sheng's policies.

[49] Sheng initiated the idea of 14 separate nationalities in Xinjiang,[76] and these were Han Chinese, Uyghurs, Mongols, Kazakhs, Muslims or Dungan, Sibe, Solon, Manchu, Kyrgyz, White Russian, Taranchi, Tajiks, and Uzbeks.

[43] In March 1935, Lazar Kaganovich, who headed a newly established commission for developing areas of cooperation with Xinjiang, submitted a proposal to Politburo.

Xinjiang received loans at low-interest rates, various economic assistance, and the sending of numerous consultants and specialists, which strengthened the position of Sheng's regime.

In that matter, the construction of the main road connecting Xinjiang and the Soviet Union, the increase of cargo transportation along the Ili and Kara Irtysh Rivers and a number of other measures were planned here.

According to this section, machines and equipment supplied by the Soviets for the industrial enterprises being built and reconstructed in Xinjiang were to be registered as commodity loans.

The devoted and sharp work of the military instructors, advisers, engineers, doctors, and other workers you have assigned to us has not occurred in the previous history of foreign specialists invited by China.

The agreement included a Soviet guarantee to come to the aid of Xinjiang "politically, economically and by armed force... in case of some external attack upon the province".

On 3 November 1942 Sheng issued a directive prohibiting "organizations, groups, and private persons" to engage in "any trade activity involving foreign imports and exports."

[102] To be able to return such a large territory back to the central government without firing a single shot is the greatest accomplishment a border official can accrue to his name.

The storehouse contained fifty thousand taels of gold, chests full of valuable antelope horns, and endless blocks of opium.

[119] Wu Zhongxin, his successor in Xinjiang, wrote that Sheng "started to lose his mind in Chongqing" and that in accordance with the tenets of Buddhism and as recompense for his past crimes, he has descended to the lowest depths of hell".