[3][self-published source] In 1934, Ma Zhongying's troops, supported by the Kuomintang government of the Republic of China were on the verge of defeating the Soviet client Sheng Shicai during the Battle of Ürümqi (1933–34) in the Kumul Rebellion.

Ma Zhongying, a Hui (Chinese Muslim), had earlier attended the Whampoa Military Academy in Nanjing in 1929, when it was run by Chiang Kai-shek, who was also the head of the Kuomintang and leader of China (Nationalist government).

Ma invaded Xinjiang in support of Kumul Khanate loyalists and received official approval and designation from the Kuomintang as commander of the 36th Division.

In 1934, two brigades of about 7,000 Soviet GPU troops, backed by tanks, airplanes and artillery with mustard gas, crossed the border to assist Sheng Shicai in gaining control of Xinjiang.

[8] Despite his early successes, Zhang's forces were overrun at Kulja and Chuguchak, and he committed suicide after the battle at Muzart Pass to avoid capture.

[citation needed] Even though the Soviets were superior to the New 36th Division in both manpower and technology, they were held off for weeks and took severe casualties.

Chinese Muslim troops led by Ma Shih-ming managed to hold off the superior Red Army forces armed with machine guns, tanks, and planes for about 30 days.

[13] In 1934, two Soviet OGPU brigades, consisting of about 7,000 troops backed by tanks, planes, and artillery, attacked the new 36th division near Tutung.

As he pulled back his forces, Ma Zhongying encountered a Soviet armored car column of a few hundred soldiers near Dawan Cheng.

The 36th Division wiped out nearly the entire column, after engaging the Soviets in fierce melee combat and toppled the wrecked Russian armored cars down the mountain.

During Ma Zhongying's retreat, he and 40 of his Chinese Muslim troops, fully armed, hijacked lorries at gunpoint from Sven Hedin, who was on an expedition from the Nanjing KMT government.

Ma Zhongying had warned Sven Hedin to avoid Dawan Cheng due to the battle going on between Chinese Muslim and Russian forces.

Thomson-Glover stated that the Soviets gave Hoya Niyaz "nearly 2,000 rifles with ammunition, a few hundred bombs, and three machine guns".

Ma was chased by provincial forces of White Russians, Mongols, and Sheng Shicai's Chinese troops from Manchuria, all the way to Aksu, but the pursuit gradually abated.

[29] What actually happened, in the words of the British Consul-General Thomson-Glover, was that: "Ma Zhongying left Kashgar for Irkeshtam early on 7th July with three or four of his officers ... and an escort of some 50 Tungans and one or more members of the USSR Consulate or Trade Agency (Ma Zhongying was accompanied by M.Konstantinov, the Secretary of the Soviet Consulate at Kashgar, as far as Ming Yol, the first stage on the road to Irkeshtam).

The Tungan escort dispersed or handed over their arms to some of Khoja Niyaz' levies and Ma Zhongying disappeared into Russia.

[33] Goldman's account of the hospital stated: Men were sitting about in a gloomy hall, many of them with some part of their body hidden in bandages; they ranged in nationality from Laplanders to pure Mongols ...

I asked some of them where they had been, and they replied that they had been fighting in the southern Altai, in co-operation with some Chinese, against 'anti-social elements' disturbing the advance of the class warfare banner into Sinkiang ... Later, other men with whom I spoke about this struggle often told me that they had never heard of a hospital at Novosibirsk.