Excerpt from:
The Penguin History of Modern China. Jonathan Fenby. ISBN 9780141917610.

The other revolts crumbled one by one in the following years. At the end of 1872, surrounded by enemy forces, the leader of the Hui Muslims in Yunnan donned ceremonial robes, got into a yellow sedan chair and was carried to the south gate of his capital of Dali, where he swallowed a fatal dose of opium and ordered that he should be taken to the imperial camp. Though he was dead on arrival, the imperial commander had the body decapitated and then launched a ferocious attack on Dali; an official recalled that the roads were ankle-deep in blood and that no Muslim man, woman or child was spared. Hundreds drowned as they tried to escape across the lake below the city. The ears of the dead were cut off and more than 20,000 were put in baskets to be sent to Beijing. Women and children from the region were sold as concubines and slaves. Land, homes and other property were confiscated. A sign over Dali’s main gate forbade ‘traitorous’ Hui to enter. Many Muslims moved into Burma and Thailand.