All evidence of Muslim warlord's fierce rule disappears

All trace of the last Muslim warlord in China, who was so fat he could not even fit into a car, has vanished from the areas he ruled until the communists drove him out in 1949. Ma Honggui was an imposing figure, about two metres tall and weighing 109 kilograms. He ruled the northwestern province of Ningxia from 1938 - and neighbouring Gansu for nine years before that - as if it was his personal property, giving jobs to his family and associates. He headed an army loyal to him alone, putting taxes and revenue into his personal bank account.

The centre of his fiefdom was Yinchuan, now the capital of the Hui (Muslim) autonomous region of Ningxia, close to the Yellow River. His palace was in the downtown area, but it was knocked down by the communists when they developed the city. Left standing were elegant red towers with elaborately carved roofs built in earlier dynasties.

'I arrived here in 1960,' said an elderly Hui, sporting the traditional goatee beard and white cap. 'By then, Ma's homes had been removed. There is a home in his ancestral village in Gansu, but it is just an earth structure. It is nothing remarkable.

'I came by rail but there was no station. You just got off the train. There was just a main street and one-storey homes. Nothing like what you see today.' In 1949, the city had a population of less than 50,000. Now it is half a million, more than half of whom arrived from outside Ningxia after 1958, when it was turned into an autonomous region and the Central Government encouraged people to move there to develop it.

Now it is a Chinese city, with its brown Stalinist party headquarters, sprawling PLA camp and central square where people practice tai chi in the morning. The Hui account for 18 per cent of the population.

Ma belonged to a family that controlled much of northwest China for half a century. He made a union of convenience with nationalist president Chiang Kai-shek, who appointed him governor of Ningxia province in exchange for his adherence to Chiang's government in Nanjing.