Bandit - Kakuhi

... Even in the Qing Dynasty, from the 18th century, during the Qianlong period in the 1940s and 1950s, refugees began to gather in the mountainous areas of this area, and the White Lotus sect also became popular, with one-quarter of villages in Shaanxi being believers. At the time, the forests of Sichuan and Hubei were rife with bandits who learned martial arts and engaged in plundering. With their influx, the White Lotus sect also became militarized, and those with property acquired weapons and built huge mountain forts. At the end of the Qianlong period, Liu Zhixie, who had supported a man named Niu Ba (surnamed Zhu) who claimed to be the reincarnation and descendant of Maitreya Buddha in Gansu and Hubei, and who was collecting donations and carrying out missionary activities, was targeted for capture by the authorities. ...

*Some of the terminology explanations that mention "bandits" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…　清代に入っても，18世紀末の乾隆40～50年代よりこの辺区の山地には流民が集中し，それにともない白蓮教も流行し，陝西では一村の4分の1が教徒であった。当時，四川，湖北の森林には武芸を習い掠奪を事とする〈嘓匪（かくひ）〉が跳梁していたが，彼らの参入により白蓮教徒も軍事化し，有産の教徒は武器を整備し巨大な山寨を構築した。乾隆末，甘粛，湖北において弥勒仏の転世者と明裔を称する牛八(朱姓)なる人物を擁立し，献金を集め布教活動を展開していた劉之協が官憲の追捕の的となった。…

※「嘓匪」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

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