The loess hills of northern Shensi below the great wall, unsurpassed in their poverty and primitiveness in all China proper, are a traditional haven for rebels. Remote from major provincial power centres, this rugged terrain provides ideal sanctuary for roving armed bands. Here Li Tzu-ch'eng launched his campaign to overthrow the Ming, only to be thwarted by the Manchus after taking Peking in 1644. Much of the region was devastated by Moslem rebels in the mid-nineteenth Century, and in the chaotic final years of the Ch'ing, t'u-fei, (bandits) formed from the ranks of the military, secret societies and a population frequently on the brink of starvation, roamed unchecked. One early twentieth-century British observer described the area's reputation this way: “In the mind of the average Chinese of the Eastern provinces…north Shensi is a nest of plunderers lost in a wilderness.”