The Beiyang Army (), named after the

Beiyang The term Beiyang (; pinyin: Běiyáng; Wade-Giles: Peiyang) literally means Northern Ocean.Hong Zhang (2019)
"Yuan Shikai and the Significance of his Troop Training at Xiaozhan, Tianjin, 1895–1899"
''The Chinese Historical Review'' 26(1) was a large, Western-style

Imperial Chinese Army The recorded military history of China extends from about 2200 BC to the present day. Chinese pioneered the use of crossbows, advanced metallurgical standardization for arms and armor, early gunpowder weapons, and other advanced weapons, but also ...

established by the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

government in the late 19th century. It was the centerpiece of a general reconstruction of Qing China's

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

system. The Beiyang Army played a major role in Chinese politics for at least three decades and arguably right up to 1949. It made the

Xinhai Revolution The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last imperial dynasty, the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of China. The revolution was the culmination of a ...

of 1911 possible, and, by dividing into

warlord A warlord is a person who exercises military, economic, and political control over a region in a country without a strong national government; largely because of coercive control over the armed forces. Warlords have existed throughout much of h ...

factions known as the Beiyang Clique (), ushered in a period of regional division. The Beiyang Army had its origins in the Newly Created Army established in late 1895 under Yuan Shikai's command, which rapidly expanded after 1901 with new recruits and by incorporating other forces. By 1906 it had six divisions and was the most advanced army under the command of the Qing dynasty.

Origins under Li Hongzhang (to 1900)

The beginning of the Beiyang Army could be traced back to

Li Hongzhang Li Hongzhang, Marquess Suyi ( zh, t=李鴻章; also Li Hung-chang; 15 February 1823 – 7 November 1901) was a Chinese politician, general and diplomat of the late Qing dynasty. He quelled several major rebellions and served in important ...

Huai Army The Huai Army (), named for the Huai River, was a military force allied with the Qing dynasty raised to contain the Taiping Rebellion in 1862. It was also called the Anhui Army because it was based in Anhui province. It helped to restore the stabil ...

, which was raised to quell the

Taiping Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It laste ...

. Unlike the traditional

Green Standard The Green Standard Army (; Manchu: ''niowanggiyan turun i kūwaran'') was the name of a category of military units under the control of Qing dynasty in China. It was made up mostly of ethnic Han soldiers and operated concurrently with the Manch ...

or Banner forces of the Qing, the Huai Army was largely a militia army based on personal, rather than institutional, loyalties. The Huai Army was at first equipped with a mixture of traditional and modern weapons. Its creator, Li Hongzhang, used the customs and tax revenues of the five provinces under his control in the 1880s and 1890s to modernize segments of the Huai Army, and to build a modern navy (the

Beiyang Fleet The Beiyang Fleet (Pei-yang Fleet; , alternatively Northern Seas Fleet) was one of the four modernized Chinese navies in the late Qing dynasty. Among the four, the Beiyang Fleet was particularly sponsored by Li Hongzhang, one of the most trust ...

). It is around this time that the term "Beiyang Army" began to be used to refer to the military forces under his control. The term, meaning literally "''Northern Ocean''", refers to the

customs Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...

and

excise file:Lincoln Beer Stamp 1871.JPG, upright=1.2, 1871 U.S. Revenue stamp for 1/6 barrel of beer. Brewers would receive the stamp sheets, cut them into individual stamps, cancel them, and paste them over the Bunghole, bung of the beer barrel so when ...

revenues collected in the

Beiyang The term Beiyang (; pinyin: Běiyáng; Wade-Giles: Peiyang) literally means Northern Ocean.Zhili Zhili, alternately romanized as Chihli, was a northern administrative region of China since the 14th-century that lasted through the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty until 1911, when the region was dissolved, converted to a province, and renamed ...

, Shandong and Liaoning, surrounding the imperial capital of

Peking } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

), which were used first to fund the

and later the Beiyang Army. However, funding was usually irregular and training by no means systematic. Paine (2005), p. 156 Fairbank (1978), p. 269 Adams (1931), p. 19 By the early 1890s, these modernized units established by Li Hongzhang that were known as the Beiyang Army were the best military forces that the Qing dynasty could field. Their first action was the

First Sino-Japanese War The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between China and Japan primarily over influence in Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the ...

(1894–1895), which was fought almost entirely by the Beiyang Army, unsupported by the forces of other provinces. But Japan's

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

-styled conscript army, led by academy trained professional officers, handily defeated the Beiyang Army. The Qing government sued for peace after six months of uninterrupted Japanese victories.

Yuan Shikai's ascendancy (1901–1908)

Li Hongzhang died in 1901 and was replaced by

Yuan Shikai Yuan Shikai (; 16 September 1859 – 6 June 1916) was a Chinese military and government official who rose to power during the late Qing dynasty and eventually ended the Qing dynasty rule of China in 1912, later becoming the Emperor of China. H ...

, who took on Li's appointment as

Viceroy of Zhili The Viceroy of Zhili, fully referred to in Chinese as the Governor-General of Zhili and Surrounding Areas Overseeing Military Affairs and Food Production, Manager of Waterways, Director of Civil Affairs, was one of eight regional Viceroys during ...

and as Minister of Beiyang (北洋通商大臣). Yuan had been given command of the brigade-sized New Created Army in 1895, which had 7,000 soldiers at the time and would expand to 20,000 by 1902. By the autumn of 1905 the Beiyang Army consisted of six divisions of 10,000 men each. It was organized into infantry, artillery, cavalry, and auxiliary troops, as well as maintenance and engineering. A seventh division was established in 1907 at Jiangsu. The Army's training instructors were mostly Japanese and Germans. Yuan Shikai oversaw the reform of Qing military institutions after 1901 as the government tried to create a national army. He founded the

Baoding Military Academy Baoding Military Academy or Paoting Military Academy () was a military academy based in Baoding, during the late Qing dynasty and early Republic of China, in the first two decades of the 20th century. For a time, it was the most important milita ...

, which allowed him to expand the Beiyang Army, along with several other military schools and officer training academies. With the creation of the Commission for Army Reorganisation in December 1903, the Beiyang Army became the model on which the military forces of other provinces should be standardized. Although some units were based in the three northeastern provinces in

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...

, the main base of the Beiyang Army was at Baoding, near

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...

. In the early 1900s, a department for military administration was also created for the Beiyang divisions to manage logistics, which was divided into several branches. It was the opinion of foreign observers that the Beiyang Army was the largest, best equipped and best trained military force in China at the time. Schillinger (2016), pp. 29-33

The Beiyang Army under Qing control (1909–1910)

The

Empress Dowager Cixi Empress Dowager Cixi ( ; mnc, Tsysi taiheo; formerly Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Empress Dowager T'zu-hsi; 29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908), of the Manchu people, Manchu Nara (clan)#Yehe Nara, Yehe Nara clan, was a Chinese nob ...

died on 15 November 1908 and named the three-year-old

Puyi Aisin-Gioro Puyi (; 7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967), courtesy name Yaozhi (曜之), was the last emperor of China as the eleventh and final Qing dynasty monarch. He became emperor at the age of two in 1908, but was forced to abdicate on 1 ...

as the new emperor. The new regent and father of Puyi, Prince Chun (醇親王), had Yuan Shikai dismissed the next year. Yuan bided his time in retirement, carefully maintaining his network of personal contacts in the Beiyang Army. At the time of the 1911 Revolution, command of the Beiyang Army was supposedly in the hands of the Qing minister

Yinchang Yin Chang or In-ch'ang (; 1859 –1928 or 1934) was a military official, ambassador to Germany, and educational reformer in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. He was appointed the nation's first Minister of War in the late Qing Dynasty ...

. In reality, Yuan Shikai still had the ability to manipulate it due to the loyalties of its officers to him personally. Four divisions were located in Zhili, the 3rd Division being in

northeast China Northeast China or Northeastern China () is a geographical region of China, which is often referred to as "Manchuria" or "Inner Manchuria" by surrounding countries and the West. It usually corresponds specifically to the three provinces east of ...

and the 5th Division in Shandong. Almost all the officers were ethnically Chinese, many of whom were returned students from Japan. Armament was not standardized, but was better in that respect than either before or later. Most of the infantry were armed with either the standard 1896 Japanese

Type 30 rifle The is a box-fed bolt-action repeating rifle that was the standard infantry rifle of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1897 (the 30th year of the Meiji period, hence "Type 30") to 1905. History and development The Imperial Japanese Army began de ...

or the Mauser 7.9 mm.

The 1911 Revolution

The events of the revolution demonstrated that the Beiyang Army, which formed the core of the 36-division

New Army The New Armies ( Traditional Chinese: 新軍, Simplified Chinese: 新军; Pinyin: Xīnjūn, Manchu: ''Ice cooha''), more fully called the Newly Created Army ( ''Xinjian Lujun''Also translated as "Newly Established Army" ()), was the modernised ...

, was absolutely the dominant military force within China. Controlling the fragmented loyalties of its formations was the key to political power in post–1911 China. The insurrection that actually set off the 1911 Revolution took place in Wuchang on 10 October. Four days later, the Qing court organized the New Armies in the north, and particularly the Beiyang Army, into three forces: the First Army, which would be sent to fight at Wuchang under the command of Army Minister

, the Second Army, which would act as a reserve force and would be sent to the front as needed, under the command of

Feng Guozhang Feng Guozhang, (; courtesy: Huafu 華甫 or 華符) (January 7, 1859 – December 12, 1919) was a Chinese general and politician in early republican China. He held the office of Vice-President and then President of the Republic of China. He is ...

, and the Third Army, which would defend the capital, under

Zaitao Zaitao (23 June 1887 – 2 September 1970), courtesy name Shuyuan, art name Yeyun, was a Manchu prince of the Qing dynasty. He was a half-brother of the Guangxu Emperor and an uncle of Puyi, the last Emperor of China. Biography Zaitao was bor ...

. The First and Second armies consisted of about 25,000 men each, or two divisions. The First included elements from the second, fourth, sixth divisions of the Beiyang army, which were the Qing government's crack troops, trained by Yuan Shikai. Esherick (2013), pp. 215–216 Their order of battle in October 1911 was as follows: *1st Army (

, later

) **4th Division (Wu Fengling, later Chen Guangyuan) ***7th Brigade ( Chen Guangyuan) ***8th Brigade (Wang Yujia) **3rd Brigade (

Wang Zhanyuan Wang Zhanyuan () (February 20, 1861 – September 14, 1934) was a Chinese general of the Warlord Era of China's Republican period, whose power base was in Hubei province. Biography In October 1911, during the Xinhai Revolution, he was a ...

) – of the 2nd Division **11th Brigade ( Li Chun) – of the 6th Division *2nd Army (Feng Guozhang) **5th Division (Zhang Yongcheng) **5th Brigade ( Lu Yongxiang) – of the 3rd Division **39th Brigade (Wu Zhenxiang) – of the 20th Division, which was formed in January 1910 **2nd Mixed Brigade (Wang Ruxian, later Lan Tianwei) – formed from 2nd and 4th Divisions *3rd Army (Zaitao) **1st Division **Capital Guards (

Zaifeng Zaifeng (12 February 1883 – 3 February 1951), also known as Tsai Feng, Prince of Ch'ün, formally known by his title Prince Chun, was a Manchu prince and regent of the late Qing dynasty. He was a son of Yixuan, the seventh son of the Da ...

, Prince Chun) – Manchu bannermen trained by Yuan Shikai, under the prince-regent's direct command The Second Army was never formed as a functional military unit as a result of mutiny, and thus never was sent to the front to assist the First Army. The formations were abolished in early December 1911. Esherick (2013), p. 223 On 12 October Yinchang was ordered to take two Beiyang Army divisions (the First Army) down the Beijing-Hankou Railway to suppress the uprising at Wuchang. He attacked the revolutionary army commanded by

Huang Xing Huang Xing or Huang Hsing (; 25 October 1874 – 31 October 1916) was a Chinese revolutionary leader and politician, and the first commander-in-chief of the Republic of China. As one of the founders of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Republic o ...

on 27 October. Covered by their own field artillery and the guns of the imperial fleet, the Beiyang infantry attacked with a cloud of skirmishers followed by a line of close-order company fronts. These textbook tactics were soon to be discredited in the intense fighting of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, but against an undisciplined revolutionary force with no machine guns, they worked perfectly. On that same day Yuan Shikai was ordered to take command of the forces at Wuchang. He refused, instead securing high commands for his two most trusted associates, Feng Guozhang and Duan Qirui. Fighting continued in Hubei for another month as Yuan negotiated with the dynasty and the revolutionaries using the Beiyang Army as a weapon of coercion. The end result was that he was elected provisional President of the Republic of China.

Beiyang clique in power (1911–1915)

During the period 1911–1915, Yuan Shikai remained the only man who could hold the Beiyang Army together. He and his followers strongly resisted any attempt by the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

(KMT) to insert outsiders into their chain of command. They negotiated a loan of £25 million sterling from a five-power banking consortium to support the Beiyang Army, despite an uproar from the KMT. In 1913 Yuan Shikai appointed four of his loyal lieutenants as military governors in southern provinces: Duan Qirui in Anhui, Feng Guozhang in Jiangsu, Li Shun in Jiangxi and Tang Xiangming in Hunan. The unified Beiyang military clique now attained its maximum extent of territorial control. It exercised firm control over North China and the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest list of rivers of Asia, river in Asia, the list of rivers by length, third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in th ...

provinces. Throughout 1914 it supported Yuan in making revisions to the constitution to give himself treaty- and war-making powers as well as substantial emergency powers (the three commanders were nicknamed by the newspapers of the time as angel, tiger and dog. Angel was

Duan Qirui Duan Qirui (; ) (March 6, 1865 – November 2, 1936) was a Chinese warlord and politician, a commander of the Beiyang Army and the acting Chief Executive of the Republic of China (in Beijing) from 1924 to 1926. He was also the Premier of the R ...

, tiger

Wang Shizhen Wang Shizhen is the name of: *Wang Shizhen (Tang dynasty) (759–809), Tang dynasty warlord, de facto ruler of Chengde * Wang Shizhen (Ming dynasty) (1526–1590), Ming dynasty poet, writer, artist and litterateur. *Wang Shizhen (Beiyang government ...

and dog

). In December 1915 Yuan Shikai declared himself Emperor. This was opposed by almost all the generals and officers of the Beiyang Army, from Duan Qirui and Feng Guozhang on down. More importantly, many outlying provinces such as

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...

openly opposed him. Yuan was forced to back down from his imperial designs. Both Duan and Feng refused to support him in power any further, and in the end the only prominent Beiyang general to remain loyal was the irrepressible

Zhang Xun Zhang Xun (; September 16, 1854 – September 11, 1923), courtesy name Shaoxuan (), art name Songshoulaoren (), nickname Bianshuai (, ), was a Chinese general and Qing loyalist who attempted to restore the abdicated emperor Puyi in the Manchu ...

. Yuan died soon afterward. After his death the Beiyang Army split into cliques led by Yuan's principal protégés. Duan Qirui's Anhui clique and the Zhili clique, founded by Feng Guozhang but led after Feng's death by Cao Kun and

Wu Peifu Wu Peifu or Wu P'ei-fu (; April 22, 1874 – December 4, 1939) was a major figure in the struggles between the warlords who dominated Republican China from 1916 to 1927. Early career Born in Shandong Province in eastern China, Wu initi ...

, were the principal Beiyang cliques. Disunited, the power of the Beiyang Army was challenged by provincial armies such as

Yan Xishan Yan Xishan (; 8 October 1883 – 22 July 1960, ) was a Chinese warlord who served in the government of the Republic of China. He effectively controlled the province of Shanxi from the 1911 Xinhai Revolution to the 1949 Communist victory in ...

's forces in Shanxi and

Zhang Zuolin Zhang Zuolin (; March 19, 1875 June 4, 1928), courtesy name Yuting (雨亭), nicknamed Zhang Laogang (張老疙瘩), was an influential Chinese bandit, soldier, and warlord during the Warlord Era in China. The warlord of Manchuria from 1916 to ...

's Fengtian clique.

Fragmentation of the Beiyang army (1916–1918)

Pressure from the Beiyang commanders prevented any political figure of the left taking power in the government of the Republic of China. For almost a decade after Yuan's death, the agenda of the leading Beiyang warlords was to reunify China by first reuniting the Beiyang Army and then conquering the lesser provincial armies. For a period from mid-1916, the ultraconservative Beiyang Gen. Zhang Xun managed to maintain the unity of the army via collegial contacts and negotiation. As Yuan Shikai had done, the Beiyang generals used their military power to intimidate the

parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

into passing legislation they wanted. Following a dispute with President

Li Yuanhong Li Yuanhong (; courtesy name Songqing 宋卿) (October 19, 1864 – June 3, 1928) was a Chinese politician during the Qing dynasty and the Republic of China. He was the president of the Republic of China between 1916 and 1917, and between 1922 ...

over a loan from Japan in early 1917, Duan Qirui declared independence from the government along with most of the other Beiyang generals. Zhang Xun then occupied Beijing with his army, and on 1 July shocked the Chinese political world by proclaiming the restoration of the Qing dynasty. All the other generals condemned this and the restoration soon collapsed. The elimination of Zhang Xun soon afterwards destroyed the balance of power between the rival factions of Feng and Duan/ Wan and inaugurated a decade of warlordism. Feng Guozhang went to Beijing to assume the presidency after securing the appointment of his protégé as military commander in Jiangxi, Hubei and Jiangsu. These three provinces became the power bases of the Zhili military clique. Duan Qirui resumed his position as prime minister; his Anhui (sometimes called Anfu) clique dominated the Beijing area. Using Japanese funding to build up his so-called "War Participation Army", Duan continued to struggle with Feng Guozhang. Feng was eventually eliminated from political life in 1918, when

Xu Shichang Xu Shichang (Hsu Shih-chang; ; courtesy name: Juren (Chu-jen; 菊人); October 20, 1855 – June 5, 1939) was the President of the Republic of China, in Beijing, from 10 October 1918 to 2 June 1922. The only permanent president of the Beiyang ...

, the Beiyang elder statesman, became president. His deputy Cao Kun replaced him as leader of the Zhili clique. At the end of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Duan dominated Chinese representation at the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...

and used the Shanghai peace conference in 1919 to bring pressure on the non-Beiyang militarists supporting

Sun Yat-sen Sun Yat-sen (; also known by several other names; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925)Singtao daily. Saturday edition. 23 October 2010. section A18. Sun Yat-sen Xinhai revolution 100th anniversary edition . was a Chinese politician who serve ...

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

. He continued to receive Japanese funding for his army (renamed "National Defence Army"), for which he was willing to grant Japan legal succession to the German rights in Shandong (see

May Fourth Movement The May Fourth Movement was a Chinese anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement which grew out of student protests in Beijing on May 4, 1919. Students gathered in front of Tiananmen (The Gate of Heavenly Peace) to protest the Chines ...

). File:督军团.jpg, Group photo of warlords File:Beiyang Army cavalry parade.jpg, Cavalry parade File:Beiyang Army infantly parade.jpg, Infantry parade File:Beiyang Army troops crossing the Gong An street.jpg, Troops marching File:Fengtian Army mountain gun01.jpg, Mountain gun of

Fengtian army The Fengtian clique () was one of several opposing military factions that constituted the early Republic of China during its Warlord Era. It was named after Fengtian Province (now Liaoning), and operated from a territorial base comprising the t ...

File:Fengtian Army Heavy machine gun.jpg, Hotchkiss Heavy machine gun File:Fengtian Army howitzer02.jpg, Howitzer. File:Fengtian Army FT-1701.jpg,

Renault FT-17 The Renault FT (frequently referred to in post-World War I literature as the FT-17, FT17, or similar) was a French light tank that was among the most revolutionary and influential tank designs in history. The FT was the first production tank to h ...

tanks of the

Fengtian Army The Fengtian clique () was one of several opposing military factions that constituted the early Republic of China during its Warlord Era. It was named after Fengtian Province (now Liaoning), and operated from a territorial base comprising the t ...

File:Fengtian Army FT-1702.jpg,

Renault FT The Renault FT (frequently referred to in post-World War I literature as the FT-17, FT17, or similar) was a French light tank that was among the most revolutionary and influential tank designs in history. The FT was the first production tank to ...

tanks of the Fengtien army, c. 1928 File:1931年9月19日FT-17.jpg,

FT-17 The Renault FT (frequently referred to in post-World War I literature as the FT-17, FT17, or similar) was a French light tank that was among the most revolutionary and influential tank designs in history. The FT was the first production tank to ...

tanks captured by the

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

after the

September 18th Incident The Mukden Incident, or Manchurian Incident, known in Chinese as the 9.18 Incident (九・一八), was a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. On September 18, 1931, L ...

, 19 September 1931

High warlordism (1919–1925)

Before May–June 1919, some combination of fighting and negotiation among the major Beiyang leaders was expected to lead to military unification, which in turn would permit the restoration of the constitutional political processes that Yuan Shikai had disrupted. By 1919 the three major northern military cliques had cemented, two of them –

Anhui Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...

and

Zhili Zhili, alternately romanized as Chihli, was a northern administrative region of China since the 14th-century that lasted through the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty until 1911, when the region was dissolved, converted to a province, and renamed ...

– directly from the Beiyang Army and the third, Fengtian under Gen. Zhang Zuolin, from an amalgamation of Beiyang and local troops. They and their imitators on a smaller scale were willing to get money and arms from any source in order to survive, and the weaker factions would combine against the stronger. The history of the major warlord wars down to 1925 recount the failure of any of the military commanders in China to centralise political and military power to any degree. In a situation resembling the period of the

Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (), from 907 to 979, was an era of political upheaval and division in 10th-century Imperial China. Five dynastic states quickly succeeded one another in the Central Plain, and more than a dozen concu ...

, most of South China remained beyond Beiyang control, to become the incubator for both the

KMT The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

and

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...

movements.

Northern Expedition

The

established the National Revolutionary Army with the help of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

and

. Chiang Kai-shek then launched the

Northern Expedition The Northern Expedition was a military campaign launched by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT), also known as the "Chinese Nationalist Party", against the Beiyang government and other regional warlords in 1926. The ...

in 1926 in an attempt to bring the warlords under his control. Some warlords of the Beiyang Army, including Wu Peifu and Sun Chuanfang, were defeated by Chiang's forces, and the National Revolutionary Army gradually became dominant in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. The warlord era would be officially ended by 1928, when most of the warlords were either defeated or allied with the Kuomintang, although it was often in name only. The

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on m ...

that had resulted from a fallout between Chiang and the Communists was already underway by this time. In 1930 the

Central Plains War The Central Plains War () was a series of military campaigns in 1929 and 1930 that constituted a Chinese civil war between the Nationalist Kuomintang government in Nanjing led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and several regional military command ...

began after some of the warlords allied with the Kuomintang became disenchanted and attempted to overthrow Chiang. They weren't successful, but lack of cooperation and rivalry continued to plague China through much of the years following, eventually leading to the demise of Chiang's regime in the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

Colours

File:Flag of China (1912–1928).svg, Flag for Beiyang Air Force, also Flag of China before 1928 File:Chinese-army Wuhan flag (1911-1928) 19 dots.svg, Flag of Beiyang Army File:Flag of the Republic of China.svg, Flag for Beiyang Navy, later Flag of the Republic of China File:Beiyang star.svg, Badge of Beiyang Army File:Chinese Air Force Roundel 1920-1921.svg, Roundel of Beiyang Air Force

References

Citations

Sources

; Books cited * * * * * * ; Web sources
China History Forum

Chinese Moslem soldiers Kansu
{{Warlord era Military units and formations of the Republic of China (1912–1949) Military history of the Qing dynasty Warlord Era Military units and formations of the Qing dynasty Beiyang Army Empire of China (1915–1916)