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The Beiyang Army (traditional Chinese: 北洋軍; pinyin: Běiyáng-jūn; meaning "North Western Army") was a powerful, Western-style Chinese military force created by the Qing Dynasty government in the late 19th century. Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National For the military meaning see Armed forces. For the Soviet sports society see Armed Forces (sports society Armed Forces Not to be confused with Qin Dynasty, the first dynasty of Imperial China It was the centerpiece of a general reconstruction of China's military system. A military is an Organization authorized by its Nation to use force usually including use of Weapons in defending its Country (or by attacking 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 possible, and by dividing into warlord factions (traditional Chinese: 北洋軍閥; pinyin: běiyáng jūnfá) ushered in a period of regional division. The Xinhai Revolution or Shinhai Revolution ( also known as the 1911 Revolution or the Chinese Revolution, began with the Wuchang Uprising A warlord is a person with power who has military control over a subnational area due to Armed forces loyal to the warlord and not to a central authority Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use
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Origins under Li Hongzhang (to 1900)
The Beiyang Army was created from Li Hongzhang's Anhui Army, which first saw action during the Taiping Rebellion. Li Hongzhang, Marquis Suyi of the First Class, GCVO, ( February 15, 1823 &ndash November 7, 1901) was a Chinese The Taiping Rebellion or Rebellion of Great Peace was a large-scale Revolt against the authority and forces of the Qing Government in China Unlike the traditional Green Standard or Banner forces of the Qing, the Anhui Army was largely a militia army based on personal, rather than institutional, loyalties. The Anhui 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 Anhui Army, and to build a modern navy (the Beiyang Fleet). The Beiyang Fleet ( was one of the four modernised Chinese navies in the late Qing Dynasty. 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 "Beiyang", meaning literally "Northern Ocean", refers to the customs revenues collected in North China, which were used first to fund the Beiyang Fleet and later the Beiyang Army. The term Beiyang ( Chinese: 北洋 Pinyin: Běiyáng Wade-Giles: Peiyang meaning 'Northern Ocean' originated toward the end of the Qing Dynasty The Beiyang Fleet ( was one of the four modernised Chinese navies in the late Qing Dynasty. However, funding was usually irregular and training by no means systematic.
By the mid-1890s the Beiyang Army was the best regional formation China could field. The First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) was fought almost entirely by the Beiyang Army, unsupported by the forces of other provinces. The First Sino-Japanese War ( 日清戦争 Romaji: Nisshin Sensō ( 1 August 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a war fought between In the war the Beiyang Fleet, which included two pre-Dreadnought battleships, was overwhelmed by the well-served quick firing guns of a lighter Japanese fleet. Pre-dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea going Battleships built between the mid-1890s and 1905 Similarly, on land, Japan's German-styled conscript army, led by academy trained professional officers, handily defeated the Beiyang Army.
Yuan Shikai's ascendancy (1901–1908)
Li Hongzhang died in 1901 and was replaced by Yuan Shikai, who took on Li's appointment as Viceroy of Zhili and as Minister of Beiyang (北洋通商大臣). Yuan Shikai ( Courtesy Weiting 慰亭 Pseudonym: Rong'an 容庵 ( September 16, 1859 &ndash June 6, ( Postal map spelling: Hopeh) is a northern province of the People's Republic of China. Yuan had been given command in 1895 of the brigade-sized New Created Army. The New Armies ( Traditional Chinese: 新軍 Simplified Chinese: 新军 Pinyin: Xīnjūn Manchu: Ice cooha) were the modernized Many of his officers later became leading figures of the warlord period. They included Zhang Xun (who attempted to restore the Qing dynasty in 1917), Xu Shichang (President of the Republic of China 1918–22), Cao Kun (President 1922–24 and leader of the Zhili military clique), Duan Qirui ("Prime Minister" during much of 1916–20 and leader of the Anhui military clique) and Feng Guozhang (President 1917–18 and founder of the Zhili clique). Zhang Xun ( 1854-1923 Qing -loyalist general who attempted to restore the abdicated emperor Puyi in 1917 Xu Shichang ( Styled Ju-ren) or ( October 20, 1855 - June 5, 1939) was President of the Republic of China ( Beijing Cao Kun ( Traditional Chinese: 曹錕 Simplified Chinese: 曹锟 Pinyin: Cáo Kūn Wade-Giles: Ts'ao K'un Courtesy name: Zhongshan Duàn Qíruì (段祺瑞 ( Wade-Giles Tuan Ch'i-jui (1864 &ndash November 2, 1936) was a Chinese Warlord and politician commander Féng Guózhāng, ( courtesy: Huafu 華甫 or 華符 ( January 7, 1859 - December 12, 1919) a native of Hejian
Yuan Shikai oversaw the piecemeal reform of Qing military institutions after 1901. He founded the Baoding Military Academy, which allowed him to expand the Beiyang Army. Baoding Military Academy (保定軍校 is a military academy in the early years of the Republic of China. 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. By 1905 Yuan had increased the Beiyang Army to six divisions. In October he held manoeuvres near Hejian in central Zhili using the newly completed Beijing-Hankou railway. Similar exercises where held the next year with Zhang Zhidong's army in Hubei. Zhang Zhidong ( Chinese:張之洞 Pinyin: Zhāng Zhīdòng Wade-Giles: Chang Chih-tung Courtesy Xiàodá (孝達 Pseudonyms ( Postal map spelling: Hupeh) is a central province of the People's Republic of China. It was the unanimous opinion of foreign observers that the Beiyang Army was the largest, best equipped and best trained military force in China at the time that was not Western/Colonial.
The Beiyang Army under Manchu control (1909–1910)
The Empress Dowager Cixi died on 15 November 1908 and was succeeded by the three year old Puyi. Empress Dowager Cixi 1 ( ( November 29 1835 – November 15 1908) popularly known in China as the Events 655 - Battle of Winwaed: Penda of Mercia is defeated by Oswiu of Northumbria. Year 1908 ( MCMVIII) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year Puyi ( ( February 7, 1906 &ndash October 17, 1967) of the Manchu Aisin-Gioro ruling family was the last Emperor The new regent, 2nd Prince Chun (醇親王), had Yuan Shikai dismissed the next year. The 2nd Prince Chun (醇親王 ( February 12, 1883 - February 3, 1951) was born Zaifeng (Chinese 載沣 Wade-Giles: Tsai-feng 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 Manchu minister Yinchang. The Xinhai Revolution or Shinhai Revolution ( also known as the 1911 Revolution or the Chinese Revolution, began with the Wuchang Uprising 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 Manchuria and the 5th Division in Shandong. Manchuria ( Romanized Manchu: Manju,, Маньчжурия Mongolian: Манж is a historical name given to a vast geographic region in northeast ( is a coastal province of eastern People's Republic of China. 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 rifle or the Mauser 7. Mauser is the common name of a German arms manufacturer maker of a line of Bolt-action Rifles from the 1870s to present 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, was absolutely the dominant military force within China. The New Armies ( Traditional Chinese: 新軍 Simplified Chinese: 新军 Pinyin: Xīnjūn Manchu: Ice cooha) were the modernized Controlling the fragmented loyalties of its formations was the key to political power in post–1911 China. The insurrection which actually set off the 1911 Revolution took place in Wuchang on 10 October. The Wuchang Uprising of October 10 1911 started the Xinhai Revolution, which led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment Events 680 - Battle of Karbala: Shia Imam Husayn bin Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, is decapitated On 12 October Yinchang was ordered to take two Beiyang Army divisions down the Beijing-Hankou Railway to suppress the uprising at Wuchang. Events 539 BC - The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon. He attacked the revolutionary army commanded by Huang Xing on 27 October. Huang Xing or Huang Hsing ( October 25, 1874 – October 31, 1916) Chinese Revolutionary leader Militarist Events 312 - Constantine the Great is said to have received his famous Vision of the Cross.
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, but against an undisciplined revolutionary with no machine guns, they worked perfectly. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All
On the 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 as provisional President of the Republic of China. The President of the Republic of China ( is the Head of state of the Republic of China (ROC (commonly known as Taiwan since the 1970s
Beiyang clique in power (1911–15)
During the period 1911–15, Yuan Shikai remained the only man who could hold the Beiyang Army together. He and his followers strongly resisted any attempt by the Kuomintang (KMT) to insert outsiders into their chain of command. They negotiated a £25 million (sterling) loan from a five-power banking consortium to support the Beiyang Army despite the 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 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.
In December 1915, Yuan declared himself Emperor. This was opposed by almost all the generals and officers of the Beiyang Army, from Duan Qirui and Feng Guozhang down. More importantly, many outlying provinces such as Yunnan openly opposed him. Yuan Shikai was forced to back down from his imperial designs. Both Duan and Feng refused to support Yuan in power any further and in the end the only prominent Beiyang general to remain loyal was the irrepressible Zhang Xun. Yuan died soon afterward. After Yuan Shikai's death the Beiyang Army split into cliques led by Yuan's principal proteges. 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, were the principal Beiyang cliques. Wu Peifu or Wu P'ei-fu ( Chinese: 吳佩孚) (1874&ndash1939 was a major figure in the struggles between the Warlords who dominated Disunited, the power of the Beiyang Army was challenged by provincial armies such as Yan Xishan's forces in Shaanxi and Zhang Zuolin's Fengtian clique. Yen Hsi-shan, ( ( 8 October, 1883 &ndash 22 July, 1960) was a Chinese Warlord who served in the government of the Zhāng Zuòlín ( Traditional Chinese: 張作霖 Simplified Chinese: 张作霖, Pinyin: Zhāng Zuòlín Wade-Giles: Chang Tso-lin
Fragmentation of the Beiyang army (1916–18)
Pressure from the Beiyang commanders prevented any political figure of the left from taking up power in the Republic of China government. REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARTICLE GUIDELINES 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 general 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 into passing the legislation they wanted. The National Assembly of the Republic of China ( refers to several Parliamentary bodies that existed in the History of the Republic of China. Following a dispute with President Li Yuanhong over a loan from Japan in early 1917, Duan Qirui declared independence from the government along with most of the other Beiyang generals. Li Yuanhong ( Traditional Chinese: 黎元洪 Pinyin: Lí Yuánhóng courtesy Songqing 宋卿 1864 - June 3, 1928) was 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. "July 1st" redirects here For the Ayumi Hamasaki song see H (song. 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 and inaugurated a decade of high warlordism.
Feng Guozhang went to Beijing to assume the presidency after securing the appointment of his protege as military commander in Jiangxi, Hubei and Jiangsu. These three provinces became the bases of strength of the Zhili military clique. The Zhili clique ( was one of several mutually hostile Cliques or factions that split from the Beiyang clique during the Republic of China 's Warlord Duan Qirui resumed his position of 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, the Beiyang elder statesman, became President. Xu Shichang ( Styled Ju-ren) or ( October 20, 1855 - June 5, 1939) was President of the Republic of China ( Beijing His deputy Cao Kun replaced him as leader of the Zhili clique. At the end of World War I, Duan dominated the Chinese representation at the Treaty of Versailles and used the Shanghai peace conference in 1919 to bring pressure on the non-Beiyang militarists supporting Sun Yat-sen's government in Guangzhou. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. Sun Yat-sen ( November 12, 1866 &ndash March 12, 1925) was a Chinese Revolutionary and political leader often Guangzhou ( Jyutping: Gwong²zau¹; Yale: Gwóngjàu) is the Capital and a Sub-provincial city 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). For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. The May Fourth Movement ( was an anti- imperialist, cultural and political movement in early modern China.
High warlordism (1919–1925)
Before May–June 1919, some combination of fighting and negotiation among the major Beiyang leader 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 and Zhili — directly from the Beiyang Army and the third — Fengtian, under Zhang Zuolin — from an amalgamation of Beiyang and local troops. The Anhui clique ( was one of several mutually hostile Cliques or factions that split from the Beiyang Clique in the Republic of China 's Warlord era The Zhili clique ( was one of several mutually hostile Cliques or factions that split from the Beiyang clique during the Republic of China 's Warlord The Fengtian Clique ( was one of several mutually hostile Cliques or factions that split from the Beiyang Clique in the Republic of China 's Warlord 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, most of South China remained beyond Beiyang control, to become the incubator for both the KMT and Communist Party of China movements. Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms ( 907-960 was an era of political upheaval in China, beginning in the Tang Dynasty and ending in the Song Dynasty. The Communist Party of China ( CPC) ( also known as the Chinese Communist Party ( CCP) is the founding and ruling political party of the
Northern Expedition
The Kuomintang established the National Revolutionary Army with the help of the Soviet Union and Communist Party of China. The National Revolutionary Army ( NRA) ( sometimes shortened to 國軍 or National Army) was the National Army The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 The Communist Party of China ( CPC) ( also known as the Chinese Communist Party ( CCP) is the founding and ruling political party of the Chiang Kai-Shek then launched the Northern Expedition in 1926 to attempt to bring the warlords under his control. The Northern Expedition ( was a military campaign led by the Kuomintang (KMT from 1926 to 1928. Some warlords of the Beiyang Army were defeated by it and the National Revolutionary Army gradually took the dominance in China. The National Revolutionary Army ( NRA) ( sometimes shortened to 國軍 or National Army) was the National Army China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National The warlord era would officially end by 1928, when most of the warlords were either defeated or allied with the Kuomintang, although it was often in name only. The Warlord era is the period in the History of the Republic of China, from 1916 to the late-1930s when the country was divided among military cliques, a division The Chinese Civil War that had resulted from a fallout between Chiang and the communists, was already underway by this time. In 1930 the Central Plains War began after some of the allied warlords became discontent with the Kuomintang and attempted to overthrow Chiang. Central Plains War ( was a Civil war within the factionalised Kuomintang (KMT that broke out in 1930 These warlords eventually faltered, but the lack of cooperation and rivalry still proved to last through much of the years following, eventually leading to the demise of Chiang's regime over mainland China in the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
Sources
See also
- Warlord era
- Beiyang government
- Military history of China
- History of the Republic of China
- Xinhai Revolution
The Warlord era is the period in the History of the Republic of China, from 1916 to the late-1930s when the country was divided among military cliques, a division The Beiyang government ( or Warlord government collectively refers to a series of military regimes that ruled from Beijing from 1912 to 1928 at Zhongnanhai The recorded military history of China extends from about 1500 BC to the present day This article discusses history of the state which currently governs Taiwan Area. The Xinhai Revolution or Shinhai Revolution ( also known as the 1911 Revolution or the Chinese Revolution, began with the Wuchang Uprising
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