1.
Beiyang government
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The Beiyang government, also sometimes spelled Peiyang Government, refers to the government of the Republic of China, which was in place in the capital city Beijing from 1912 to 1928. It was internationally recognized as the legitimate Chinese government, the name derives from the Beiyang Army, which dominated its politics with the rise of Yuan Shikai, who was a general of the previous imperial Qing government. After his death the army fractured into competing factions, although the government and the state were nominally under civilian control under a constitution, the Beiyang generals were effectively in charge of it, with various factions vying for power. The government however enjoyed legitimacy abroad along with recognition, had access to the tax and customs revenue. Domestically, its legitimacy however was challenged by Sun Yat-sens Guangzhou-based Kuomintang government movement in 1917 and his successor Chiang Kai-shek defeated the Beiyang warlords during the Northern Expedition in 1926–28 and overthrew the government. The Kuomintang installed their Nationalist government in Nanjing and Chinas political order became a one-party regime, the relevant ministers had to countersign executive decrees for them to be binding. The most important ministries were army, finance, communications, the navy ministrys importance declined significantly after most of its ships defected to the Souths Constitutional Protection Movement in 1917. The communications ministry was responsible for transportation, mail. The interior ministry was responsible for policing and security while the weaker ministry of justice handled judicial affairs, the ministry of foreign affairs had a renowned diplomatic corps with figures such as Wellington Koo. Because the generals required their skills, the foreign ministry was given substantial independence. The ministrys greatest accomplishment was the 1922 return of German concessions in Shandong that were seized by Japan during World War I which greatly boosted the governments reputation, the foreign affairs ministry successfully denied the Souths government of any international recognition all the way until the Beiyang government collapsed. China was a member of the League of Nations. The assembly was bicameral with a senate that had six-year terms divided into two classes and a house of representatives with three year terms, the senators were chosen by the provincial assemblies and the representatives were chosen by an electoral college picked by a limited public franchise. The task of the assembly was to write a permanent constitution, draft legislation, approve the budget and treaties, ratify the cabinet, an independent judiciary with a supreme court was also provided. Early law codes were based on reforming the Great Qing Legal Code into something akin to German civil law, in reality, these institutions were undermined by strong personal and factional ties. Overall, the government was corrupt, incompetent, and tyrannical. Most of the revenue was spent on the forces of whichever faction that was currently in power. The short lived legislatures did have civilian cliques and debates but were subject to bribery, forced resignations and it was near bankruptcy several times where a mere million dollars could decide the fate of the bureaucracy
2.
Kuomintang
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The Kuomintang of China is a major political party in the Republic of China. It is currently the second-largest in the country, the predecessor of the KMT, the Revolutionary Alliance, was one of the major advocates of the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of a republic. The KMT was founded by Song Jiaoren and Sun Yat-sen shortly after the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, Sun was the provisional president but he did not have military power and ceded the first presidency to the military leader Yuan Shikai. After Yuans death, China was divided by warlords, while the KMT was able to only part of the south. Later led by Chiang Kai-shek, the KMT formed the National Revolutionary Army and it was the ruling party in mainland China from 1928 until its retreat to Taiwan in 1949 after being defeated by the Communist Party of China during the Chinese Civil War. In Taiwan, the KMT continued as the ruling party until the reforms in the late 1970s through the 1990s loosened its grip on power. Since 1987, the Republic of China is no longer a single-party state, however, the KMT is currently the main opposition party in the Legislative Yuan. The guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, advocated by Sun Yat-sen and its party headquarters are located in Taipei. The KMT is a member of the International Democrat Union, the previous president, Ma Ying-jeou, elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2012, was the seventh KMT member to hold the office of the presidency. Together with the People First Party and New Party, the KMT forms what is known as the Taiwanese Pan-Blue Coalition, however, the KMT has been forced to moderate its stance by advocating the political and legal status quo of modern Taiwan. However, since 2008, in order to ease tensions with the PRC, the group planned and supported the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and the founding of the Republic of China on 1 January 1912. However, Sun did not have power and ceded the provisional presidency of the republic to Yuan Shikai. On 25 August 1912, the Nationalist Party was established at the Huguang Guild Hall in Peking, Sun, the then-President of the ROC, was chosen as the party chairman with Huang Xing as his deputy. The party opposed constitutional monarchists and sought to check the power of Yuan, the Nationalists won an overwhelming majority of the first National Assembly election in December 1912. But Yuan soon began to ignore the parliament in making presidential decisions, Song Jiaoren was assassinated in Shanghai in 1913. Yuan, claiming subversiveness and betrayal, expelled adherents of the KMT from the parliament, Yuan dissolved the Nationalists in November and dismissed the parliament early in 1914. Yuan Shikai proclaimed himself emperor in December 1915, in order tonary Party, members must take an oath of personal loyalty to Sun, which many old revolutionaries regarded as undemocratic and contrary to the spirit of the revolution. Thus, many old revolutionaries did not join Suns new organisation, Sun returned to China in 1917 to establish a military junta at Canton, in order to against the Beiyang government, but was soon forced out of office and exiled to Shanghai
3.
Central Plains War
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The Central Plains War was a civil war within the factionalised Kuomintang that broke out in 1930. It was fought between the forces of Chiang Kai-shek and the coalition of three military commanders who were allied with Chiang, Yan Xishan, Feng Yuxiang. The war was fought across the Central Plains, a region of China on the lower reaches of the Yellow River. It almost bankrupted Chiangs Nationalist government and cost over 300,000 total casualties, compared to other senior party officials like Hu Hanmin and Wang Jingwei, Chiang Kai-shek was a rather junior official in the Kuomintang. He began his rise to prominence in 1917 in the Guangzhou government with his military talent, in 1923 he reached the turning point of his life when Chen Jiongming launched a rebellion against Sun Yat-sen in Guangzhou. Chiang helped Sun retreat from Guangzhou, which gained Suns ultimate trust, after Suns death in 1925, cliques in the Kuomintang began to surface. A power struggle between Chiang and Wang Jingwei split the KMT, Chiang was able to use his influence as the commandant of Whampoa Academy to achieve eventual victory, and Wang was forced to leave the country for a few years. In 1926 Chiang was chosen as the commander of the National Revolutionary Army, the legitimacy of Chiangs government was thus seemingly decided. In October 1928 Chiang was elected President of the National Government by the KMT central executive committee, the objective of the Northern Expedition--unifying China--was proclaimed to be a full success. This nominal unification was soon challenged, however, Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi and Huang Shaohong of the Guangxi clique broke off relations with Chiang in March 1929, which effectively started the confrontation. In May Feng Yuxiang of the northwest clashed with Chiang, in November Li Zongren issued an anti-Chiang declaration, along with Wang Jingwei, who headed the leftist faction of the Kuomintang and was a rival of the right-wing Chiang. In December Tang Shengzhi and Zhang Fakui announced their support of the anti-Chiang coalition, the Nationalist government in Nanjing expelled Wang Jingwei from the party in March as a response to the anti-Chiang coalition. The anti-Chiang opposition moved to Beijing to set up a rival KMT government, in February 1930 Yan Xishan of the Shanxi clique demanded Chiangs resignation, which Chiang refused to give. Later that month Yan was chosen to be commander-in-chief of the coalition, while Feng, Li, in April all of them were sworn into their positions except Zhang, who was not committed to either side at the time. In 1928 a revolt led by Ma Tingxiang broke out among the Hui people in Gansu province against the Guominjun of Feng Yuxiang, Ma Tingxiang was attacked by Muslim Gen. Ma Hongbin, who was serving in Fengs administration in Ningxia. The Kuomintang incited anti-Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang sentiments among Chinese Muslims and Mongols, the revolt ended with all the Muslim generals and warlords, like Ma Qi, Ma Lin and Ma Bufang, reaffirming their allegiance to the Kuomintang government after defeating the Guominjun. The anti-Chiang coalition divided its offensive into various routes, Li Zongren led the Guangxi Army and deployed his forces from Guangxi into Hunan province and struck Wuhan. Feng Yuxiang led the Northwest Army, deploying it from Henan into Shandong province to assault Xuzhou, Yan Xishan led the Shanxi Army and cooperated with the Northwest Army from Shandong to strike Xuzhou and planned to march to Nanjing via railway
4.
Northern Expedition
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The Northern Expedition was a Kuomintang military campaign, led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, from 1926–28. Its main objective was to unify China under its own control by ending the rule of the Beiyang government as well as the local warlords and it led to the end of the Warlord Era, the reunification of China in 1928 and the establishment of the Nanjing government. The Northern Expedition, also known as the Northern March, began from the KMTs power base in Guangdong province, in 1925 the May 30 Movement announced plans for a strike and protest against western imperialism and its warlord agents in China. At the same time the First United Front between the KMT and the Communist Party of China was questioned after the Zhongshan Warship Incident in March 1926, subsequent events made Chiang Kai-shek the paramount military leader of the KMT. Although Chiang doubted Sun Yat-sens policy of alliance with the Soviet Union, notable military leaders and well-trained soldiers came from the Whampoa Military Academy, which was set up by Sun Yat-sen in 1924. The Academy accepted all persons regardless of party alignment, the success of the Northern Expedition can largely be attributed to both the KMT and CPC working together militarily. This unison, at the time, was encouraged by the Soviet Union. The main targets of this expedition were three notorious and powerful warlords, Zhang Zuolin, who governed Manchuria, Wu Peifu in the Central Plain region, and Sun Chuanfang on the east coast. On July 9,1926, Chiang gave a lecture to 100,000 soldiers of the National Revolutionary Army in a ceremony that was the commencement of the Northern Expedition. Following the defeat of the Zhili clique, Chiang decided to purge all Communists from the Kuomintang, in the Shanghai massacre of April 12, thousands of Communists were executed or went missing, while others were arrested and imprisoned. The purge caused a split between the KMTs left and right wings, the leftists, led by Wang Jingwei in the KMT capital at Wuhan, condemned Chiangs purge. Chiang, however, subsequently established his own capital in Nanjing, as a result, the Nationalist party and its military forces were in a state of disarray during the summer of 1927. The purge gave the warlords an opportunity to rebuild their armies, Sun Chuanfang began to marshal his forces with his ally Xu Kun, one of Chinas best generals. At the same time Sun was communicating with Zhang Zuolin of Manchuria, requesting assistance of any kind in the hopes of regaining his lost territory and he brought up an army of 100,000 men and arranged them around the Lower Yangtze River. The Nationalists were able to muster the same amount of manpower but were riven by political tensions, in addition, Sun and Xu Kun had the element of surprise on their side, for their attack was not fully expected by Chiang or his commanders. Finally, the Nationalists had stationed many of their troops north of the Yangtze in order to hold Xuzhou, leaving them exposed to the warlord armies, thus, many of Chiangs troops were in exposed and isolated positions that they could not defend properly, or with purpose. The stage was set for the last great struggle of the Warlord Era, on July 24 Sun Chuanfang ordered the counterattack to begin. His army, including Xu Kuns forces, tore through the surprised Nationalist troops, the Second Route Army, stationed in the area, was forced to withdraw south, using the Long-Hai railway as an escape route
5.
Zhang Zuolin
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Zhang Zuolin was the warlord of Manchuria from 1916-28, during the Warlord Era in China. He successfully invaded China proper in October 1924 in the Second Zhili-Fengtian War and he gained control of Peking, including Chinas internationally recognized government, in April 1926. The economy of Manchuria, the basis of Zhangs power, was overtaxed by his adventurism and he was defeated by the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek in May 1928. He was killed by a bomb planted by a Japanese Kwantung Army officer on 4 June 1928, although Zhang had been Japans proxy in China, Japanese militarists were infuriated by his failure to stop the advance of the Nationalists. Zhang was fiercely anti-Republican and supported the restoration of the Qing dynasty and his nicknames include the Old Marshal, Rain Marshal and Mukden Tiger. The American press referred to him as Marshal Chang Tso-lin, Tuchun of Manchuria, Zhang was born in 1875 in Haicheng, a county in southern Fengtian province in northeastern China, to poor parents. He received little education, and the only non-military trade that he learned in his lifetime was a small amount of veterinary science. His grandfather had come to the northeast after fleeing a famine in Zhili in 1821, as a child, Zhang was known by the nickname pimple. He spent his youth hunting, fishing and brawling. He hunted hares in the Manchurian countryside to feed his family. In appearance, he was thin, and rather short and it was asserted that he was a Han Chinese Bannerman by Zhang. When he became old enough to work, he worked at a stable in an inn, as early as 1896, Zhang himself was a member of a well-known bandit gang. In one version of his beginnings as a warlord, during a trip he spotted a wounded bandit on horseback, killed him, took his horse. By his late 20s he had formed a personal army. His bandit career was euphemistically referred to as his experience in the University of the Green Forest, in 1900, the Boxer Rebellion broke out, and Zhangs gang joined the imperial army. In peacetime, he hired his men out as escorts for travelling merchants, in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05 the Japanese Army employed Zhang and his men as mercenaries. At the end of the Qing dynasty, Zhang managed to have his men recognised as a regiment of the regular Chinese army, patrolling the borders of Manchuria and suppressing other bandit gangs. Dr. Louis Livingston Seaman met Zhang during the Russo-Japanese War, for his efforts in preventing civil disturbance and revolution, Zhang was named the Vice Minister of Military Affairs
6.
Zhang Xueliang
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As a result, he spent over fifty years under house arrest, first in mainland China and then in Taiwan. He is regarded by the Chinese Communist Party as a patriotic hero, born in Haicheng in 1901, Zhang was educated by private tutors and, unlike his father, felt at ease in the company of westerners. Zhang Xueliang graduated from Fengtian Military Academy, was made a Colonel in the Fengtian Army, in 1921, he was sent to Japan to observe military maneuvers, where he developed a special interest in aircraft. Later, he developed an air corps for the Fengtian Army, in 1922, he was advanced to Major General and commanded an army-sized force, two years later he was also made commander of the air units. Upon the death of his father in 1928, he succeeded him as the leader of the Northeast Peace Preservation Forces, which controlled Chinas northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Fengtian, in December of the same year he proclaimed his allegiance to the Kuomintang. The Japanese believed that Zhang Xueliang, who was known as a womanizer, an officer of the Japanese Kwantung Army therefore killed his father Zhang Zuolin by exploding a bomb above his train while it crossed under a railroad bridge. Surprisingly, the younger Zhang proved to be more independent than anyone had expected, with the assistance of William Henry Donald, he overcame his opium addiction and declared his support for Chiang Kai-shek. In order to rid his command of Japanese influence he had two prominent pro-Tokyo officials executed in front of the guests at a dinner party in January 1929. It was a decision for him to make. The two had powers over the heads of others, Zhang was a fierce critic of many of the Soviet Unions policies which served to undermine Chinese sovereignty, including its interference in Outer Mongolia. When he attempted to wrest control over a part of the Chinese Eastern Railway in Heilongjiang from the Soviets, at the same time, he developed closer relations with the United States. In accordance with this strategy, Zhangs armies withdrew from the front lines without significant engagements, there has been speculation that Chiang Kai-Shek wrote a letter to Zhang asking him to pull his forces back, but later Zhang stated that he himself issued the orders. Apparently Zhang was aware of how weak his forces were compared to the Japanese, nonetheless this would still be in line with Chiangs overall strategic standings. Zhang later traveled in Europe before returning to China to take command of the Communist Suppression Campaigns first in Hebei-Henan-Anhui, on 6 April 1936, Zhang met with Zhou Enlai to plan the end of the Chinese Civil War. He believed that communism was a cancer while the Japanese represented a superficial wound, however, growing nationalist anger against Japan made this position very unpopular, leading to Zhangs action against Chiang known as Xian incident. After the negotiations, Chiang agreed to unite with the communists, when Chiang was released, Zhang chose to return to the capital with him. However, once they were away from Zhangs loyal troops, Chiang had him put under house arrest, from there he was always watched and lived near the Nationalist capital wherever it moved to. In 1949 Zhang was transferred to Taiwan where he remained under a house arrest for the next 40 years in a villa in Taipeis northern suburbs
7.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
8.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
9.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
10.
Beiyang Army
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The Beiyang Army was a powerful, Western-style Imperial Chinese Army established by the Qing Dynasty government in the late 19th century. It was the centerpiece of a reconstruction of Qing Chinas military system. The Beiyang Army played a role in Chinese politics for at least three decades and arguably right up to 1949. It made the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 possible, and, by dividing into factions known as the Beiyang Clique. The Beiyang Army was created from Li Hongzhangs Huai Army, which first saw action during the Taiping Rebellion, unlike the traditional Green Standard 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 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. It is around this time that the term Beiyang Army began to be used to refer to the forces under his control. The term Beiyang, meaning literally Northern Ocean, refers to the revenues collected in North China. However, funding was usually irregular and training by no means systematic and it was said In the end there is no doubt that Japan must be utterly crushed. By the British military adviser Captain William M. Lang, by the mid-1890s the Beiyang Army was the best regional formation China could field. The First Sino-Japanese War was fought almost entirely by the Beiyang Army, 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. Similarly, on land, Japans German-styled conscript army, led by academy trained professional officers, some Beiyang officers were also academy trained at the Tianjin Military Academy in Western style drill with foreign advisors. The Chinese Muslim Kansu Braves formed part of the Beiyang Army, Li Hongzhang died in 1901 and was replaced by Yuan Shikai, who took on Lis appointment as Viceroy of Zhili and as Minister of Beiyang. Yuan had been given command in 1895 of the brigade-sized New Created Army, many of his officers later became leading figures of the warlord period. They included Zhang Xun, Xu Shichang, Cao Kun, Duan Qirui, Yuan Shikai oversaw the reform—albeit piecemeal—of Qing military institutions after 1901, particularly of his Beiyang Army. He founded the Baoding Military Academy, which allowed him to expand the Beiyang Army, along several other military schools. The force grew to a strength of 20,000 by 1902, 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 the summer of 1904 there were three divisions and in 1905 Yuan had increased the Beiyang Army to six divisions of more than 10,000 men each
11.
Warlord Era
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The era lasted from the death of Yuan Shikai in 1916 until 1928. Some of the most notable warlord wars, post-1928, including the Central Plains War, the division of the country continued after the Warlord Era until the fall of the Nationalist government at the end of the civil war. The origins of the armies and leaders which dominated politics after 1912 lie in the reforms of the late Qing dynasty. These did not establish an army but utilized regional armies. The most powerful army was the northern-based Beiyang Army under Yuan Shikai. Officers were loyal to their superiors and formed cliques based upon geography, units were composed of men from the same province. This policy was meant to reduce dialectal miscommunication and encourage regionalistic tendencies, the Xinhai Revolution in 1911 brought widespread mutiny across southern China. The revolution had begun in October 1911 with the mutiny of the based in Wuhan. Soldiers once loyal to the Qing government began to defect to revolutionary forces, rebel troops established a provisional government in Nanjing the following year under Dr. Sun Yatsen, who had returned from his long exile to lead the revolution. The revolutionaries were not strong enough to defeat the Beiyang army, instead, Sun negotiated with Beiyang commander Yuan Shikai to bring an end to the Qing and reunify China. In return, Yuan would become president, Yuan refused to move to Nanjing and set the capital in Beijing, where his power base was secure. Reacting to Yuans growing authoritarianism, the southern provinces rebelled in 1913 but were crushed by Beiyang forces. Civil governors were replaced by military ones, in December 1915 Yuan made clear his intentions to become emperor of China and found a new dynasty. The southern provinces rebelled again in the National Protection War, only time it was more serious because most Beiyang commanders abandoned Yuan. He renounced his plans for restoring the monarchy to woo back his lieutenants, the North-South split would remain during the course of the Warlord Era. The warlords were noted for wearing elaborate, gaudy uniforms with ostrich-plumed hats, golden-braided epaulettes, dozens of medals and flashy ceremonial swords. As a generalization, the warlords were as a group in the words of the American historian Lucian Pye, instinctively suspicious, hard-headed, devoted to the short run and impervious to idealistic abstractions. As a reflection of this, the warlords treated both their own soldiers and the Chinese people with considerable brutality, in 1921 the North China Daily News reported that in Shaanxi province, violence and robbery stalk abroad
12.
Liaoning
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Liaoning is a province of China, located in the northeast of the country. The modern province was established in 1907 as Fengtian or Fengtien province and it was also known as Mukden province at the time, for the Manchu pronunciation of Shengjing, the former name of the provincial capital Shenyang. Under the Japanese-puppet Manchukuo regime, the province reverted to its 1907 name but the name Liaoning was restored in 1945, Liaoning is the southernmost part of Manchuria, the Chinese Northeast. The Yalu River marks its border with North Korea, emptying into the Korea Bay between Dandong in Liaoning and Sinuiju in North Korea, the characters forming the provinces modern Chinese name are 辽 and 宁. They are the forms of the traditional characters 遼 and 寧. The first character literally means far, distant but is actually a reference to the Liao River which flows through the territory. The second literally means peace, calm but in such Chinese place names actually has the sense of pacified, made peaceful, here in reference to the turbulent situation of Manchuria in the late 1920s. In both English and Chinese, however, it is most common to gloss the name as the more literal Peace on the Liao, the provinces one-character abbreviation in Chinese is 辽. Liaoning is located in the part of Northeast China. In the past, it formed part of Korean kingdoms as Gojoseon, Goguryeo, and Balhae, as well as Chinese polities such as the Yan State and it was also inhabited by non-Han peoples such as Xiongnu, Donghu, Xianbei. In addition, the Khitan, Jurchen, Mongol Empire and Northern Yuan ruled Liaoning, the Ming Empire took control of Liaoning in 1371, just three years after the expulsion of the Mongols from Beijing. Around 1442, a wall was constructed to defend the agricultural heartland of the province from a potential threat from the Jurchen-Mongol Oriyanghan from the northwest. Between 1467 and 1468, the wall was expanded to protect the region from the northeast as well, although similar in purpose to the Great Wall of China, this Liaodong Wall was of a lower-cost design. While stones and tiles were used in parts, most of the wall was in fact simply an earth dike with moats on both sides. Despite the Liaodong Wall, the Manchus conquered Liaodong, or eastern Liaoning, in the early 17th century, decades before the rest of China fell to them. The Manchu dynasty, styled Later Jin, established its capital in 1616–1621 in Xingjing and it was moved to Dongjing, and finally in 1625 to Shengjing. Although the main Qing capital was moved from Shengjing to Beijing after it fell to the Qing in 1644, in the Governors words, Tieling and Fushun only have a few vagrants. West of the Liaohe, only Ningyuan, Jinzhou, and Guangning had any significant populations remaining, in the latter half of the seventeenth century, the imperial Qing government recruited migrants from south of the Great Wall to settle the relatively sparsely populated area of Fengtian Province
13.
Manchuria
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Manchuria is a modern name, first created by the Japanese, given to a large geographic region in Northeast Asia. Depending on the context, Manchuria can either refer to a region that falls entirely within the Peoples Republic of China, the definition of Manchuria can be any one of several regions of various size. These are, from smallest to largest, Northeast China, consisting of Heilongjiang, Jilin and this is the area referred to as Manchuria in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. Inner Manchuria, the above, plus parts of modern Inner Mongolia, The above, plus Outer Manchuria, the area from the Amur and Ussuri rivers to the Stanovoy Mountains, in Russian administrative terms, Ussuri krai, southern Harbin oblast, Primorskiy kray. The above, plus Sakhalin Island, which is included on Qing dynasty maps as part of Outer Manchuria even though it is not explicitly mentioned in the Treaty of Nerchinsk. The island was included in Manchuria on maps made by the Japanese Shogunate. Despite of lines on maps and empiress political claims, the island was inhabited by Ainu people until the Soviet Union enforced a policy after 1945. Three centuries and a half must now pass away before entering upon the act of the Manchu drama. During the ensuing two hundred years the Nü-chêns were scarcely heard of, the House of Ming being busily occupied in other directions and it may be noted here that Manchuria is unknown to the Chinese or to the Manchus themselves as a geographical expression. The present extensive home of the Manchus is usually spoken of as the Three Eastern Provinces, namely, Shêngking, or Liao-tung, or Kuan-tung, Kirin, and Heilungchiang or Tsitsihar. — Herbert A. Giles, China and the Manchus,1912 Manchuria is a translation of the Japanese word Manshū, the Manchu and Chinese languages had no such word as Manchuria and the word has imperialist connotations. According to Bill Sewell, it was Europeans who first started using the name Manchuria to refer to the location, the historian Gavan McCormack agreed with Robert H. G. The Japanese had their own motive for deliberately spreading the usage of the term Manchuria, the historian Norman Smith wrote that The term Manchuria is controversial. Professor Mariko Asano Tamanoi said that she should use the term in quotation marks when referring to Manchuria, in his 2012 dissertation on the Jurchen people to obtain a Doctor of Philosophy degree in History from the University of Washington, Professor Chad D. In the 18th-century Europe, the later known as Manchuria was most commonly referred to as Tartary. However, the term Manchuria started appearing by the end of the century, in current Chinese parlance, an inhabitant of the Northeast, or Northeast China, is a Northeasterner. In China, the term Manchuria is rarely used today, and this usage is seen in the expression Chuǎng Guāndōng referring to the mass migration of Han Chinese to Manchuria in the 19th and 20th centuries. The name Guandong later came to be used more narrowly for the area of the Kwantung Leased Territory on the Liaodong Peninsula and it is not to be confused with the southern province of Guangdong
14.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
15.
Beijing
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Beijing is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China and the worlds third most populous city proper. It is also one of the worlds most populous capital cities, the city, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing is the second largest Chinese city by population after Shanghai and is the nations political, cultural. It is home to the headquarters of most of Chinas largest state-owned companies, and is a hub for the national highway, expressway, railway. The citys history dates back three millennia, as the last of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, Beijing has been the political centre of the country for much of the past eight centuries. Beijing was the largest city in the world by population for much of the second millennium A. D, the city is renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, parks, gardens, tombs, walls and gates. Its art treasures and universities have made it centre of culture, encyclopædia Britannica notes that few cities in the world have served for so long as the political headquarters and cultural centre of an area as immense as China. Siheyuans, the traditional housing style, and hutongs, the narrow alleys between siheyuans, are major tourist attractions and are common in urban Beijing. The city hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics and was chosen to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, many of Beijings 91 universities consistently rank among the best in China, of which Peking University and Tsinghua University are ranked in the top 60 universities in the world. Beijings Zhongguancun area is known as Chinas Silicon Valley and Chinas center of innovation. According to the 2016 InterNations Expat Insider Survey, Beijing ranked first in Asia in the subcategory Personal Finance Index, expats live primarily in urban districts such as Dongcheng and Chaoyang in the east, or in suburban districts such as Shunyi. Over the past 3,000 years, the city of Beijing has had other names. The name Beijing, which means Northern Capital, was applied to the city in 1403 during the Ming Dynasty to distinguish the city from Nanjing, the English spelling is based on the pinyin romanisation of the two characters as they are pronounced in Standard Mandarin. Those dialects preserve the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 京 as kjaeng, the single Chinese character abbreviation for Beijing is 京, which appears on automobile license plates in the city. The official Latin alphabet abbreviation for Beijing is BJ, the earliest traces of human habitation in the Beijing municipality were found in the caves of Dragon Bone Hill near the village of Zhoukoudian in Fangshan District, where Peking Man lived. Homo erectus fossils from the date to 230,000 to 250,000 years ago. Paleolithic Homo sapiens also lived more recently, about 27,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found neolithic settlements throughout the municipality, including in Wangfujing, the first walled city in Beijing was Ji, a city from the 11th to 7th century BC
16.
Zhili clique
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The Zhili clique was one of several mutually hostile cliques or factions that split from the Beiyang clique during the Republic of Chinas warlord era. This fragmentation followed the death of Yuan Shikai, who was the only capable of keeping the Beiyang Army together. It was named for the region of the cliques base of power, Zhili Province. Unlike other cliques, this one was formed by officers who felt discriminated against by Premier Duan Qirui in matters of appointment and they rallied around President Feng Guozhang who had to share power with Duans dominant Anhui clique in the Beiyang government. Lacking strong bonds, they were willing to abandon or betray one another. They advocated a line during the Constitutional Protection War. After Fengs natural death, leadership passed to Cao Kun, Cao was victorious in the Zhili-Anhui War though the credit belongs to his chief lieutenant, Wu Peifu, the greatest strategist in China at the time. Relations with the Fengtian clique, which gave nominal assistance against Anhui, deteriorated, in the next two years, the Zhili clique scored successive victories which led to Cao Kuns ascendency to the presidency via bribery. Caos ambition brought all of his enemies against him and created dissension within the clique, Zhili may have won the Second Zhili-Fengtian War and eventually reunite all of China had it not been for Feng Yuxiangs betrayal with the Beijing coup. Cao was imprisoned and leadership passed to Wu who along with Sun Chuanfang managed to hold central China for the two years. During the Kuomintangs Northern Expedition, they created an alliance with their former Fengtian enemies but were defeated entirely. The Zhili clique was the only faction to be destroyed as a result of the Northern Expedition. Western powers were sympathetic but provided no support with the exception of private businesses who appreciated their adoption of an anti-communist. Wu Peifu had initially invited the Communists to end the Communications Cliques stranglehold over the railways but found the Communists to be a greater threat, warlord Era List of Warlords History of the Republic of China
17.
Renault FT
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The Renault FT, frequently referred to in post-World War I literature as the FT-17 or FT17, 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 have its armament within a fully rotating turret, the Renault FTs configuration – crew compartment at the front, engine compartment at the back, and main armament in a revolving turret – became and remains the standard tank layout. As such, historians of armoured warfare have called the Renault FT the worlds first modern tank, over 3,000 Renault FT tanks were manufactured by French industry, most of them during the year 1918. Another 950 of an almost identical licensed copy of the FT were made in the United States, the FT was designed and produced by the Société des Automobiles Renault, one of Frances major manufacturers of motor vehicles then and now. It is thought possible that Louis Renault began working on the idea as early as 21 December 1915, Estienne had drawn up plans for a tracked armoured vehicle based on the Holt caterpillar tractor, and, with permission from General Joffre, approached Renault as a possible manufacturer. Renault declined, saying that his company was operating at capacity producing war materiel. Estienne took his plans to the Schneider company, where they became Frances first operational tank, at a later, chance meeting with Renault on 16 July 1916, Estienne asked him to reconsider, which he did. The speed with which the project progressed to the mock-up stage has led to the theory that Renault had been working on the idea for some time. Louis Renault himself conceived the new overall design and set its basic specifications. He imposed a limit to the FTs projected weight, which could not exceed 7 tons. Renaults most talented industrial designer, Rodolphe Ernst-Metzmaier, generated the FTs detailed execution plans, charles-Edmond Serre, a long time associate of Louis Renault, organized and supervised the new tanks mass production. The FTs tracks were kept automatically under tension to prevent derailments, because the engine had been designed to function normally under any slant, very steep slopes could be negotiated by the Renault FT without loss of power. Effective internal ventilation was provided by the radiator fan, which drew its air through the front crew compartment of the tank. Renaults design was far more advanced than the other two French tanks at the time, namely the Schneider CA1 and the heavy Saint-Chamond. Nevertheless, Renault encountered some difficulties in getting his proposal fully supported by the head of the French tank arm. After receiving two large government orders for the FT tank, one in April 1917 and the other in June 1917, however, his design remained in competition with the superheavy Char 2C until the end of the war. The prototype was refined during the half of 1917. Only 84 were produced in 1917, but 2,697 were delivered to the French army before the Armistice, about half of all FTs were manufactured in Renaults factory at Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris, with the remainder subcontracted to other concerns
18.
Breguet 14
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The Breguet 14 was a French biplane bomber and reconnaissance aircraft of World War I. It was built in large numbers and production continued for many years after the end of the war. Apart from its usage, it is known for being the first mass-produced aircraft to use large amounts of metal rather than wood in its structure. This allowed the airframe to be lighter than a wooden airframe of the strength, in turn making the aircraft very fast and agile for its size. Its strong construction was able to sustain much damage, it was easy to handle and had good performance, the Breguet 14 is often considered to have been one of the best aircraft of the war. The aircraft was designed by Louis Breguet, who flew the first prototype on its first flight on 21 November 1916, the design was a return for Breguet to designing conventional planes, after designing the pusher-type Breguet BUM. Later that month, the French Armys Section Technique de l Aéronautique issued requirements for four different new aircraft types, Breguet submitted his new design for two of those categories - reconnaissance aircraft, and bomber. The A. 2s were equipped with cameras, with some carrying radios, both variants featured automatic, bungee cord-operated aerodynamic flaps, but these were not fitted to production aircraft. A number of B2 models were equipped with the U. S. -built Liberty engine and were denoted Breguet 14 B2 Ls, later variants 14bis A2 and 14bis B2 featured improved wings. An improved variant with bigger wings was the 16, there was also the two-seat fighter 17, which was built in small numbers only. Following successful deployment by the French, the type was ordered by the Belgian Army. Around half the Belgian and U. S. aircraft were fitted with Fiat A.12 engines due to shortages of the original Renault 12F, by the end of World War I, some 5,500 Breguet 14s had been produced. The type continued to be used after the war, equipping the French occupation forces in Germany. A special version was developed for the conditions encountered overseas. These saw service in putting down uprisings in Syria and Morocco, in Vietnam, the last trainer examples were not withdrawn from French military service until 1932. Other air arms using the type included Brazil, China, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Japan, the Polish Air Force used 158 Breguet 14s, about 70 of them being used in combat in the Polish-Soviet war. In Japan, Breguet 14s were licence-built by Nakajima, postwar, Breguet had also begun to manufacture dedicated civil versions. The 14 T.2 Salon carried two passengers in a modified fuselage
19.
White movement
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Remnants and continuations of the movement, some of which only had narrow support, endured within the wider White émigré community until after the fall of Communism. The Whites had the aim of bringing about law and order and the salvation of Russia, fighting against traitors, barbarians. They worked to remove Soviet organizations and functionaries in White-controlled territory, overall, the White Army was nationalistic, rejected ethnic particularism and separatism. The White Army generally believed in a united multinational Russia, amongst White Army members, anti-Semitism was widespread. Western sponsors expressed dismay at this, especially as the Bolsheviks had prohibited anti-Semitism, many of the White leaders were conservative, accepting autocracy while remaining suspicious of politics. Aside from being anti-Bolshevik and patriotic, the Whites had no set ideology or main leader, the White Armies did acknowledge a single provisional head of state, the so-called Supreme Governor of Russia, but this post was prominent only under the leadership of Admiral Alexander Kolchak. The movement had no set plan for foreign policy, Whites differed on policies toward Germany, the Whites wanted to keep from alienating any potential supporters and allies, and thus saw an exclusively monarchist position as a detriment to their cause and recruitment. White-movement leaders such as Anton Denikin advocated for Russians to create their own government, Admiral Alexander Kolchak succeeded in creating a temporary wartime government in Omsk, acknowledged by most other White leaders, only for it to fall with the loss of his armies. Some warlords who were aligned with the White movement, such as Grigory Semyonov and Roman Ungern von Sternberg, did not acknowledge any authority, consequently, the White movement had no set political leanings, members could be monarchists, republicans, rightists, Kadets, etc. Moreover, other parties supported the anti-Bolshevik White Army, among them the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. But depending on the time and place, those White Army supporters might also exchange right-wing allegiance for allegiance to the Red Army, the Volunteer Army in South Russia became the most prominent and the largest of the various and disparate White forces. Starting off as a small and well-organized military in January 1918, the Kuban Cossacks joined the White Army, and conscription of both peasants and Cossacks began. In late February 1918,4,000 soldiers under the command of General Aleksei Kaledin were forced to retreat from Rostov-on-Don due to the advance of the Red Army, in 1919 the Don Cossacks joined and the Army began drafting Ukrainian peasants. In that year, between May and October, the Volunteer Army grew from 64,000 to 150,000 soldiers and was better supplied than its Red counterpart. The White Armys rank-and-file comprised active anti-Bolsheviks, such as Cossacks, nobles, the White movement had access to various naval forces, both sea-going and river-based. Note especially the use of the Black Sea Fleet, aerial forces available to the Whites included the Slavo-British Aviation Corps. The Russian ace Alexander Kazakov operated within this unit, the White movements leaders and first members came mainly from the ranks of military officers. Many came from outside the nobility, such as generals Mikhail Alekseev, the White generals never mastered administration, they often utilized prerevolutionary functionaries or military officers with monarchististic inclinations for administering White-controlled regions
20.
Zhang Zongchang
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Zhang Zongchang, nicknamed the Dogmeat General and 72-Cannon Chang, was a Chinese warlord in Shandong in the early 20th century. Time dubbed him Chinas basest warlord, born in poverty in Yi County in Shandong, Zhang joined a bandit gang in 1911 and rose in power after offering his bands services to the army of Jiangsus military governor. His success as a bandit chief and militiaman was short-lived. He was subsequently rewarded with a position in his army. Zhang Zongchangs nickname of the Dogmeat General came from a fondness for gambling, Zhang Zongchang was free with his gifts, lavishly squandering money and concubines on superiors and friends. As a result, Zhangs commanders were very loyal to him, according to the wife of Wellington Koo, was known everywhere as the Three Dont Knows. He said he didnt know how much money he had, how many concubines, Zhang Zongchang proved to be one of the more capable warlord generals, making effective use of armoured trains manned by experienced White Russian mercenaries. He recruited up to 4,600 White Russian refugees from the Russian civil war, from which he formed a regiment, complete with pseudo-Tsarist uniforms. Zhang Zongchang was also one of the first Chinese generals to incorporate women into the military on a large scale, the White Russian nurses trained their Chinese counterparts, resulting in greater efficiency in taking care of Zhangs wounded troops, a significant boost for morale and combat capability. While having a reputation as one of the most brutal and ruthless warlords, after defeating the army of general Wu Peifu by making his enemys forces defect, he rewarded the defectors by allowing them to keep their original ranks. During the mass promotion ceremony, the officers were surprised to find their insignia already torn even before the ceremony had ended, during one of his campaigns, he publicly announced he would win the battle or come home in his coffin. When his troops were forced back he was true to his word - he was paraded through the streets, sitting in his coffin, and smoking a large cigar. It was also a matter of public amusement that he kept his mother with him at all times, except when on campaign. In 1924, he took part in the Second Zhili–Fengtian War, in April 1925, he went on to conquer Shanghai properly and then seized Nanjing, both for the glory of Zhang Zuolins Fengtian clique. He was subsequently appointed military governor of Shandong, which he ruled as warlord until May 1928, Zhang travelled to Shanghai for frequent carousing sessions with Zhang Zuolins son, General Zhang Xueliang. Both men enjoyed opium, for which Shanghai was a key site in the trade. He fled to Japanese protection in Dalian, by 1929 he was living quietly in Beppu, Japan with his mother, though was thrown into the spotlight again when he accidentally shot Prince Xiankai, a cousin of the deposed emperor Puyi. He was charged, found guilty by a Japanese court, while visiting Shandong in 1932, he was assassinated by the nephew of one of his many victims, who was in turn given clemency and pardoned by the Kuomintang government
21.
Shandong
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Shandong is a coastal province of the Peoples Republic of China, and is part of the East China region. Shandongs Mount Tai is the most revered mountain of Taoism and one of the sites with the longest history of continuous religious worship. The Buddhist temples in the mountains to the south of the capital of Jinan were once among the foremost Buddhist sites in China. The city of Qufu is the birthplace of Confucius, and was established as the center of Confucianism. Individually, the two Chinese characters in the name Shandong mean mountain and east, Shandong could hence be translated literally as east of the mountains and refers to the provinces location to the east of the Taihang Mountains. A common nickname for Shandong is Qílǔ, after the States of Qi and Lu that existed in the area during the Spring and Autumn period. Whereas the State of Qi was a power of its era. Lu, however, became renowned for being the home of Confucius, the cultural dominance of the State of Lu heritage is reflected in the official abbreviation for Shandong which is 鲁. English speakers in the 19th century called the province Shan-tung, the province is on the eastern edge of the North China Plain and in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, and extends out to sea as the Shandong Peninsula. The earliest dynasties exerted varying degrees of control over western Shandong, over subsequent centuries, the Dongyi were eventually sinicized. During the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, at this time, Shandong was home to two major states, the state of Qi at Linzi and the state of Lu at Qufu. Lu is noted for being the home of Confucius, the state was, however, comparatively small, and eventually succumbed to the larger state of Chu from the south. The state of Qi was, on the hand, was a major power throughout the period. Cities it ruled included Linzi, Jimo and Ju, the Qin dynasty conquered Qi and founded the first centralized Chinese state in 221 BCE. The Han dynasty that followed created a number of commanderies supervised by two regions in what is now modern Shandong, Qingzhou in the north and Yanzhou in the south, during the division of the Three Kingdoms, Shandong belonged to the Cao Wei, which ruled over northern China. After the Three Kingdoms period, a period of unity under the Western Jin dynasty gave way to invasions by nomadic peoples from the north. Northern China, including Shandong, was overrun, Shandong stayed with the Northern Dynasties for the rest of this period. The Sui dynasty reestablished unity in 589, and the Tang dynasty presided over the golden age of China
22.
Wu Junsheng
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Wu Junsheng, or Wu Tsi-cheng, 吳俊陞, General of the Fengtian clique and its cavalry commander. Wu Junsheng was born in a peasant family in Changtu, Fengtien province and he joined a cavalry troop in 1880, crushed the Manchu independence plan in 1912. He supported Yuan Shikais monarchy in 1915, and supported Zhang Zuolins effort to seize Manchuria and he was rewarded with the Military and Civil governorship of Heilongjiang in March 1921. Promoted to commander of the 5th Army in 1924 and he held those posts until to June 1928 when he died, on the train in the assassination of Zhang Zuolin. He adopted his nephew Wu Tailai 吳泰來 as heir and he is the maternal grandfather of American fashion designer Vera Wang. Axis History Forum, Who are Vera Wangs Grandfathers
23.
Guo Songling
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Guo Songling was a general who led a three-month rebellion against his commanding warlord of the Fengtian clique, Zhang Zuolin. Rising from obscure origins, Guo Songling enlisted in Zhang Zuolins Fengtian clique as a commander in 1920. After nearly five years of service, Guo served with distinction as commander of the Fengtian 6th Brigade, however, his personality caused problems, during the Second Zhili-Fengtian War a personal grievance over a friends removal from command caused him to retreat and nearly cost his army the war. Marching his division north towards Zhangs headquarters at Shenyang on 22 November, however, when the citys Japanese garrison interfered in defence of Zhang and neither the expected popular support or assistance of the Guominjun appeared, his rebellion stalled. Within the month his forces were surrounded by the Fengtian Army, Guo and his wife were captured on 24 December 1925, and executed the next day. Dupuy, Trevor N. Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography, New York,1992
24.
Li Jinglin
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Li Jinglin, also known as Li Fangchen was a deputy inspector-general and later army general for the Fengtian clique during the Chinese warlord era. He hailed from Zaoqiang County, Hebei province, China, after his military career was over, he settled in Nanjing, and in 1927 moved to Shanghai. A renowned swordsman, he was known as Chinas First Sword, the United States 15th Infantry Regiment, whose mission was to keep the Peking-Mukden Railway open, was based in Tianjin, and small skirmishes occurred between US troops and Lis troops. Like many other warlords who ruled Tianjin, Li also was a member of the Green Gang, from December 1924 to December 1925, he was the administrator of Hebei province. One of Lis nicknames is Magic Sword, a general in the Chinese army, Li displayed great skill as a swordfighter and great interest in martial arts, especially Wudang chuan. Li was nicknamed Chinas First Sword and God of the Sword, Li was an expert of many varying sword techniques, then later learned Wudang Sword from Sung Wei-I, a renowned swordsman who also taught Fu Chen Sung. His sword techniques were an amalgamate of the ancient Taoist and the newer Baguazhang styles, on his initiative, a Yang-style tai chi chuan was formalized, with Yang Chengfu as the most important of the contributors. Notes Bibliography Allen, Frank, Tina Chunna Zhang, the Whirling Circles of Ba Gua Zhang, The Art and Legends of the Eight Trigram Palm. Citadins et Citoyens Dans la Chine Du XXe Siècle, Essai Dhistoire Sociale, the United States 15th Infantry Regiment in China, 1912-1938. Lin, Chao Zhen, Wei Ran Lin, Rick L. Wing, Fu Zhen Songs Dragon Bagua Zhang. Taijiquans Struggle for Survival, A Chinese Case Study, when God comes to town, religious traditions in urban contexts. From War to Nationalism, Chinas Turning Point, 1924-1925
25.
Zhili
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Zhili, formerly romanized as Chihli, was a northern province of China from the 14th-century Ming Dynasty until the province was dissolved in 1928 during the Warlord Era. The name Zhili means directly ruled and indicates regions directly ruled by the government of China. Zhili province was first constituted during the Ming Dynasty when the capital of China was located at Nanjing along the Yangtze River, in 1403, the Ming Yongle Emperor relocated the capital to Beiping, which was subsequently renamed Beijing. The region known as North Zhili was composed of parts of the provinces of Hebei, Henan, Shandong, including the provincial-level municipalities of Beijing. During the Qing Dynasty, Nanjing lost its status of the capital and Southern Zhili was reconstituted as a regular province, Jiangnan. In 1928 the government of the Republic of China assigned portions of northern Zhili province to its neighbors in the north, complete Map of the Seven Coastal Provinces from 1821-1850
26.
History of the Republic of China
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The History of the Republic of China begins after the Qing dynasty in 1912, when the formation of the Republic of China as a constitutional republic put an end to 4,000 years of Imperial rule. The Qing dynasty, ruled from 1644–1912, the Republic had experienced many trials and tribulations after its founding which included being dominated by elements as disparate as warlord generals and foreign powers. The last days of the Qing dynasty in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were marked by civil unrest, in addition, there were sentiments that political power should return to the majority Han Chinese from the minority Manchus from the northeastern province of Manchuria. However, many of these measures were opposed by the conservatives of the Qing Court, the failures of the Imperial Court to enact such political liberalization and modernization caused the reformists to take the road of revolution. In 1905 Sun founded the Tongmenghui in Tokyo with Huang Xing, Suns political philosophy was conceptualized in 1897, first enunciated in Tokyo in 1905 and modified through the early 1920s. It centered on the Three Principles of the People, nationalism, democracy, the principle of nationalism called for overthrowing the Manchus and ending foreign hegemony over China. The second principle, democracy, was used to describe Suns goal of a popularly elected republican form of government, Peoples livelihood, often referred to as socialism, was aimed at helping the common people through regulation of the ownership of the means of production and land. This would be known as the Wuchang Uprising, which is celebrated as Double Tenth Day in Taiwan and it had been preceded by numerous abortive uprisings and organized protests inside China. The revolt quickly spread to neighboring cities, and Tongmenghui members throughout the country rose in support of the Wuchang revolutionary forces, on October 12 the Revolutionaries succeeded in capturing Hankou and Hanyang. However, the euphoria engendered by this victory was short-lived, on October 27, Yuan Shikai was reappointed by the Qing Court to lead the New Army, and loyalist forces under Feng Guozhang and Duan Qirui moved south to retake Wuhan. After heavy fighting in November, the out-manned and out-gunned Revolutionary Army was driven out of Hankou and Hanyang, during the 41-day Battle of Yangxia, however,15 of the 24 provinces had declared their independence from the Qing empire. Yuan Shikai halted his armys advance on Wuchang and began to negotiate with the revolutionaries, a month later, Sun Yat-sen returned to China from the United States, where he had been raising funds among Chinese and American sympathizers. On January 1,1912, delegates from the independent provinces elected Sun Yat-sen as the first Provisional President of the Republic of China, Yuan Shikai agreed to accept the Republic and forced the last emperor of China, Puyi, to abdicate on February 12. Empress Dowager Longyu signed the abdication papers, Puyi was allowed to continue living in the Forbidden City, however. The Republic of China officially succeeded the Qing Dynasty, some advocated that a Han be installed as Emperor, either the descendant of Confucius, who was the Duke Yansheng, or the Ming dynasty Imperial family descendant, the Marquis of Extended Grace. On January 1,1912, Sun officially declared the establishment of the Republic of China and was inaugurated in Nanjing as the first Provisional President. However, power in Beijing already had passed to Yuan Shikai, who had control of the Beiyang Army. To prevent civil war and possible foreign intervention from undermining the infant republic, on March 10, in Beijing, Yuan Shikai was sworn in as the second Provisional President of the Republic of China
27.
Manchukuo
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Manchukuo was a puppet state in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia, which was governed under a form of constitutional monarchy. The area, collectively known as Manchuria by westerners and Japanese, was designated by Chinas erstwhile Qing Dynasty as the homeland of the familys ethnic group. In 1931, the region was seized by Japan following the Mukden Incident and a government was installed one year later with Puyi. Manchukuos government was abolished in 1945 after the defeat of Imperial Japan at the end of World War II, Manchus formed a minority in Manchukuo, whose largest ethnic group were Han Chinese. The population of Koreans increased during the Manchukuo period, and there were also Japanese, Mongols, White Russians, the Mongol regions of western Manchukuo were ruled under a slightly different system in acknowledgement of the Mongolian traditions there. The southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula was ruled by Japan as the Kwantung Leased Territory, Manchuria is a transcription of the Japanese reading of the Chinese word 滿洲 which means Manchuria, which in Japanese is Manshū, which in turn dates from the 19th century. The name Manzhou was invented and given to the Jurchen people by Hong Taiji in 1635 as a new name for their ethnic group. However, the name Manchuria was never used by the Manchus or the Qing dynasty itself to refer to their homeland, the name itself holding imperialistic connotation. According to Mark C. 满洲 then began to appear as a place names in more maps created by Japanese like Kondi Jūzō, Takahashi Kageyasu, Baba Sadayoshi and these maps were brought to Europe by the Dutch Philipp von Siebold. According to Bill Sewell, it was Europeans who first started using Manchuria as a name to refer to the location, the historian Gavan McCormack agreed with Robert H. G. Ordinary Manchus largely spurned Manchukuo which claimed to be established for their cause, the Japanese had their own motive for deliberately spreading the usage of the term Manchuria. The historian Norman Smith wrote that The term Manchuria is controversial, professor Mariko Asano Tamanoi said that she should use the term in quotation marks, when referring to Manchuria. Herbert Giles wrote that Manchuria was unknown to the Manchus themselves as a geographical expression, the Qing Dynasty, which replaced the Shun and Ming dynasties in China, was founded by Manchus from Manchuria. The Manchu emperors separated their homeland in Jilin and Heilongjiang from the Han Liaoning province with the Willow Palisade and this ethnic division continued until the Qing dynasty encouraged massive immigration of Han in the 19th century during Chuang Guandong to prevent the Russians from seizing the area from the Qing. After conquering the Ming, the Qing identified their state as China, the lands in Manchuria were explicitly stated by the Qing to belong to China in Qing edicts and in the Treaty of Nerchinsk. The area of Manchuria was then converted into three provinces by the late Qing government in 1907, as the power of the court in Beijing weakened, many outlying areas either broke free or fell under the control of Imperialist powers. In the 19th century, Imperial Russia was most interested in the lands of the Qing Empire. In 1858, Russia gained control over a tract of land called Outer Manchuria thanks to the Supplementary Treaty of Beijing that ended the Second Opium War
28.
Great Soviet Encyclopedia
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The Great Soviet Encyclopedia is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias. Published by the Soviet state from 1926 to 1990, and again since 2002 by Russia, the GSE claimed to be the first Marxist-Leninist general-purpose encyclopedia. The idea of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia emerged in 1923 on the initiative of Otto Schmidt, also involved was Anatoly Lunacharsky, Commissar of Enlightenment, who had previously been involved with a proposal by Alexander Bogdanov and Maxim Gorky to produce a Workers Encyclopedia. The first edition of 65 volumes was published during 1926–1947, the editor being Otto Schmidt. The second edition of 50 volumes was published in 1950–1958, chief editors, Sergei Vavilov and Boris Vvedensky, the third edition of 1969–1978 contains 30 volumes. Volume 24 is in two books, one being a book about the USSR, all with about 21 million words. In the third edition, much attention was paid to the problems of natural sciences, physical and chemical sciences. From 1957 to 1990, the Yearbook of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia was released annually with up-to-date articles about the Soviet Union, the first online edition, an exact replica of text and graphics of the third edition, was published by Rubricon. com in 2000. With exhaustive completeness it must show the superiority of socialist culture over the culture of the capitalist world, operating on Marxist-Leninist theory, the encyclopedia should give a party criticism of contemporary bourgeois tendencies in various provinces of science and technics. The third edition of the GSE subsequently expanded on the role of education, Education is essential to preparing for life and it is the basic means by which people come to know and acquire culture, and it is the foundation of cultures development. A. Vvedensky stating their compliance with the 1949 decree of the Council of Ministers and they are working under a government directive that orders them to orient their encyclopedia as sharply as a political tract. The encyclopedia was planned to provide the intellectual underpinning for the Soviet world offensive in the duel for mens minds. The Soviet government ordered it as a propaganda weapon. And the government attaches such importance to its political role that its board of editors is chosen by and is only to the high Council of Ministers itself. The third edition was translated and published into English in 31 volumes between 1974 and 1983 by Macmillan Publishers, not all entries were translated into English, these are indicated in the index. Articles from the English edition are available online by TheFreeDictionary. com. The third edition was translated into Greek and published in 34 volumes between 1977 and 1983, all articles that were related to Greece or Greek history, culture and society were expanded and hundreds of new ones were written especially for the Greek edition. Thus the encyclopedia contains, for example, both the Russian entry on Greece as well as a larger one prepared by Greek contributors
29.
Twenty-One Demands
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The demands would greatly extend Japanese control of Manchuria and of the Chinese economy, and were opposed by Britain and the United States. In the final settlement Japan gained a little but lost a great deal of prestige and trust in Britain, the Chinese people responded with a spontaneous nationwide boycott of Japanese goods, Japans exports to China fell 40%. Britain was affronted and no longer trusted Japan as a partner, with the First World War underway, Japans position was strong and Britains was weak. Nevertheless, Britain forced Japan to drop the set of demands that would have given Japan a large measure of control over the entire Chinese economy. Japan obtained its first four sets of goals in a treaty with China on May 25,1915 and this list was presented to Yuan Shikai on January 18,1915, with warnings of dire consequences if China were to reject them. Japan demanded access to Inner Mongolia for raw materials, as a manufacturing site, Group 3 gave Japan control of the Hanyeping mining and metallurgical complex in central China, it was deep in debt to Japan. Group 4 barred China from giving any further coastal or island concessions to foreign powers, Group 5 was the most aggressive. China was to hire Japanese advisors who could take control of Chinas finance and police. Japan would be empowered to build three major railways, and also Buddhist temples and schools, Japan would gain effective control of Fujian, opposite the island of Formosa. Knowing the negative reaction Group 5 would cause, Japan initially tried to keep its contents secret, a reduced set of Thirteen Demands was transmitted on May 7 in the form of an ultimatum, with a two-day deadline for response. Yuan Shikai, competing with local warlords to become the ruler of all China, was not in a position to risk war with Japan, and accepted appeasement. The final form of the treaty was signed by both parties on May 25,1915, katō Takaaki publicly admitted that the ultimatum was invited by Yuan to save face with the Chinese people in conceding to the Demands. The results of the final version of the Twenty-One Demands were far more negative for Japan than positive. Without Group 5, the new treaty gave Japan little that it did not already have in China, on the other hand, the United States expressed strongly negative reactions to Japans rejection of the Open Door Policy. Afterwards, Japan and the United States looked for a compromise point, as a result, the Lansing–Ishii Agreement was concluded in 1917. It was approved by Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Japan continued to push for outright control over Shandong Province and they won European diplomatic recognition for their claim at the Treaty of Versailles. This in turn provoked ill-will from the United States government as well as widespread hostility within China, a large-scale boycott against Japanese goods was just one effect. In 1922 the U. S. brokered a solution, China was awarded nominal sovereignty over all of Shandong, while in practice Japans economic dominance continued
30.
National Protection War
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The National Protection War, also known as the anti-Monarchy War, was a civil war that took place in China between 1915 and 1916. Only three years earlier, the last Chinese dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, had been overthrown, the cause of the war was the proclamation by Yuan Shikai, the Republics President, of himself as a new Emperor. In Yunnan province, military leaders including Tang Jiyao, Cai E, Yuans army experienced several defeats which led other provinces in the south to declare independence as well. Eventually, under pressure from the entire nation, Yuan Shikai was forced to abdicate. He died a few months later, after Yuan Shikai plotted the assassination in 1913 of Song Jiaoren, a prominent leader of the Kuomintang, Sun Yat-sen launched the Second Revolution against Yuan. It was unsuccessful, and Sun was forced to flee to Japan while the Kuomintang was dissolved, between August and December 1915, supporters of Yuan began to clamour for the restoration of a Chinese monarchy. On December 12, Yuan declared himself emperor of the Chinese Empire under the era name Hongxian, the new empire was due to formally launch on January 1, when he intended to conduct the accession rites. Shortly after Yuan proclaimed himself Emperor, military leaders Cai E and Tang Jiyao of Yunnan province declared independence in the provincial capital and they organized the National Protection Army and began an expedition against Yuans forces. Yuan Shikai sent 80,000 men in an attempt to attack Yunnan, before this defeat, Guizhou and Guangxi provinces declared their independence between February and March 1916. Guangdong, Shandong, Hunan, Shanxi, Jiangxi, Jiangsu all followed suit, discord began to surface even inside Yuans government in the national capital of Beijing. Faced with mounting pressure, Yuan Shikai was forced to abandon the empire on March 22 and he died soon after on June 6. The National Protection War was proclaimed a success, with the provinces rescinding their declarations of independence, the Governor of Xinjiang, Yang Zengxin was a former Qing dynasty official who approved of Yuan Shikais monarchism, and was against republicanism. Yang commanded thousands of Chinese Muslim troops and he ruled Xinjiang with a clique of Yunnanese, being from Yunnan himself. His subordinate Muslim Generals Ma Fuxing and Ma Shaowu were also Yunnanese, when some of the Yunnanese revolutionaries wanted to join Cai E in revolting against Yang, he beheaded them at a New Years banquet in 1916. Yang was made a Count by Yuan Shikai, the National Protection War symbolized the beginning of the separation between the North and the South after the establishment of the Republic of China. Yuan Shikai was a president of the Republic, but his attempt to become Emperor was thwarted by the military opposition of the southern provinces. Even after the end of Yuans short-lived monarchy, the Beiyang government in Beijing was no able to maintain control over the military leaders of the southern provinces. The Cambridge History of China, Republican China 1912-1949, Part 1, the fight for the republic in China
31.
Yuan Shikai
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There the Yuans had built a fortified village, Yuanzhaicun. Yuans family was affluent enough to provide Yuan with a traditional Confucian education, as a young man he enjoyed riding, boxing, and entertainment with friends. His career began with the purchase of an official title in 1880. Using his fathers connections, Yuan travelled to Tengzhou, Shandong, Yuans first marriage was in 1876 to a woman of the Yu family who bore him a first son, Keding, in 1878. Yuan Shikai married nine more concubines throughout the course of his life, after the Meiji Restoration, Japan had adopted an aggressive foreign policy, contesting Chinese domination of the peninsula. Under the unequal Treaty of Ganghwa, which the Koreans signed with reluctance in 1876, Japan was allowed to send missions to Hanseong. Amidst an internal struggle which resulted in the queens exile. The Korean king proposed training 500 troops in the art of modern warfare, Li Hongzhang also recommended Yuans promotion, with Yuan given the rank of sub-prefect. In 1885, Yuan was appointed Imperial Resident of Seoul, on the surface the position equalled that of ambassador but in practice, as head official from the suzerain, Yuan had become the supreme adviser on all Korean government policies. Perceiving Chinas increasing influence on the Korean government, Japan sought more influence through co-suzerainty with China, a series of documents were released to Yuan Shikai, claiming the Korean government had changed its stance towards Chinese protection and would rather turn to Russia for protection. Yuan was outraged yet skeptical, and asked Li Hongzhang for advice, in a treaty signed between Japan and Qing, the two parties agreed only to send troops into Korea after notifying the other. Although the Korean government was now stable, it was still a protectorate of Qing, another more radicalised group, the Donghak Society, promoting an early nationalist doctrine based partly upon Confucian principles, rose in rebellion against the government. Yuan and Li Hongzhang sent troops into Korea to protect Seoul and Qings interests, tensions boiled over between Japan and China when Japan refused to withdraw its forces and placed a blockade at the 38th Parallel. Li Hongzhang wanted at all costs to avoid a war with Japan, Japan refused, and war broke out. Yuan, having put in an ineffective position, was recalled to Tianjin in July 1894. Yuans rise to fame began with his participation in the First Sino-Japanese War as commander of the Chinese garrison forces in Korea. Unlike other officers, however, he avoided the humiliation of Chinese defeat by having been recalled to Beijing several days before the outbreak of conflict, as an ally of Li Hongzhang, Yuan was appointed the commander of the first New army in 1895. The Qing court relied heavily on his army due to the proximity of its garrison to the capital, of the new armies that formed part of the Self-Strengthening Movement, Yuans was the best trained and most effective
32.
Manchu Restoration
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The restoration lasted only a few days, from July 1 to July 12, and was quickly reversed by Republican troops. The military governors left Beijing after Duan Qiruis dismissal as Premier and they gathered in Tianjin, calling on the troops from the provinces to rebel against Li and take the capital, despite the opposition of the navy and the southern provinces. In response, on June 7,1917, Li requested that General Zhang Xun mediate, General Zhang demanded that parliament be dissolved, which Li considered unconstitutional. The capital police soon submitted to the new government, General Xu later published an edict of restoration that falsified the approval of the president of the republic, Li Yuanhong. He was also supported by other officials, including Beiyang General Jiang Chaozong, former Qing war minister Wang Shizhen, civil affairs minister Zhu Jiabao. Over the next 48 hours, edicts were proclaimed in an attempt to shore up the restoration, on July 3, Li fled the presidential palace with two of his aides and took refuge in the embassy district, first in French legation and later in the Japanese embassy. Duan immediately took command of the troops stationed in nearby Tianjin. On July 5,1917, his troops seized the Beijing-Tianjin railway 40 kilometers from the capital, on the same day, General Zhang left the capital to meet the republicans, his forces being further bolstered by Manchu reinforcements. On the ninth day of the Restoration, General Zhang resigned from his positions, retaining only the command of his troops in the capital. The restored imperial court prepared an edict of abdication for Puyi, the imperial court began secret negotiations with republican forces to prevent an assault on the city, even asking the foreign legations to mediate between the parties. The uncertainty over the courts own fate and that of General Zhang caused negotiations to fall apart. The republican generals announced a general assault on the positions of the monarchists on the morning of July 12, the attack began the next day, with royalists troops entrenched on the wall of the Temple of Heaven. Shortly after the fighting began, negotiations resumed, resulting in the giving up their positions. General Zhang, dismayed, fled to the legations quarter, once General Zhang had fled, the royalist troops called for a ceasefire, which was immediately granted. The military failure of the royalist troops left the Qing court, president Li refused to return to his post, leaving it in the hands of Feng Guozhang. The withdrawal of Li led to the strengthening of military cliques in northern China, the weakening of the central government led to the further fragmentation of China into the warlord era and the rival government of Sun Yat-sen gaining popularity and traction in the south. Peking Politics 1918-1923, Factionalism and the Failure of Constitutionalism, the fight for the republic in China
33.
Siberian Intervention
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The Imperial Japanese Army continued to occupy Siberia even after other Allied forces withdrew in 1920. Following the Russian October Revolution of 1917, the new Bolshevik government signed a treaty with Germany. Faced with these concerns, the United Kingdom and France decided on military intervention in the Russian Civil War against the Bolshevik government. In the same month, the Beiyang government of the Republic of China accepted an invitation by the Chinese community in Russia, the Chinese later occupied Outer Mongolia and Tuva and sent a battalion to the North Russian Campaign as part of their anti-Bolshevik efforts. The British, short on personnel, only deployed 1,500 troops to Siberia and these men came from the 1/9th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment and the 25th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment. The Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force, commanded by Major General James H. Elmsley, composed of 4,192 soldiers, the force returned to Canada between April and June 1919. Most Canadians remained in Vladivostok, undertaking routine drill and policing duties in the port city. At the request of Chinese merchants,2300 Chinese troops were sent to Vladivostok to protect Chinese interests there, the Chinese army fought against both Bolsheviks and Cossacks. The Corpo di Spedizione Italiano in Estremo Oriente was made of Alpini troops, supported by 2,500 Italian ex-POWs who had fought in the Austro-Hungarian Army, the main areas of operation were the Irkutsk, Harbin and Vladivostok regions. The Japanese were initially asked in 1917 by the French to intervene in Russia, the Japanese government in the beginning refused to undertake such an expedition and it was not until the following year that events were set in motion that led to a change in this policy. Once the political decision had been reached, the Imperial Japanese Army took over full control under Chief of Staff Yui Mitsueh, the American Expeditionary Force Siberia was commanded by Major General William S. Graves and eventually totaled 7,950 officers and enlisted men. The AEF Siberia included the U. S. Armys 27th and 31st Infantry Regiments, plus large numbers of volunteers from the 13th, to operate the Trans-Siberian railroad, the Russian Railway Service Corps was formed of US personnel. Although General Graves did not arrive in Siberia until September 4,1918 and they were quickly assigned guard duty along segments of the railway between Vladivostok and Nikolsk-Ussuriski in the north. The joint Allied intervention began in August 1918, the Japanese entered through Vladivostok and points along the Manchurian border with more than 70,000 Japanese troops being involved. The deployment of a force for a rescue expedition made the Allies wary of Japanese intentions. On September 5, the Japanese linked up with the vanguard of the Czechoslovak Legion, the Japanese, with their own objectives in mind, refused to proceed west of Lake Baikal and stayed behind. The Americans, suspicious of Japanese intentions, also stayed behind to keep an eye on the Japanese, by November, the Japanese occupied all ports and major towns in the Russian Maritime Provinces and in Siberia east of the city of Chita. With the end of the war in Europe, the Allies decided to support the anti-Bolshevik White forces, Allied army support was given to Admiral Kolchaks White government at Omsk, while the Japanese continued to support Kolchaks rivals in Grigory Semyonov and Ivan Kalmykov
34.
Paris Peace Conference, 1919
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It took place in Paris during 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities. The main result was the Treaty of Versailles with Germany, which in section 231 laid the guilt for the war on the aggression of Germany and this provision proved humiliating for Germany and set the stage for the expensive reparations Germany was intended to pay. They met together informally 145 times and made all the major decisions, the conference opened on 18 January 1919. Key recommendations were folded into the Treaty of Versailles with Germany, the five major powers controlled the Conference. Amongst the Big Five, in practice Japan played a small role, the four met together informally 145 times and made all the major decisions, which in turn were ratified by other attendees. The open meetings of all the approved the decisions made by the Big Four. The conference came to an end on 21 January 1920 with the inaugural General Assembly of the League of Nations, the main result was the Treaty of Versailles, with Germany, which in section 231 laid the guilt for the war on the aggression of Germany and her allies. This provision proved humiliating for Germany and set the stage for very high reparations Germany was supposed to pay, republican Germany was not invited to attend the conference at Versailles. Representatives of White Russia were present, a central issue of the Conference was the disposition of the overseas colonies of Germany. The British dominions wanted their reward for their sacrifice, Australia wanted New Guinea, New Zealand wanted Samoa, and South Africa wanted South West Africa. Wilson wanted the League of Nations to administer all the German colonies until such time as they were ready for independence, Lloyd George realized he needed to support his dominions, and he proposed a compromise that there be three types of mandates. Mandates for the Turkish provinces were one category, they would be divided up between Britain and France, Wilson and the others finally went along with the solution. The dominions received Class C Mandates to the colonies they wanted, Japan obtained mandates over German possessions north of the equator. Wilson wanted no mandates for the United States, his top advisor Colonel House was deeply involved in awarding the others, Wilson was especially offended by Australian demands. He and Hughes had some clashes, with the most famous being, Wilson, But after all. Hughes, I represent sixty thousand dead, prior to Wilsons arrival in Europe in December 1918, no American president had ever visited Europe while in office. High hopes and expectations were placed on him to deliver what he had promised for the post-war era, in doing so, Wilson ultimately began to lead the foreign policy of the United States toward interventionism, a move strongly resisted in some domestic circles. Once Wilson arrived, however, he found rivalries, and conflicting claims previously submerged and he worked mostly trying to sway the direction that the French and British delegations were taking towards Germany and its allies in Europe, as well as the former Ottoman lands in the Middle East
35.
May Fourth Movement
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Many political and social leaders of the next decades emerged at this time. The term May Fourth Movement in a broader sense often refers to the period during 1915-1921 more often called the New Culture Movement. The atmosphere and political mood that emerged around 1919, in the words of Mitter, are at the centre of a set of ideas that has shaped Chinas momentous twentieth century, following the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, the Qing Dynasty disintegrated. This marked the end of thousands of years of imperial rule. However, the reality was that China was a fragmented nation dominated by warlords, the Chinese Beiyang government was occupied with suppressing internal affairs and did little to counter the influence exerted by foreign powers. Leaders of the New Culture Movement believed that traditional Confucian values were responsible for the weakness of the nation. Chinese nationalists called for a rejection of traditional values and the adoption of Western ideals of Mr. Science. These iconoclastic and anti-traditional views and programs have shaped Chinas politics, China had entered World War I on the side of the Allied Triple Entente in 1917 with the condition that all German spheres of influence, such as Shandong, would be returned to China. Although in that year 140,000 Chinese labourers were sent to France, the Western Allies dominated the meeting at Versailles, and paid little heed to Chinese demands. Britain and France were primarily interested in punishing Germany. S, american advocacy of self-determination at the League of Nations was attractive to Chinese intellectuals, but their failure to follow through was seen as a betrayal. To recommend a large-scale gathering in Beijing, to promote the creation of a Beijing student union. To hold a demonstration that afternoon in protest to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, on the afternoon of May 4 over 3,000 students of Peking University and other schools marched from many points to gather in front of Tiananmen. They shouted such slogans as Struggle for the sovereignty externally, get rid of the traitors at home, Do away with the Twenty-One Demands. They voiced their anger at the Allied betrayal of China, denounced the governments inability to protect Chinese interests. Demonstrators insisted on the resignation of three Chinese officials they accused of being collaborators with the Japanese, after burning the residence of one of these officials and beating his servants, student protesters were arrested, jailed, and severely beaten. The next day, students in Beijing as a whole went on strike and in the cities across China, students, patriotic merchants. The demonstrators skillfully appealed to the newspapers and sent representatives to carry the word across the country, from early June, workers and businessmen in Shanghai also went on strike as the center of the movement shifted from Beijing to Shanghai. Chancellors from thirteen universities arranged for the release of student prisoners, and Cai Yuanpei, newspapers, magazines, citizen societies, and chambers of commerce offered support for the students
36.
Occupation of Mongolia
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These, in turn, were defeated by the Red Army and its Mongolian allies by June 1921. Although the Beiyang Government abolished the autonomy of the Bogd Khaanate of Mongolia and subsequently expanded its occupation to include Tuva, in December 1911, Outer Mongolia took advantage of the Xinhai Revolution to declare independence from the Qing dynasty. The political system of new Mongolia was a theocratic monarchy led by Bogd Khan. However, the newly founded Republic of China considered Mongolia as part of its territory, in the 1915 tripartite Kyakhta Agreement, Russia, the Republic of China and Mongolia agreed that Mongolia was autonomous under Chinese suzerainty. However, in the following years Russian influence in Asia waned due to the First World War and, later, the October Revolution. From 1918 on, Mongolia was threatened by the Russian Civil War, and in summer 1918 asked for Chinese military assistance, grigory Semyonov led the Buryats and Inner Mongols in spearheading a plan to create a pan-Mongol state. According to an Associated Press dispatch, some Mongol chieftains signed a petition asking China to retake administration of Mongolia, an ally of the Chinese government, the Qinghai born Monguor Gelugpa Buddhist Lama leader Sixth Janggiya Khutughtu was against the autonomy of Outer Mongolia. The invasion of Mongolia was the brainchild of Premier Duan Qirui, when Duan engineered Chinas entry into the First World War he took out several large loans from the Japanese government including the Nishihara Loans. He used the money to create the War Participation Army ostensibly to battle the Central Powers and his rivals knew the purpose of this army was to crush internal dissent. It existed outside of the Ministry of the Army and was controlled by the War Participation Bureau, which the premier led, President Feng Guozhang, Duans rival, had no control, despite constitutionally being commander-in-chief. When the war ended without a soldier stepping foot abroad, his critics demanded the disbanding of the War Participation Army, Duan had to find a new purpose for his army. His reputation as a patriot was discredited, the Constitutional Protection War was fought to a bloody standstill in Hunan. Using his army for another attempt to retake southern China from the rebels was undesirable. The Russian Civil War left Mongolia without a foreign protector, an easy victory would boost Duans stature. Mongolias long running prime minister, Tögs-Ochiryn Namnansüren, died in April 1919 leaving the ruling elite deeply divided over a successor. Some of Mongolias princes, as well as its Han Chinese, Anhui clique was also known as Anfu group. The Anfu Club was bribed by Japan to implement in Mongolia the strategies of Japan, the War Participation Army was renamed the Northwestern Frontier Army. Duan gave control of it to his right-hand, Xu Shuzheng and they announced the expedition was at the invitation of several Mongolian princes to protect Mongolia from Bolshevik incursions
37.
First United Front
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The First United Front, also known as the KMT–CPC Alliance, of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China was formed in 1923 as an alliance to end warlordism in China. Together, they formed the National Revolutionary Army and set out in 1926 on the Northern Expedition, the CPC joined the KMT as individuals, making use of KMTs superiority in numbers to help spread communism. The KMT, on the hand, wanted to control the communists from within. Both parties had their own aims and the Front was unsustainable, in 1927 Nationalist Field Marshal Chiang Kai-shek purged the Communists from the Front while the Northern Expedition was still half-complete. This initiated a war between the two parties that lasted until the Second United Front was formed in 1936 to prepare for the coming Second Sino-Japanese War. During the time of warlords Sun Yat-sen kept the idea of a united Chinese republic alive and his goal was to establish a rival government in Guangzhou, southern China, and go from there to fight against the warlords in the North and their Beiyang government. Upon his return from exile in 1917, Sun revived his banned nationalist party, the Kuomintang, but this time he gave it the new name and his plan was that after defeating the warlords the party would guide China until the country would be ready to move to democracy. The rival government led by Sun, however, was at a disadvantage against the warlords from a point of view. Despite his requests for aid from the West, badly needed financial, in the 1920s the Kuomintang eventually received helped from a surprising source, the Russian Bolsheviks. Material aid from Russia was good enough for Sun, who had previously shown flexibility when the question was about the promotion of the republic and he had neither sympathy towards Marxism nor did he see communism as a solution to Chinas problems. In Suns view, China was not of the rich and the poor, rather, it was the country of the poor, the guidelines of the Kuomintang were based on Suns “Three Principles of the People”, nationalism, democracy and the peoples livelihood. The Kuomintang gradually became a powerful and disciplined party under Russian guidance, the decisive factor was Bolshevik assistance to the Kuomintang in the formation of its own army, the National Revolutionary Army. In order to train the army the Whampoa Military Academy was established near Guangzhou, as its director, Sun appointed his loyal supporter, Chiang Kai-shek. Financially the Whampoa Military Academy operated with the support of the Soviet Union, the quality of education was guaranteed by regularly visiting Russian officers. The Soviet Union had its own interests in supporting the Kuomintang, the Bolsheviks, in exchange for their help, demanded that the Kuomintang form an alliance with the Chinese communists. Chinas newly founded communist party had only a few hundred members at the beginning of the 1920s, the idea was that the communists would gain broader support by joining the common front with the nationalists, after which they would eventually take over from the Kuomintang. At the request of the Russians, the Chinese communists--among them Mao Zedong--became members of the Kuomintang, with the help of the Soviet Union the Kuomintang did succeed in gaining more support, and with renewed vehemence it continued to vigorously pursue its goal--the unification of the republic. Securing its grip on southern China, the Kuomintang was ready to unite the country by launching a campaign against the North
