Beiyang Fleet
The Beiyang Fleet was one of the four modernized Chinese navies in the late Qing dynasty. Among the four, the Beiyang Fleet was sponsored by Li Hongzhang, one of the most trusted vassals of Empress Dowager Cixi and the principal patron of the "self-strengthening movement" in northern China in his capacity as the Viceroy of Zhili and the Minister of Beiyang Commerce. Due to Li's influence in the imperial court, the Beiyang Fleet garnered much greater resources than the other Chinese fleets and soon became the dominant navy in Asia before the onset of First Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895 — it was the largest fleet in Asia and the 8th in the world during the late 1880s in terms of tonnage; the creation of the Beiyang Fleet dated back to 1871, when four ships from the southern provinces were shifted north to patrol the northern waters. The Beiyang fleet was considered to be the weakest of the four Chinese regional navies; this soon changed. In 1884, on the eve of the Sino-French War, the Beiyang Fleet was the second-largest regional navy but was closing the gap with the Nanyang Fleet, based at Shanghai.
By 1890, it was the largest of China's four regional navies. Unlike the other Chinese fleets, the Beiyang Fleet consisted of battleships imported from Germany and Britain; when the flagships Dingyuan and Zhenyuan were purchased from Germany, the superiority in strength of the Beiyang Fleet became evident, as Germany was the emerging world power, rivalling Britain in new naval construction. The Qing Chinese navy at its peak consisted with a total tonnage of 83,900 tons. However, construction of new ships completely stopped in 1888 due to high expenditures in other fields by the Qing dynasty. Grand Tutor Weng Tonghe, advised the Guangxu Emperor to cut all funding to the navy and army, because he did not see Japan as a true threat, there were several natural disasters during the early 1890s which the emperor thought to be more pressing to expend funds on. Due to missing expenditures, the training of the fleet and personnel ran to a standstill, which contributed to its defeat in the Battle of the Yalu River against Japan.
The British naval officer Captain William Lang was recruited by Hart and Li Hongzhi in 1882 to advise the Chinese in naval matters. The Beiyang Fleet took good care to stay out of range of Admiral Amédée Courbet's Far East Squadron during the Sino-French War, it featured prominently in the calculations of the French government between 1883 and 1885. The Beiyang Fleet was due to take delivery in early 1884 of Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, three modern warships building in German shipyards. In December 1883, as war with China seemed likely, the French persuaded the German government to delay the release of these three ships, they did not reach China after the end of the Sino-French War. In late June 1884, when the news of the Bắc Lệ ambush broke, the French admiral Sébastien Lespès, commander of the Far East naval division, was cruising off Che-foo in the Gulf of Petchili with the French warships La Galissonnière, Triomphante and Lutin, while the Beiyang Fleet lay at anchor in Che-foo harbour. Although war was imminent and China remained technically at peace, Lespès was forbidden to attack the Beiyang Fleet pending the outcome of diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis.
On 3 July 1884 the Beiyang Fleet's commander, Admiral Ding Ruchang, withdrew his ships from Che-foo to Pei-ho, where a strong bar across the harbour protected them from the French ships. The fleet remained at Pei-ho in complete idleness throughout the Sino-French War. In February 1885 the Beiyang Fleet reluctantly released two of its ships and Yangwei, to join a sortie launched by a number of ships of the Nanyang Fleet to break the French blockade of Formosa; the two ships set sail for Shanghai to join the Nanyang vessels, but were immediately recalled by Li Hongzhang, who claimed that they were needed to watch the Japanese in Korea. The result was the loss of two Chinese warships from the Nanyang Fleet at the Battle of Shipu. Li's selfish attitude was neither forgotten nor forgiven, in the First Sino-Japanese War the Nanyang Fleet made little attempt to help the Beiyang Fleet. In 1894, on the eve of the war with Japan, the Beiyang Fleet was in theory the most powerful fleet in Asia, it was only one of China's four regional fleets.
The pride of the Beiyang Fleet were the German-built steel turret battleships Dingyuan 定遠 and Zhenyuan 鎮遠. Between 1881 and 1889 the Beiyang Fleet acquired a squadron of eight protected or armoured cruisers, most of which were built in either Britain or Germany; the cruisers Chaoyong 超勇 and Yangwei 揚威, which joined the fleet in 1881 and were prudently kept far from the scene of action during the Sino-French War by Li Hongzhang, were products of Laird's yard, Birkenhead. Three German-built cruisers, Jiyuan and Laiyuan 來遠, were completed in 1887 in the Vulcan yard at Stettin. Another pair of protected cruisers, Chingyuan 靖遠 and Zhiyuan 致遠, were built by Armstrong Whitworth in 1887 at its new Elswick yard; the latter pair were a class loosely known as the "Elswick Cruisers", ships built for export under a simil
Dalian
Dalian is a major city and seaport in the south of Liaoning Province, China. It is the southernmost city of the Liaodong Peninsula. Dalian has sub-provincial administrative status; the Shandong Peninsula lies southwest across the Bohai Strait and Korea lies across the Yellow Sea to the east. Today a financial and logistics centre for Northeast Asia, Dalian has a significant history of being used by foreign powers for its ports. Dalian was known as both "Dalniy" and "Dairen". However, the city was better known as "Port Arthur" and "Ryojun" from the original Port Arthur, now the city's Lüshunkou district. In 2016, Dalian ranks 48th in the Global Financial Centres Index, the other Chinese cities on the list being Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Qingdao. In 2012, Dalian ranked 82nd in the Global City Competitiveness Index. In 2006, Dalian was named China's most livable city by China Daily. Modern Dalian originated from a small fishing village. Russia built a commercial town for the Kwantung Leased Territory after assuming control in 1898 and called it "Dalniy" from 1898–1905.
After the Russo-Japanese War, Japan occupied the Kwantung Leased Territory and renamed the city Dairen after the Chinese name for Dalian Bay. English sources called the city "Dairen" from the Japanese. In 1950, Dalian merged with nearby town called Lüshun to form the city of Lüda, a name formed from the first syllable of each constituent's name, rendered as Luta in English during that era. In 1981, the State Council again renamed the city, from Lüda to "Dalian", effective 5 March 1981. In the Qin and Han periods, Chinese expanded their territories into northern Korea through the Dalian region under the jurisdiction of Liaodong county. During the Sixteen Kingdoms era, the kingdom of Goguryeo controlled this region. In the early Tang Dynasty, the Dalian region was part of Andong Prefecture in Jili state. Dalian was named Sanshan in the period of Wei Jin, San Shanpu in the Tang Dynasty, Sanshan Seaport in the Ming Dynasty, Qingniwakou during the Qing Dynasty. In the 1880s, the north of downtown within Dalian, now Jinzhou District, was a walled town and centre for political intrigue and economic activity.
The Qing government built bridges and fortified the peninsula. Mining camps on the northern coast of Dalian Bay became the small town of Qingniwa or Qingniwaqiao, near what became downtown Dalian; the British occupied Qingniwa in 1858, but it returned to Chinese control in the 1860. Port Arthur at the peninsula's tip took its English name from Royal Navy Lieutenant William C. Arthur, but Chinese called it Lüshun. Although China fortified the area, in which it allowed trade with foreigners, Japan swiftly overcame those defenses in the First Sino-Japanese War, committing the Port Arthur massacre during the war in November 1894. In April 1895, China conceded defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War, ceding Liaodong Peninsula and Penghu, making many other concessions in the Treaty of Shimonoseki; the Triple Intervention by Russia and Germany forced Japan to return the Liaodong Peninsula to China, despite the treaty's terms. For Russia the region of the peninsula was of particular interest as one of the few areas in the region that had the potential to develop ice-free ports.
The Russians built a modern commercial port city, which they wanted to become the Paris of the Far East, called it Dal'niy. Linked to the Trans-Siberian Railway's branch line from Harbin, Dalniy became Russia's primary port-city in Asia, served other western traders. Russia signed the Pavlov Agreement with China, which granted Russia a 25-year lease on Dalian and Lüshun and exclusive right to lay a branch of the Chinese Eastern Railway—what would become the South Manchurian Railway. Russia spent more than 10 million golden rubles building the new ice-free port city. Russia fortified both Dalniy and the Port Arthur naval base before and after the Boxer Rebellion. Missionaries and converts were killed in the peninsula during the insurrection, although the massive massacres of ethnic Chinese Christians including Metrophanes, Chi Sung occurred at Harbin. Western expeditionary forces suppressed the Boxers across the Yellow Sea in Shandong. During the Russo-Japanese War, the peninsula became a major battleground.
Major-General Baron Anatoly Stoessel defended the siege of Port Arthur, for five months, but the Japanese army managed to sink several Russian ships attempting to relieve him through long-distance fire in early December. Admiral Eugene Alexeyeff was blamed for splitting precious resources shipped 5,000 miles across the single tracked Trans-Siberian Railway and Manchurian Railway between
Lüshunkou District
Lüshunkou District is a district of Dalian, in Liaoning province, China. Called Lüshun City or Lüshun Port, it was known as both Port Arthur (亚瑟港. Port-Artur and Ryojun; the district's area is 512.15 square kilometres and its permanent population as of 2010 is 324,773. Lüshunkou is located at the extreme southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula, it has an excellent natural harbor, the possession and control of which became a casus belli of the Russo-Japanese War. Japanese and Russian administration was established in 1895 and continued until 1905 when control was ceded to Japan. During the first decade of that period, it was world-famous and was more significant than the other port on the peninsula, Dalian proper. In Western diplomatic and historical writings, it was known as Port Arthur, during the period when the Japanese controlled and administered the Liaodong Peninsula it was called Ryojun, the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters in the city's name. After the Japanese defeat in World War II, the city was under the administration of the Soviet Union, which rented the port from China, until 1950.
Although the Russians presented the port to China in 1950, Soviet troops remained in the city until 1955. Central Dalian is some 64 kilometres farther up the coast, sprawling around the narrowest neck of the Liaodong Peninsula, whereas Lüshun occupies its southern tip. Seen on the map are the Liaodong Peninsula and its relation to Korea, the Yellow Sea to its southeast, the Korea Bay to its due east, the Bohai Sea to its west. Beijing is directly across the Bo Hai Gulf from the port city. Surrounded by ocean on three sides, this strategic seaport was known to the Chinese as Lüshun, it took its English name, Port Arthur, from a British Royal Navy Lieutenant named William C. Arthur who surveyed the harbor in the gunboat HMS Algerine in August 1860, during the Second Opium War. At that time Lüshun was an unfortified fishing village. In the late 1880s, the German company Krupp was contracted by the Chinese government to build a series of fortifications around Port Arthur; this was after local contractors had "made an extensive bungle of the job".
Port Arthur first came into international prominence during the First Sino-Japanese War. Following Japan's defeat of Chinese troops at Pyongyang in Korea in September 1894, the Japanese First and Second Armies converged on the Liaodong Peninsula by land and sea. Japanese war planners, ambitious for control of the Liaodong Peninsula and Port Arthur and cognizant of that port's strategic position controlling the northern Yellow Sea routes and the passage to Tianjin, were determined to seize it. Following only token resistance during the day and night of November 20–21, 1894, Japanese troops entered the city on the morning of November 21. Several Western newspaper correspondents present at the time related the widespread massacre of Chinese inhabitants of the city by the victorious Japanese troops in response to the murderous treatment the Chinese had shown Japanese prisoners of war at Pyongyang and elsewhere. Foremost among the correspondents was James Creelman of the New York World. Though at least one American correspondent present contradicted Creelman's account, there is "little doubt" that the Japanese troops "indiscriminately killed" thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians, the story of a Japanese massacre soon spread among the Western public, damaging Japan's public image and the movement in the United States to renegotiate the unequal treaties between that country and Japan.
The event came to be known as the Port Arthur massacre. An account of a US sailor who visited the port in the weeks prior to the attack commented that the Chinese soldiers were "ridiculous", they lacked any semblance of military bearing, their dress was unkempt and untidy, they wandered about the place with little in the way of direction or smartness associated with professional soldiers. He stated that at the time, the garrison numbered 20,000 soldiers, but from his estimation, it should have had between 30,000 and 40,000 men stationed there, he opined that the Japanese could have taken the port with one third of its force, but that against disciplined soldiers, the place should have been impenetrable. Japan went on to occupy Port Arthur and to seize control of the whole Liaodong Peninsula as spoils of war; as part of the terms of the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki concluding the war, Japan was granted the Liaodong Peninsula but had to cede back the territory when threatened jointly with war by France and Russia in what is called the Triple Intervention of 1895.
This was seen as a great humiliation in Japan. Two years Russia coerced a lease of the Liaodong Peninsula from China and gained railroad right-of-way to join the Liaodong Peninsula to the Chinese Eastern Railway with a line running from Port Arthur and nearby Dalny to the Chinese city of Harbin, systematically began to fortify the town and harbor at Port Arthur; this railway from Port Arthur to Harbin became a southern branch of
Kwantung Army
The Kwantung Army was an army group of the Imperial Japanese Army in the first half of the 20th century. It became the largest and most prestigious command in the IJA. Many of its personnel, such as Chiefs of staff Seishirō Itagaki and Hideki Tōjō were promoted to high positions in both the military and civil government in the Empire of Japan and it was responsible for the creation of the Japanese-dominated Empire of Manchuria. In August 1945, the army group, around 713,000 men at the time, was defeated by and surrendered to Soviet troops as a result of the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation. Following the Russo-Japanese War, Japan obtained the Kwantung Leased Territory and the areas adjacent to the South Manchurian Railway. "Kwantung" means a guarded pass, east of which lies Manchuria. The Kwantung Garrison was established in 1906 to defend this territory, was composed of an infantry division and a heavy siege artillery battalion, supplemented with six independent garrison battalions as railway guards deployed along the South Manchurian Railway Zone, for a total troop strength of 100,000 men.
It was headquartered in Port Arthur, known as "Ryojun" in Japanese. After a reorganization in 1919, the Kwantung Garrison was renamed the Kwantung Army. In the politicized Imperial Japanese Army of the 1920s and 1930s, the Kwantung Army was a stronghold of the radical "Imperial Way Faction", many of its senior leaders overtly advocated political change in Japan through the violent overthrow of the civilian government to bring about a Shōwa Restoration, with a reorganization of society and the economy along totalitarian state fascist lines, they advocated a more aggressive, expansionist foreign policy regarding the Asian mainland. Members or former members of the Kwantung Army were active in numerous coup d'état attempts against the civilian government, culminating with the February 26 Incident of 1936. Although the Kwantung Army was nominally subordinate to the Imperial General Headquarters and the senior staff at the Army General Staff, its leadership acted in direct violation of the orders from the mainland Japan without suffering any consequence.
Conspirators within the junior officer corps of the Kwantung Army plotted and carried out the assassination of Manchurian warlord Chang Tsolin in the Huanggutun Incident of 1928. Afterwards, the Kwantung Army leadership engineered the Mukden Incident and the subsequent invasion of Manchuria in 1931 in a massive act of insubordination against the express orders of the political and military leadership based in Tokyo. Presented with the fait accompli, Imperial General Headquarters had little choice but to follow up on the actions of the Kwantung Army with reinforcements in the subsequent Pacification of Manchukuo; the success of the campaign meant that the insubordination of the Kwantung Army was rewarded rather than punished. With the foundation of Manchukuo in 1932, the Kwantung Army played a controlling role in the political administration of the new state as well as in its defense. With the Kwantung Army administering all aspects of the politics and economic development of the new state, this made the Kwantung Army commanding officer equivalent to a Governor-general, with the authority to approve or countermand any command from the nominal emperor of Manchukuo, Puyi.
After the campaign to secure Manchukuo, the Kwantung Army continued to fight in numerous border skirmishes with China as part of its efforts to create a Japanese-dominated buffer zone in northern China. The Kwantung Army fought in the opening phase of the Second Sino-Japanese War in Operation Nekka, various actions in Inner Mongolia to extend Japanese domination over portions of northern China and Inner Mongolia; when war broke out in the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937, its forces participated in Battle of Beiping-Tianjin and Operation Chahar. Kwantung forces supported the war in China from time to time. However, the much vaunted reputation of the Kwantung Army was challenged in battle against the Soviet Union's Red Army at the Battle of Lake Khasan in 1938 and subsequent Battle of Nomonhan in 1939, during which time it sustained heavy casualties. After the Nomonhan incident, the Kwantung Army was purged of its more insubordinate elements, as well as proponents of the Hokushin-ron doctrine who urged that Japan concentrate its expansionist efforts on Siberia rather southward towards China and Southeast Asia.
The Kwantung Army was augmented over the next few years, up to a strength of 700,000 troops by 1941, its headquarters was transferred to the new Manchukuo capital of Hsinking. The Kwantung Army oversaw the creation and equipping of an auxiliary force, the Manchukuo Imperial Army. During this time, Prince Tsuneyoshi Takeda worked as liaison officer between the Imperial house and the Kwantung Army. Although a source of constant unrest during the 1930s, the Kwantung Army remained remarkably obedient during the 1940s; as combat spread south into central China and southern China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, with the outbreak of the Pacific War, Manchukuo was a backwater to the conflict. However, as the war situation began to deteriorate for the Imperial Japanese Army on all fronts, the large, well-trained, well-equipped Kwantung Army could no longer be held in strategic reserve. Many of its front line units were systematically stripped of their best units and equipment, which were sent south against the forces of the United States in the Pacific Islands or the Philippines.
Other units were sent south into China for Operation Ichi-Go. By 1945, the Kwantung Army cons
Liaoning
Liaoning is a province located in the northeastern part of China, being the smallest but the most populous province in the region. The modern Liaoning province was established in 1907 as Fengtian or Fengtien province and was renamed Liaoning in 1929 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 and again in 1954. Liaoning is the southernmost province of Northeast China also known as Manchuria, it is known in Chinese as "the Golden Triangle" from its shape and strategic location, with the Yellow Sea in the south, North Korea's North Pyongan and Chagang provinces in the southeast, Jilin to the northeast, Hebei to the southwest, Inner Mongolia to the northwest. The Yalu River marks its border with North Korea, emptying into the Korea Bay between Dandong in Liaoning and Sinuiju in North Korea.
In the past Liaoning formed part of Korean kingdoms as Gojoseon and Goguryeo, as well as Chinese polities such as the Yan State and the Han Dynasty. It was inhabited by non-Han peoples such as Xiongnu, Xianbei. In addition, the Balhae, 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 defense 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, against attacks from Jianzhou Jurchens. 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 some parts, most of the wall was in fact 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, located outside of the Liaodong Wall in the eastern part of the modern Liaoning Province. It was moved to Dongjing, in 1625 to Shengjing. Although the main Qing capital was moved from Shengjing to Beijing after it fell to the Qing in 1644, Shengjing retained its importance as a regional capital throughout most of the Qing era; the Qing conquest of Liaoning resulted in a significant population loss in the area, as many local Chinese residents were either killed during fighting, or fled south of the Great Wall, many cities being destroyed by the retreating Ming forces themselves. As late as 1661, the Civil Governor of Fengtian Province, Zhang Shangxian reported that, outside of Fengtian City and Haicheng, all other cities east of the Liaohe were either abandoned, or hardly had a few hundred residents left. In the Governor's words, "Tieling and Fushun only have a few vagrants". West of the Liaohe, only Ningyuan 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 sparsely populated area of Fengtian Province. Many of the current residents of Liaoning trace their ancestry to these seventeenth century settlers; the rest of China's Northeast, remained off-limits to Han Chinese for most of the Manchu era. To prevent the migration of Chinese to those regions, the so-called Willow Palisade was constructed; the Palisade encircled the agricultural heartlands of Fengtian, running in most areas either somewhat outside the old Ming Liaodong Wall, or reusing it, separating it from the Manchu forests to the northeast and the Mongol grazing lands to the northwest. On, the Qing government tried to stop the migrants flow to Fengtian or to make some settlers return to their original places of residence – or, failing that, to legalize them. For example, an edict issued in 1704 commented on the recent Han Chinese settlers in Fengtian having failed to comply with earlier orders requiring them to leave, asked them either to properly register and join a local defense group, or to leave the province for their original places within the next ten years.
Ten years naturally, another edict appeared, reminding of the necessity to do something with illegal migrants... In any event, the restrictive policy was not as effective as desired by the officials in Beijing, Fengtian's population doubled between 1683 and 1734. During the Qing Dynasty, Manchuria was ruled by three generals, one of whom, the General of Shengjing ruled much of modern Liaoning. In 1860, the Manchu government began to reopen the region to migration, which resulted in Han Chinese becoming the dominant ethnic group in the region. In the 20th century, the province of Fengtian was set up in; when Japan and Russia fought the Russo-Japanese War in 1904–1905, many key battles took place in Liaoning, including the Battle of Port Arthur and the Battle of Mukden, which was, to that point, t
Hebei
Hebei is a province of China in the North China region. The modern province was established in 1911 as Chihli Province, its one-character abbreviation is "冀", named after Ji Province, a Han dynasty province that included what is now southern Hebei. The name Hebei means "north of the river", referring to its location to the north of the Yellow River; the modern province "Chili Province" was formed in 1911, when the central government dissolved the central governed area of "Chihli", which means "Directly Ruled" until it was renamed as "Hebei" in 1928. Beijing and Tianjin Municipalities, which border each other, were carved out of Hebei; the province borders Liaoning to the northeast, Inner Mongolia to the north, Shanxi to the west, Henan to the south, Shandong to the southeast. Bohai Bay of the Bohai Sea is to the east. A small part of Hebei, Sanhe Exclave, consisting of Sanhe, Dachang Hui Autonomous County, Xianghe County, an exclave disjointed from the rest of the province, is wedged between the municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin.
A common alternate name for Hebei is Yānzhào, after the state of Yan and state of Zhao that existed here during the Warring States period of early Chinese history. Plains in Hebei were the home of Peking man, a group of Homo erectus that lived in the area around 200,000 to 700,000 years ago. Neolithic findings at the prehistoric Beifudi site date back to 7000 and 8000 BC. During the Spring and Autumn period, Hebei was under the rule of the states of Yan in the north and Jin in the south. During this period, a nomadic people known as Dí invaded the plains of northern China and established Zhongshan in central Hebei. During the Warring States period, Jin was partitioned, much of its territory within Hebei went to Zhao; the Qin dynasty unified China in 221 BC. The Han dynasty ruled the area under two provinces, You Prefecture in the north and Ji Province in the south. At the end of the Han dynasty, most of Hebei came under the control of warlords Gongsun Zan in the north and Yuan Shao further south.
Hebei came under the rule of the Kingdom of Wei, established by the descendants of Cao Cao. After the invasions of northern nomadic peoples at the end of the Western Jin dynasty, the chaos of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Northern and Southern dynasties ensued. Hebei in North China and right at the northern frontier, changed hands many times, being controlled at various points in history by the Later Zhao, Former Yan, Former Qin, Later Yan; the Northern Wei reunified northern China in 440, but split in half in 534, with Hebei coming under the eastern half, which had its capital at Ye, near modern Linzhang, Hebei. The Sui dynasty again unified China in 589. During the Tang dynasty, the area was formally designated "Hebei" for the first time. During the earlier part of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Hebei was fragmented among several regimes, though it was unified by Li Cunxu, who established the Later Tang; the next dynasty, the Later Jin under Shi Jingtang, posthumously known as Emperor Gaozu of Later Jin, ceded much of modern-day northern Hebei to the Khitan Liao dynasty in the north.
During the Northern Song dynasty, the sixteen ceded prefectures continued to be an area of hot contention between Song China and the Liao dynasty. The Southern Song dynasty that came after abandoned all of North China, including Hebei, to the Jurchen Jin dynasty after the Jingkang Incident in 1127 of the Jin–Song wars; the Mongol Yuan dynasty did not establish Hebei as a province. Rather, the area was directly administrated by the Secretariat at capital Dadu; the Ming dynasty ruled Hebei as "Beizhili", meaning "Northern Directly Ruled", because the area contained and was directly ruled by the imperial capital, Beijing. When the Manchu Qing dynasty came to power in 1644, they abolished the southern counterpart, Hebei became known as "Zhili", or "Directly Ruled". During the Qing dynasty, the northern borders of Zhili extended deep into what is now Inner Mongolia, overlapped in jurisdiction with the leagues of Inner Mongolia; the Qing dynasty was replaced by the Republic of China. Within a few years, China descended with regional warlords vying for power.
Since Zhili was so close to Peking, the capital, it was the site of frequent wars, including the Zhiwan War, the First Zhifeng War and the Second Zhifeng War. With the success of the Northern Expedition, a successful campaign by the Kuomintang to end the rule of the warlords, the capital was moved from Peking to Nanking; as a result, the name of Zhili was changed to Hebei to reflect the fact that it had a standard provincial administration, that the capital had been relocated elsewhere. During the Second World War, Hebei was under the control of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of Japan, a puppet state of Imperial Japan; the founding of the People's Republic of China saw several changes: the region around Chengde, previo
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