The Survival of China's Warlords (1916-1927)

Throughout China's long and rich history, periods of flux and influx have occurred in cycles, causing stability at one moment and disaster the next. Otherwise known as the Dynastic Cycle, in which the Mandate of Heaven favors emperors of good mettle, while withdrawing it's Mandate from those whom are not, has often marked the periods of ascension and glory, and as well, periods of dissension and decline. In one such period, the Warlord Period (1916-1927), it can be said that the Mandate of Heaven has been withdrawn due to this period in history being perhaps China's most darkest and chaotic.

With the collapse of the political system, which was left leaderless due to the death of China's first president, Yuan Shih-k'ai (1859-1916), whom himself was ironically a warlord (of the Peiyang Clique), China was torn further into regionalism as militant governors, whom Shih-k'ai appointed himself, vied for power. (Gernet, 610) As a result, these governor-warlords began to further build their provinces up with armies whom were equipped with modern armaments (a movement which started in 1850 due to local rebellions), of which exacted heavy costs. (Morton, 182) Thrown also into the mix was the growth of Japanese Power and its subsequent demands to make China as her protectorate, the growing influence of intellectuals and students, and as well, the rise of the Communist Party under the guidance of Russia. All in all, the Warlord Period was one of confusion and despair promulgated by the shift from community life to the impersonal relations of the marketplace, the influence of foreign powers and their banks, and the lack of centrality in government, ultimately causing the most damage to the backbone of Chinese society, the average Chinese that toiled the land, the peasants.

When asked what a prototypical warlord embodies, visions of ruthlessness, conniving warfare, treachery, vileness, and political back-stabbing come to mind. The struggle for dominance over others for land, the massacres involved, the plumes of smoke that fill the air as buildings burn, and the subsequent looting and pillaging involved, all as a result of a warlord's greed for supremacy. In China, one such warlord that embodied such cruelties was the military governor of Shantung, Chang Tsung-ch'ang. Nicknamed as the "Dog-Meat General" due to a betting game he enjoyed, and known by the populace as "Old Sixty-Three" because his erect penis was said to equal a stack sixty-three Yuan Shih-k'ai dollars , Tsung-ch'ang was indeed the epitome of the prototypical warlord stereotype. (Fairbank, 175) He was capable of ferocious and erratic cruelty or of extremities in sensual indulgence. Even the president of the Peking University commented that Chang Tsung-ch'ang had "the physique of an elephant, the brain of a pig, and the temperament of a tiger". (Fairbank, 175) Born to mean and abusive parents (his father a part-time trumpeter and head shaver, his mother a "working witch who was skilled at exorcising evil spirits,") Tsung-ch'ang grew up tall, well over six feet, and broad. (Fairbank, 175) He was fearless in battle and during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) joined the Russians in battle, of which, when he came to power in the 1920's, he kept some four thousand White Russian guards. As well, Russians were also part of his assorted forty women harem. (Fairbank, 175) Although, what really gave Tsung-ch'ang his ruthless stereotype was the executions of editors and journalists in his occupation of Peking, and in Shantung where he killed peasant members of secret societies and hung their heads on telegraph poles. (Fairbank 176) Also of note, was the tens of thousands of Chinese volunteers, driven by the poverty brought about by the greedy warlord, were shipped to Britain to serve as laborers so that it would free more European males for the war in Western Europe. These laborers, whom came from processing plants which was sarcastically nicknamed by the British as the "sausage machine", received generous wages of 10 dollars a month paid to their families in China and worked ten hour days, seven days a week in unsanitary, dangerous conditions. (Spencer, 190) Many were killed while cleaning up battlefields by unexploded mines or shells, or while digging up trenches in the front. (Spencer, 290) However, not all warlords were as violent and greedy as Tsung-ch'ang. Many had their beginnings as local warlords whom held ideals of reform, brought in modern improvements, and showed a concern for the people. One such warlord whom lived an exemplary life was the "Christian General" Feng Yu-hsiang (1882-1948).

Feng Yu-hsiang was born into a peasant family. At the age of eleven, Yu-hsiang attended a military academy, later he became a model brigade commander of the North China Army after rising through the ranks of his academy. (Fairbanks, 181) Big and burly, Yu-hsiang became the leader of men due to his attention to their demands and concerns, and as well, his open-mindedness to the ideals of the day. The nickname "Christian General" was given to him after Reverend John R. Mott baptized him in 1913, and as a result, Yu-hsiang cultivated missionaries, enlightened his well-disciplined troops in the teachings of Protestantism (it was said that he did a mass baptism by using a fire hose). (Fairbanks, 181) He educated them in practical trades and sponsored road building, tree planting, and progressive reforms in where ever he was stationed. (Fairbanks, 181) When Yu-hsiang became a military governor (i.e. warlord), he too built up his military, the National People's Army, and held discussions with the Russians in order to acquire arms. However, despite his humane feats, Yu-hsiang too, was not prone to the darker aspects of warlordism.

During the Warlord Period, military governors strove quickly to build up their provincial armies in order to keep neighboring provinces in check, and, to later dominate them. However, the costs came at a great price. Not only did the warlords have to maintain their armies with basic needs in order to keep them content, the warlord had to supply them with modern weaponry as well. This is one of the aspects which separates other periods of confusion during dynastic turnovers, in that, warlords now were the possessors of modern weapons, which united them with their suppliers, the Western powers, and the personal control over money and resources which were otherwise transferred to the central government in prior ages. (Morton, 182) As a result, after the First World War, there was an abundance of Western armaments left unused, and pending on their spheres of influence, foreign powers would unload them to certain favorable warlords (e.g. "Christian General" Feng with Russia, Wu P'ei-fu with Britain, Chang Tsung-ch'ang with Japan). (Gernet, 631)

For the warlord, one of the quickest ways to gain immediate access to funds to purchase these arms was through foreign loans. Warlords, in order to acquire a loan, had to show guarantees of repayment either by showing that he represented the effective power of the official government of China, or by being able to command sufficient returns from custom duties, salt taxes, post office profits, and many other means to pay the interest on loans. (Gernet, 630) As an example, the largest loan made was by Yuan Shi-k'ai in 1913. Shi-k'ai was able to secure a loan of $100 million from German, English, French, Japanese, and Russian banks. An additional $72 million was to be paid in interest, thus equaling a whopping $172 million to be paid back by 1960. Sun Yat-Sen, the father of the Republic, consequently was unable to secure a loan due to his lack of an army despite whatever title he claimed. (Morton, 183) However, in order to pay back these loans or interest, a heavy toll was taken on the peasants. Their exploitation was rampant as taxes were instituted on almost all aspects of daily life. In some cases, peasants were even required to pay taxes in up to ten years in advance! Even if they had nothing to pay and no matter how many head knockings were involved, mercy was not shown to the peasants by warlords. (Fritz, 14) Eventually they had to give up their lands and become slaves. As a result, peasants would sometimes call themselves the "dry people" for they had been sucked dry. (Fritz, 14) Not only did the peasants have to worry about taxes and their warlord's demands, but also from the warlord's armies. Oftentimes, as armies marched through the countryside, soldiers would loot and pillage from the peasants as most warlords allowed their armies to live off the land. Livestock was the most common item stolen by the soldiers and, as well, peasants also had to suffer through the accompanying mistreatment by those armies. Other problems included inflation which was on the rise as governments printed money at alarming rates and the production of opium, which had been largely ceased in 1917, started again as it was an item that could be taxed profitably and/or smuggled in order to pay for arms and their subsequent debts. (Fairbanks, 180) All in all, the climate for peasants was a hard and laborious one. Surrounded by war, exploitation and pillage, their lives were of no consequence to the warlord, all of which could be summed up by one peasant boy whom wondered "how landlords/warlords could have such normal, ordinary-looking faces and yet be so cruel. How could the cruelty not show?" (Fritz, 14)

In the years following Yuan Shi-k'ai's death, the Warlord Period, politics between warlords was one of alliances made and broken, all of which shifted treacherously from day to day. The "Christian General" himself, whom is known mostly for his notorious double-cross of his superior, Wu P'ei-fu, of the Zhih-li clique, joined their enemy, Chang Tso-lin, warlord of Manchuria and leader of the Feng-T'ien Clique, in order to seize Peking in 1924 for himself. However, as mentioned before, alliances shift like the changing directions of the wind, and as for Wu and Chang, they joined forces to oust Feng Yu-hsiang out of Peking in 1926. (Fairbanks, 181) All in all, the political chessboard of warlord politics is such that it is comparable to "memorizing the bus routes of a city one is never going to visit. We would wind up confused and even more sorry for the Chinese that had to live through it" (Fairbanks, 180) Considering that foreign nations also had considerable influence in politics due to their economic, political, and military interests, the tracing alliances and back-stabbing is one of absolute chaos. (Gernet, 631) Here is just an example of these complex relations in Chinese politics as well as the influence held by foreign powers following the death of Yuan Shi-k'ai: "…following the death of Yuan Shih-k'ai, Manchuria, the zone of Japanese influence, was the fief of Chang Tso-lin (1875-1928), head of the military clique of the Feng-t'ien (Lianing). Tuan Ch'i-jui (1865-1936) and Hsu Shu-cheng (1880-1925) were dominant in central China and Fukien, again with the help of Japan, from whom Tuan Ch'i-jui obtained considerable assistance in 1918 (the Nishihara loans ). This was the group known as the Anfu clique (Anhwei-Fukien). The Yangtze valley, the British zone, was held by the clique known as the Chih-li group (Ts'ao K'un, 1862-1938 and Wu P'ei-fu, 1872-1939). But Great Britain also kept an eye on South China, where the political situation could have an effect on the activities of Hong Kong. As for France, which had not abandoned its dream of penetratin the South-East, it supported T'ang Chi-yao (1882-1927) Japan's former client, in Yunnan. In July 1920 the Anfu clique was defeated by the Feng-t'ien and Chih-li groups. In the winter of 1921-1922 the Washington Conference, by calling a halt to Japanese expansion in East Asia, produced a new distribution of the political forces and an armed conflict between Chang Tso-lin, the representative of Japanese interests, and Wu P'ei-fu, the client of Great Britain." (Gernet, 631)

As you can see, this brief summary of political events can bring up endless possibilities of allegiances and enemy factions. When considering that there were nine major cliques whom represented their local provinces, some two hundred or so generals with their legions, and as well, local thugs whom were able to consolidate a local base, all of whom used cunning and bargaining, with unexpected changes of external policy to reflect their greed, and as well, corruption and terror at home, the political climate is one of harried chaos, all which contributed a dark period in Chinese history indeed.

The men known as "warlords", whom controlled much of China, had a wide range of backgrounds and maintained their power in different ways. Most warlords rose through the ranks of the Beiyang army and had once been proteges of Yuan Shi-k'ai; many others had served in the provincial armies and had risen to positions in late 1911 or early 1912 (prior to Shi-k'ai's death) as military governor or senior officer. Some, however, were simply local thugs who had seized an opportunity to create and maintain a local base. No matter how they ascended to the warlord status or how they dominated parts or even whole provinces, warlords financed their armies with local taxes collected by their own bureaucracies, or by controlling only a handful of towns and received their money from "transit taxes" collected at gunpoint of through confiscation. (Gernet, 631) The Chinese people, however, did not suffer in outright destruction through warfare, rather it was through slow deterioration: dikes were not maintained to control the Yellow River, opium production made a comeback because it could be profitable taxed and/or smuggled, economic life was sporadically disrupted, long-term investment declined while disinvestment proceeded due to railways falling into neglect and, as well, the rapid inflation of the currency. (Fairbank, 181) Worst of all, however was the ancient Confucian rule-by-virtue was replaced public demoralization as exploitation and cruelty ruled supreme. As Liang Ch'i-ch'ao put it almost in despair, "In China today only cunning, crooked, vile and ruthless people can flourish". (Spence, 289)

However, no matter whether the individual warlords were cruel or generous, sophisticated or imbecile, wanted a true constitution or no, the fragmentation of China under warlord rule brought about a rise of revolutionaries calling for the downfall of the upper classes whom exploited the poor. This environment ultimately led the way for the success of the Communist party whom appealed to the large peasant class. With the invasion of Japan and its capitulation in August 1945, and the extensive internal warfare against warlords and "Communist bandits" alike, the central government was weak. (Gernet, 644) Unable to cure its vices (e.g. exploitation of the peasant class), the Nationalist movement lost public favor as it swung over to the Communists, believing that they would live better lives. Ultimately, the Nationalist armies would be defeated and the declaration of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, under the leadership of Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976). Ironically, the period under Communist rule would result in little if no change in the harshness that the everyday-life Chinese would face.



Bibliography
Spence, Johnathan D. "The Search For Modern China". New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1990.

Fritz, Jean. "China's Long March: 6000 Miles of Danger". New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1988.

Fairbank, John King. "The Great Chinese Revolution: 1800-1985". New York: Harper & Row, 1986.

Morton, Scott W. "China: It's History And Culture". New York: Lippincott & Crowell, 1980.

Gernet, Jacques. "A History of Chinese Civilization, 2nd Ed.". United Kingdom: Cambridge Press, 1996.