Military Dimension of the “Northern Expedition” 143

Chapter 4 Military Dimension of the “Northern Expedition”

Introduction

As the previous chapter has looked into the interrelations between strategy, domestic and international politics, and the changing military situation dur- ing the Northern Expedition, this chapter looks at the operations and campaigns of the war that affected the above developments.1 Previous studies of the Northern Expedition have explained the KMT’s victory by describing the NRA as an army driven by ideology, a new type superior to the forces. However, although the NRA was different from the Anguojun since it opted for total rather than limited political wars, this study concurs with Donald Jordan’s view that the result of the war was not preordained by this fact. Donald Jordan’s review of the war has suggested that the war was largely decided on the battle- field as the NRA’s victories persuaded the , , and Xishan to join the war against the Government.2 Donald Jordan and others who looked at the Northern Expedition from a military perspective were correct in pointing out the importance of battle in creating what Arthur Waldron called the “momentum of unification,” but they looked at the war mainly from the KMT’s perspective. Through an analysis of the Anguojun and the campaigns it fought, this chapter offers a revision of the military dimension of the war from the Northern perspective. It argues that the Anguojun was more than a loose conglomeration of rag-tag bandit-soldiers. This is the stereotype cultivated during and after the war by Chinese and for- eign observers. The Anguojun resisted the KMT coalition for more than a year, and often fought effectively. This chapter contends that its defeat was owing to strategic and operational errors such as distribution of resources, poor deci- sion-making, intelligence failures, and faulty command and control. Defeats were also the result of the difficulties entailed in coordinating a huge battle- field and also a general lack of resources. However, greater than all these problems, many of them also faced by the KMT, was that of overstretch as well as the fear of it. As this chapter shows, always fearing overstretching and

1 When revising this chapter, the author was aided by the 2013 General Research Fund of the Hong Kong University Grants Committee (Project No: 244313). 2 Donald Jordan, The Northern Expedition, 275, 290.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/9789004340848_006 144 Chapter 4 geopolitical pressure, the Northern leaders made overcautious moves that prevented them from exploiting numerous opportunities. This chapter begins by reviewing the military geography of Northern China, warfare during the 1920s, and the effectiveness of the Anguojun, before turning to the campaigns it fought. It puts the major campaigns in context, revisits their impact, and discusses their operational and tactical features. They include the Jiangsu-- Campaign (March-June 1927), the Battle for (Jun-Aug 1927), the Battle for Nanjing (Aug-Sep 1927), the 2nd Henan Campaign (Sep-Dec 1927), the - Campaign (Oct-Dec 1927), and the Henan- -Shanxi Campaign (April-May 1928). Because the Anguojun leaders always saw their campaigns as one coordinated effort, this study also high- lights the interrelations between them.

Military Geography and the War in China in the 1920s

Location, accessibility, terrain, and geopolitics were all identified as vital fac- tors for whether an area was suitable as a base for a Republican warlord.3 Manchuria was considered as a favorable base because of its “peripheral” posi- tion, but Michael Pillsbury has disagreed.4 He pointed out that although Manchuria was protected by the mountains in Rehe and the Shanhaiguan Pass, its flank and rear were exposed to Japan and Russia. Its capital Mukden and its arsenals were within easy reach of the Japanese. Because of these facts, the Anguojun always needed to divert its forces to deter potential invasion and secure communication between Manchuria and China Proper between 1925 and 1928. On the other hand, geography allowed the Shanxi warlord to exert strategic influence far beyond his fiscal and military strength. Without control of Shanxi, the Anguojun’s position in Northern China remained inse- cure. Shanxi, surrounded by mountains, is close to Beijing, with its boundary running parallel to the Beijing-Hankow Railway. The Shanxi warlord was able to disrupt its traffic from his mountainous stronghold, and did in 1927. Thus, large-scale operations south of the were dangerous without Shanxi’s cooperation. If the Anguojun had suffered a reversal south of the Yellow River, Shanxi could have threatened the Beijing- area. On the

3 Ch’i Hsi-sheng, Warlord Politics in China, 142-9. 4 Donald Jordan, 288; Ch’i Hsi-sheng, Warlord Politics in China, 146; Michael Pillsbury, Environment and Power, 279.