The “Warlord Officers”: a Collective Biography of the Anguojun Officers During the Republican Period and Beyond

Journal of Chinese Military History 8 (2019) 115-158

brill.com/jcmh

The “Warlord Officers”: A Collective Biography of the Anguojun Officers during the Republican Period and Beyond

Kwong Chi Man Hong Kong Baptist University [email protected]

Abstract

This article argues that there existed a group of modern professional officers in the warlord armies during the Republican period (1912-1949); they were caught in the middle of a political situation that distorted their career development, disrupted their intellectual growth, and undermined their group cohesion. Using the prosopographical approach and drawing on theories of military culture and professionalism, this article looks at the lives and careers of the middle and high-ranking officers of the National Pacification Army (Anguojun), as they formed the backbone of the warlord armies that controlled a substantial part of China before the Northern Expedition (1926-1928) and that played an important role in the wars in China from the 1910s to 1949. Some of these officers, despite their background, rose to high rank in the Nationalist and Communist armies; the less fortunate ones, however, were purged after 1949 by the new Communist government. It elaborates how political strife affected the lives of the professionally trained officers in China, discusses the development of modern military education in China, and sheds lights on the self-understanding of these officers, their relationship to the state and society, and the sources of their cohesion as a group.

Keywords

China ‒ warlord ‒ officers ‒ modernization ‒ prosopography

1 Introduction

The military history of China during the Republican period (1912 to 1949) has been seen as a period of almost continuous modernization, during which the emergence of the party armies of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang or KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has rightly been considered as the central event.1 More recently, the “warlord period,” between the death of Yuan Shikai in 1916 and the end of the Northern Expedition in 1928, has been discussed by scholars as a period of increasing technological sophistication of Chinese warfare.2 However, there has been little discussion of the officers of the warlord armies, who have sometimes been compared unfavorably to the Whampoa-trained Nationalist officers, and the latter have generally been seen as the first group of modern professional Chinese army officers.3 The collective image of the warlord officers has been distorted by the more colorful figures such as Zhang Zongchang, Feng Yuxiang, or the notorious bandit-warlord Sun Dianying (1887-1946), who broke into and looted the Eastern Mausoleums of the Qing emperors in 1928. Diana Lary and Edward McCord have rightly challenged this simplistic portrayal and argued that, in the complex military and political circumstances of the period, there were various types of warlord officer.4 However, while the phenomenon of warlordism has been thoroughly investigated—and there have been numerous studies on the major warlords such as Zhang Zuolin, Feng Yuxiang, Yan Xishan, Wu Peifu, Han Fuju, and the members of the Guangxi Clique—on the other hand, little attention has been devoted to their subordinate officers.5 The major warlord armies could not have existed and operated effectively without a cohort of professional officers. These officers were involved on most sides and most fronts of the wars in China during the 1920s to 1930s and during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) and the Chinese Civil War (1946-49). A prosopographical approach is adopted in this article to try to understand the lives and thoughts of the warlord officers who were caught between the Nationalist and Communist parties. Such a study of this often-overlooked group should help to fill a gap in the study of the military history of modern China. Prosopography, or collective biography, is “the investigation of the

1 For a more recent example, see Li 2007. 2 Waldron 1995; Elleman 2001. 3 Ch’en 1979; Ch’i 1976. 4 Lary 1980; Lary 1985; McCord 2014. 5 Pye 1971; Lary 1974; Lary 1980; Lary 1985, 439-70; Ch’i 1976; Ch’en 1979; Waldron 1991; McCord 1993; Van de Ven 1997; for studies on individual warlords, see Sheridan 1966; Gillin 1967; McCormack 1977; Wou 1978; Lary 2006; Liu 2009.

Journal of Chinese MilitaryDownloaded History from 8 Brill.com10/02/2021(2019) 115-158 01:55:07AM via free access The “Warlord Officers” 117 common background characteristics of a group of actors in history by means of a collective study of their lives.”6 The adoption of this approach serves both to compensate for the scarcity of information about any individual officer and also to identify and elucidate general patterns. This approach has been used to illustrate the lives of various historical groups, and has already been used to study certain scientific and business communities in China. Chang Jui-te, John Wands Sacca, and Chen Yuhuan have previously adopted a similar approach to study the Nationalist Chinese officers and the Chinese graduates of US military academies.7 This paper focuses on the officers of the National Pacification Army (Anguojun, also sometimes romanized as Ankuochun), which was formed in November 1926 when the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin (1875-1928) ral- lied the warlord armies in North China to fight against the coalition of the northwestern warlord Feng Yuxiang, the Shanxi warlord Yan Xishan, and the Nationalists. The Anguojun was dissolved soon after Zhang was assassinated by the Japanese Kwantung Army in June 1928.8 The wars in China between the northern warlords and the Nationalist coalition are now collectively known as the Northern Expedition. The Anguojun officers are here adopted as a case for the following reasons: the lives of this group of officers are better documented compared to more local military forces, as many of these officers served in the Nationalist Army from 1928 (for sources concerning these officers, see below); they shared a similar upbringing and education; they often served in the same unit for an extended period, despite their units’ affiliations changing over time; and they came from several major warlord camps in China (see below), thus representing a wider geographical area than the more local forces. This article does not claim to provide an overview of the lives of all warlord officers; as Edward McCord suggests in his detailed case studies of the warlords in Hubei, Hunan, and Guizhou, Chinese warlords applied military force to their goals in different political, social, and geographical contexts. Case studies help to reveal the importance of context, thus preventing an overly simplistic understanding of the role played by military force in shaping modern China.9 This article attempts to deepen our understanding of the Chinese military during the late Qing and early Republican period by studying the largest group of professionally trained officers in China before the emergence of the

6 Stone 1971, 46. 7 Chang 1996, 1033-56; Sacca 2006, 703-42; Chen 2007; Chen 2008; Chen 2009; McCord 2014. 8 For a detailed study of the Northern Expedition, see Jordan 1976; for a study of the same war that focuses on the northern warlords, see Kwong 2017a. 9 McCord 2014, 10-12.

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Whampoa Military Academy. It tries to identify the patterns of upbringing, education, career path, network, ideological inclination, and political choice of these officers. It suggests that this group of officers shared similar educational backgrounds, self-understanding, and even behaviorial patterns. They were the product of the modern military education introduced by the Qing Empire during the last decade of its rule, and in turn they were active in shaping the Chinese military during the subsequent decades. The analysis also reveals the complexity and diversity of the lives of the warlord officers during one of the most turbulent periods of Chinese history. The notion of military professionalism has been discussed and theorized by political scientists such as Samuel Huntington and Morris Janowitz, who mainly used the American military as example. A modern professional officer corps, as Huntington argues, has features such as monopoly of expertise and education, responsibility for the protection of the society they serve, and corporateness that makes them distinctive from other professionals and members of the society.10 This article draws inspirations from the theoretical studies on officer corps as a professional group, particularly the model built by Peter Wilson that focuses on the aspects of “mission, relationship to the state and other institutions, relationship to the society, internal structure, and resources.”11 The issue of expertise is also discussed, as formal military training was an important distinctive feature of the group of officers studied. This article suggests that the officers of the Anguojun were members of a modern officer corps created by the reforms of military education in China during the last decade of the Qing Empire. Many of the Anguojun officers received formal training in military academies in Japan and China (after the Japanese model); this set them apart in terms of expertise and self-understanding from other professionals or the general public in China. They were in possession of expert knowledge of modern warfare, although that knowledge was far from complete by the international standard. Many of these officers saw themselves as modern soldiers who had the mission not only of defending China against foreign encroachments but also of modernizing the country. Some, as suggested below, also saw their mission as defending the Chinese way of life against foreign influences. To ensure clarity, this article first discusses the emergence of a cohort of professional officers in China as the result of the late Qing military reform, and the political situation during the 1920s that led to the formation of the Anguojun. It then gives an overview of the data before dealing with different features of

10 Huntington 1985. 11 Wilson 2008, 41.

Journal of Chinese MilitaryDownloaded History from 8 Brill.com10/02/2021(2019) 115-158 01:55:07AM via free access The “Warlord Officers” 119 this group of officers, such as expertise, relationship to the society, relationship to the state (discussed from the perspective of the career paths of the officers), the officers’ self-understanding of their mission, and the internal cohesion of this group of officers.

2 Contexts (I): Emergence of Modern Professional Officers in China, 1895-1923

Recent scholarship has shown that the late Qing military was not a complete failure, and scholars such as Bruce Elleman and Richard Horowitz have shown a moderately successful effort to adapt new military knowledge and technology.12 However, the defeat by Japan in 1894-95 convinced the Qing of the importance of creating a corps of professional officers through a centralized modern military education system. Importing modern firearms and hir- ing instructors from abroad were insufficient to produce a modern military. Even before the end of the war against Japan, officials were already submit- ting proposals for overhauling the military, and officer training was the central feature of the reform.13 The first group of Chinese cadets entered the Imperial Japanese Army Academy (Rikugun shikan gakkō, hereafter referred to as the Shikan gakkō) in 1898.14 However, before this round of modernization ef- forts had had the chance to bear fruit, the Qing suffered yet another major defeat during the Boxer War of 1900. The Tianjin Military Academy (Tianjin wubei xuetang), one of China’s handful of modern military academies, was also destroyed.15 The defeat left the Qing Empire with little choice but to restart its military modernization. Military education received much attention this time; the goal was to establish a centralized military education system throughout the empire after the Japanese model. By 1907, the Qing had established a modern military education system that consisted of Military Primary Schools (Lujun xiaoxue), Military Secondary Schools (Lujun zhongxue), the Military Academy (Junguan xuexiao), and the Staff College (Lujun daxue). Military Primary Schools were set up in each province. Students were to enroll in a programme of three years, studying foreign languages, mathematics, science, and history,

12 Elleman 2001, 3-145; Horowitz 2012, 154-63. 13 Guo 1978, 3. 14 Liu 1978. 15 Liu 1967.

Journal of Chinese Military History 8 (2019) 115-158Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 01:55:07AM via free access 120 Kwong and receiving elementary military training.16 Qualified graduates would enter the four Military Secondary Schools in Beijing (Qinghe), Xi’an, Wuchang, and Nanjing for another two years of more advanced study and military training. Only after five years of training and education could the students enroll into the Military Academy at Baoding to receive eighteen months of officer training. After another six months of serving as cadets in frontline units, the students would finally become officers. Some would be sent to Japan to study at the Shikan gakkō. The Staff College was to provide advanced military training on topics such as large formation command, staff work and mobilization pro- cedures, and military theories. It took at least seven years to train a junior officer in the new system; the graduates of the new system received a much more solid military and modern education than their predecessors. By 1936, there were still 20,033 graduates of Military Primary Schools, 11,493 graduates of Military Secondary Schools, 6,575 graduates of the Baoding Military Academy, and 992 graduates of the Staff College serving in various armies in China.17 As graduates of the military schools and academies have recalled, and as other sources also suggest, these institutions were relatively well administered by the standards of the period, and they provided a modern military education on a Japanese model.18 Translation of Japanese training manuals and military works, and original articles on modern military affairs written by Chinese officers, appeared regularly in the professional military journals published by the Baoding Military Academy. More journals appeared during the first years of the Republic, when military modernization was seen as a national priority. From the 1910s, the Chinese teaching staff of the Staff College were already talking about “localizing” military education and research. The students of the military education institutions at all levels were exposed to this unprecedent- ed flow of modern military learning.19 The military education system lasted into the 1920s, when funding issues forced most schools to close. In 1923 the Baoding Military Academy was closed for lack of funds, and the Staff College, run by the Ministry of War of the Beijing government, ended its instruction in June 1928 when the Nationalist Army entered Beijing. These institutions allowed a generation of officers to learn from the lessons of the First World War. Through military journals, these officers, many of whom were in their twenties, had the opportunity to

16 For detail, see Guo 1978. 17 “Statement of Commissioned Strength and Classification as to Training,” 25/2/1936; also see Chang 2012, 199. 18 Liu et al. 1991, 7-9; Kwong 2017a, 39-41. 19 Kwong 2017c, 183-4.

Journal of Chinese MilitaryDownloaded History from 8 Brill.com10/02/2021(2019) 115-158 01:55:07AM via free access The “Warlord Officers” 121 understand not only the tactical and technical lessons of the recent wars, but also the larger impact of the war on society.20 All in all, the existence from the 1900s to the 1920s of a modern military education system produced a generation of young officers who shared an educational background and professional mindset (illustrated in detail below) quite different from those of their predecessors. Many of the students of the institutions discussed above served in the Anguojun during the Northern Expedition.

3 Contexts (II): The Civil Wars in China and the Formation of the Anguojun, 1916-1926

The first decade of the Republican period witnessed the gradual collapse of political order that led to a period of intermittent civil wars. The death of Yuan Shikai in 1916 led to a series of wars between North and South (nanbei neizhan), a short-lived attempt in 1917 to revive the Qing, and division amongst the “Beiyang warlords,” the lieutenants of Yuan. The period also witnessed a steady expansion of the military in China, including not only those forces under the control of the central government but also the provincial military groups such as the Fengtian Clique led by Zhang Zuolin, who hired a large number of the officers who had received formal military training in China and Japan. Between 1920 and 1924, there were three large-scale civil wars involv- ing the Zhili Clique led by Cao Kun and Wu Peifu, the Fengtian Clique, and the Anfu Clique led by Duan Qirui. The result of these wars was the demise of the Beijing government, which was replaced by a Provisional government with Duan Qirui serving as the figurehead, with Zhang Zuolin and Feng Yuxiang, originally one of Wu Peifu’s subordinates, in actual control. In the meantime, the KMT led by Sun Yat-sen had had very limited success either in establishing a stable regime in South China or in creating a credible military force to wrest the control of the country from the Beiyang warlords. Sun attempted to work with military leaders from the southern provinces, but all such attempts ended in failure. This convinced Sun of the need to establish a modern military, and in 1924, with Soviet assistance, he created a military academy at Whampoa. Chiang Kai-shek, one of Sun’s trusted military commanders, became the commandant of the Whampoa Academy, which trained cadets who would become the backbone of the officer corps of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) that dominated Guangdong from 1925.21 In terms

20 Kwong 2017a, 83-145. 21 Van de Ven 2003, 84-5.

Journal of Chinese Military History 8 (2019) 115-158Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 01:55:07AM via free access 122 Kwong of outlook, the products of Whampoa and those of Baoding or the Staff College were different. First, Whampoa only provided six months of formal military training, and party doctrines featured prominently in the training. The cadets at Baoding and the Staff College were more focused on modern military science, and their education was mainly about technical skills rather than ideological indoctrination or party loyalty.22 The year 1925 was one of the most chaotic years of the Republic. The friction between Feng Yuxiang and Zhang Zuolin reached the breaking point in the second half of the year.23 The remnants of the Zhili Clique held out in central China, but had no leader. The KMT launched a northern drive in late 1924, but it was stopped at the border of Jiangxi. Its leader Sun Yat-sen died in March 1925 just as he was negotiating a national settlement with Duan, Feng, and Zhang. Feng, now the leader of the National Army (Guominjun), expanded towards Henan and Northwest China after receiving Soviet aid. Meanwhile, nationalist fervor spread across the country following the killing of Chinese demon- strators by the Shanghai Municipal Police in May. The Soviet Union supported both Feng and the KMT, hoping a new round of civil war could establish a pro- Soviet regime in Beijing. War broke out in autumn 1925 when Sun Chuanfang (1885-1935), a member of the Zhili Clique and the military governor of Zhejiang, launched a surprise attack against the Fengtian forces in Jiangsu. Feng Yuxiang then pushed on towards Beijing, and in November 1925 bribed the disgruntled commander of the field army of the Fengtian Clique, Guo Songling, to turn against Zhang Zuolin. Zhang, however, defeated Guo, whose army melted away when his officers found that they were in fact facing Zhang’s troops, rather than Japanese forces as they had been told.24 While Zhang was fighting for the survival of the Fengtian Clique, Feng captured Beijing but failed to eject Zhang Zuolin’s subordinate Zhang Zongchang (1881-1932) from Shandong and Zhili. As war in North China was being waged in earnest, Wu Peifu emerged from Sichuan and retook the command of the Zhili forces in Central China. Meanwhile, Sun Chuanfang styled himself as the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Army of the Five Provinces (Wusheng lianjun)25 and controlled the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Fujian, Jiangxi, and Anhui. In early 1926, Wu Peifu and Zhang Zuolin formed an alliance with the ex- press goal to eliminate Feng Yuxiang’s National Army, now seen as a proxy of

22 Kwong 2017c, 184. 23 For detail, see Kwong 2017a, 93-105. 24 Kwong 2012a, 18-35; Kwong 2012b, 1-38. 25 Sun Chuanfang had fought against the two Zhangs in 1925. During the Northern Expedition, however, he chose to fight for the northern warlords. A general headquarters was formed to coordinate the war effort.

Journal of Chinese MilitaryDownloaded History from 8 Brill.com10/02/2021(2019) 115-158 01:55:07AM via free access The “Warlord Officers” 123 the Soviet Union.26 Their forces then drove the National Army out of the capital and laid siege to Nankou, where the National Army had prepared a strong de- fensive position with Soviet advisors and supplies. The Provisional government of Duan Qirui was replaced by a government dominated by Zhang Zuolin and Wu Peifu. It was at this juncture in July 1926 that the Nationalist government in Guangdong launched the Northern Expedition. The NRA drove Wu Peifu out of Central China and defeated Sun in Fujian and Jiangxi. In November 1926, facing the quick collapse of Wu and Sun’s position and under pressure from numerous Beiyang political and military leaders, Zhang Zuolin strengthened his control of the weak Beijing government and established the Anguojun. The Anguojun consisted of the Fengtian Army (Fengjun) under Zhang Zuolin, the Zhili-Shandong Army (Zhi-Lu lianjun)27 under Zhang Zongchang (in effect a subordinate of Zhang Zuolin), and the Allied Army of the Five Provinces under Sun Chuanfang. The majority of the Anguojun soldiers came from Fengtian, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Rehe, Zhili, Shandong, Jiangsu, and Henan provinces.28 This force resisted the NRA for more than a year, before finally yielding the control of Beijing to the Nationalists when Zhang Zuolin decided to return to Manchuria in June 1928.

4 An Overview of the Data

This article looks at the lives of the field commanders and senior staff officers of the Anguojun from the regiment (tuan) to the army (juntuan) level. Instructors of military academies, foreign nationals, and the major warlord leaders are excluded. The names and backgrounds of the officers were collected from the Investigation of the Armies in North China (Hoku Shina guntai chōsa ni ken, 1928), a detailed report of the warlord armies in North China compiled by the Imperial Japanese Army.29 It is by far the most comprehensive study of the Chinese armies during the Northern Expedition. Data from this study is supplemented by biographical sources such as the Oral History Series (Koushu lishi xilie) of Academia Sinica, the serial Biographical Literature (Zhuanji

26 Kwong 2017a, 106-12. 27 Before the Anguojun was formed, Zhang Zongchang had already been a subordinate of Zhang Zuolin. The new arrangement only reaffirmed Zhang Zongchang’s subordination under the Manchurian warlord. 28 The Anguojun also consisted of formations from other parts of China, such as the remnants of the forces led by Wu Peifu after his fall from power in 1926. 29 Hoku Shina guntai chōsa ni ken, 1928, in Rikugun shō dai nikki (Records of the Ministry of War, RDN), Japan Center for Asian Historical Records (JACAR), Ref: B07090207800.

Journal of Chinese Military History 8 (2019) 115-158Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 01:55:07AM via free access 124 Kwong wenxue), and the various Literary and Historical Materials (Wenshi ziliao) series collected from the early 1960s by the PRC government from different parts of China.30 In addition, biographical dictionaries such as the Biographical History of Republican China (Zhonghua minguoshi renwu zhuan), Biographies of Military Figures of Republican China (Minguo junren zhi), the Biographical Dictionary of Baoding Military Academy (Baoding junxiao jiangshuai lu), and the Biographical Dictionary of the Staff College (Lujun daxue jiangshuai lu) were also consulted.31 In all, the names and titles of 279 officers were found, and information about 234 of them (Fengtian Army: 137; Zhili-Shandong Army: 51; Army of the Five Provinces: 46) was collected, which has proved sufficient for a meaningful study. The eldest officer of this group was born in 1871 and the last of them died in 1996. The data represents a significant part of the mid-level to high-ranking officer corps of the Anguojun. A standard questionnaire was designed with the following entries: 1) birthplace; 2) year of birth; 3) family wealth; 4) education and occupational background; 5) soldiering experience before being commissioned; 6) formal military education; 7) foreign exposure; 8) participation in the 1911 Revolution; 9) service in the Beijing government before 1925; 10) post in 1925; 11) post in December 1927; 12) service in the Chinese Nationalist regime during the Second Sino-Japanese War; 13) collaboration with Japan; 14) CCP membership before 1949; 15) time and place of death; 16) cause of death (if available).

5 Expertise

The first noticeable feature of the Anguojun officers studied was the large number of officers who received modern education and formal military training; their expertise at that time was seen as essential for the establishment of a modern Chinese military. After the Qing had abolished the Imperial Civil Service Examination (keju) in 1905, more modern subjects were taught in schools.32 Many of the officers in this group were among the first in China to be educated in a modernized education system. In the modernized schools and

30 Zhuanji wenxue 傳記文學 has been published in Taiwan by the Zhuanji wenxue zazhishe since 1962; the PRC has published wenshi ziliao 文史資料 at national, provincial, county, and municipal levels. See Yang 1999, 137-46. 31 Li 2011; Chen 2006; Chen 2009; Chen 2013. 32 Van de Ven 1997, 356.

Journal of Chinese MilitaryDownloaded History from 8 Brill.com10/02/2021(2019) 115-158 01:55:07AM via free access The “Warlord Officers” 125 in the military preparatory schools, subjects such as mathematics, geography, and science, as well as foreign languages, rather than the eight-legged essay, were taught. Most officers had thus already received a broad education before studying at the military academies. The experience of Ding Zhipan (1894- 1988), a senior staff officer of the Zhili-Shandong Army, was typical:33

In my early years, I received an education mainly intended at preparing me for keju. I had been taught by my grandfather before entering a private academy (sishu) at nine years old…. [When] the Eight-legged Essay (baguwen) was abolished [in 1902], the tutor taught us to write essays about current affairs (celun) … Although the Qing abolished keju in 1905, my family insisted that I should study the classics, in case the policy was changed again. When my parents finally realized in 1911 that keju was gone for good, I was enrolled in a modern school in Nanjing.

In all, 213 officers (91.02%) had received some military education before 1925 (Table 1). The small number of officers who had not received formal military training indicates the high degree of professionalism of the officers of the Anguojun. In all, ten Anguojun division and corps commanders had been bandits or heads of local militia before they became career soldiers. Six of them were old associates of Zhang Zuolin. The influence and power of this group of officers declined after the disastrous First Zhili-Fengtian War in 1922, and only a few of them were still active when the Anguojun was formed.34 The ex- bandit/militia officers under Zhang Zongchang were those who followed him at the beginning of his career, when he was the leader of a mercenary band during the Russo-Japanese War.35 Among the formally educated officers, 143 (61.11%) of them graduated from or studied at the Baoding Military Academy or its predecessors such as the Beiyang Military Academy (Beiyang wubei xuetang). Many of these Baoding graduates reached high ranks in 1927. For example, nineteen (70.37%) out of

33 Liu et al. 1991, 4. Ding was a native of Jiangsu. He was a graduate of the military preparatory school of Jiangsu and served as a junior officer in the Jiangsu Army before joining the Zhili-Shandong Army as a staff officer. He eventually became the chief-of-staff of Xu Yuanquan and followed Xu to serve in various positions until Xu was removed in 1938. Ding’s career, however, was little affected, as he went on to become the deputy commander of an Area Army. He left for Taiwan in 1949 and served in the Nationalist government until retirement. He passed away in 1988, aged 95. 34 Hao 2001, 96-7; McCormack 1977, 100-2. 35 Li 1998, 89-104.

Journal of Chinese Military History 8 (2019) 115-158Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 01:55:07AM via free access 126 Kwong the twenty-seven commanders under Sun Chuanfang from brigade to corps level were Baoding graduates. In 1919 the Fengtian Clique established the Military Academy of the Eastern Three Provinces (Dongsansheng lujun jiangwutang), which provided one to two-year training for 7,971 officers up to 1930.36 During the Northern Expedition, however, the graduates of the Jiangwutang had yet to rise to senior ranks. Although they formed the backbone of the junior officer corps of the Fengtian Army, only ten of them served as field officers at brigade level or above in 1927. In fact, the Baoding graduates still dominated the senior ranks in the Nationalist Army during the early stage of the Second Sino-Japanese War.37 This reflected the composition of the Anguojun officer corps, which was made up largely of the professional officers produced in China and Japan between the 1890s and 1910s.

TABLE 1 Education of the officers

Early education Military education Nature of edu.* No. of officers Institutions** No. of officers

Traditional 203 Baoding# 143 Modern˄ 213 Shikan gakkō 52 None 9 Staff College 23 Unspecified 5 Rikugun dai gakkō 9 Jiangwutang 14 Others in Japan 6 West Point 3 Others 20 None/unknown 21

* Officers who received both traditional and modern education are double-counted. ˄ Modern education means the primary and secondary schools as well as the military preparatory schools established by the Qing government and other parties that offered a modern curriculum, as well as universities in China, Japan, and overseas. Those officers who received a mixed traditional and modern education before entering the military academies are double counted. ** Those who studied at more than one military academy are double counted. # Including its predecessors.

36 Li 1981, 73-5. 37 Chang 1996, 1035.

Journal of Chinese MilitaryDownloaded History from 8 Brill.com10/02/2021(2019) 115-158 01:55:07AM via free access The “Warlord Officers” 127

TABLE 2 Military preparatory education for the officers

Elementary education Secondary education Institutions No. of officers Institutions No. of officers

Fengtian 32 Qinghe (Beijing) 61 Zhili 13 Wuchang 6 Shandong 10 Nanjing 4 Anhui 3 Xi’an 1 Hubei 5 Guangdong 4 Jilin 4 Henan 3 Beijing 2 Fujian 2 Jiangsu 1 Shaanxi 1

Foreign exposure was common among this group of officers. Of the 137 Fengtian officers covered, 43 studied in Japan and two in the United States. Twenty-one out of 46 in Sun Chuanfang’s army studied abroad, all but one in Japan. However, there were only seven Shikan gakkō graduates among the 51 officers of the Zhili-Shandong Army. In contrast, of the 62 commanders at regimental level or above in the eight Nationalist armies, there were 28 Baoding graduates, four Staff College graduates, but only four Shikan gakkō graduates.38 The case of Han Linchun (1885-1930), a senior Fengtian commander, is instructive.39 After graduating from the Shikan gakkō, Han served as military attaché in the United States during the First World War. He was then sent to Europe to study the latest military developments and joined the Chinese delegation to the Paris Peace Conference.40 After serving in the Ministry of War of the Beijing government for two years, he joined the Fengtian Army in 1922. Han was introduced to Zhang Zuolin by Yang Yuting, his classmate at the Shikan gakkō. He was first appointed as the head of the Arsenal of the Eastern

38 Guo 1978, 225. 39 Han was a native of Liaoyang, the son of a wealthy landlord. After receiving a mixed clas- sical and modern education, he was sent to Japan for military study at the age of 19 and returned to China three years later. He eventually became a senior member of the Fengtian Clique, dying of illness in 1930. 40 U.S. Department of State 1919, 33.

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Three Provinces (Dongsansheng binggongchang) and later commanded the main Fengtian contingent of the Anguojun.41 In 1927, twenty-four (55.81%) out of the forty-three Japan-educated officers of the Fengtian Army were serving in staff or specialist positions such as arsenal commandants.42 This shows that the administrative skills and specialized knowledge of these officers were val- ued by the Fengtian leaders. Thus, although the heads of the warlord cliques might not be professionally trained officers, professionalism prevailed in these forces because of the necessity to run ever-expanding armies. A number of officers graduated from unusual places. Wang Geng (1895- 1942), a Princeton and West Point graduate, commanded a railway garrison in Sun Chuanfang’s army and saw little action. Wang Chengzhi (1897-?) and Cao Linsheng (1895-1976), both West Point graduates, served as Zhang Zuolin’s advisors. These officers, however, played only a minor role in the Anguojun. This was not because graduates of modern military institutions were not wel- comed, but rather reflected the common belief at the time that Japan was a much better place than the United States to study military science because of the latter’s smaller army.43 Even when Wang Geng served in the Nationalist Army during the 1930s and 1940s, the situation had changed little; he served as a liaison officer during the war against Japan before succumbing to illness in Cairo in 1942.44

6 Relationship to the Society

The data show that military service at that time did attract educated young men who saw it as a prestigious profession, at least if they were serving in large and well-organized armies such as the Fengtian Army. The officers covered in this study were all born between 1871 and 1903, most of them (76.07%) between 1885 and 1903, the period when the Qing was modernizing its military (Table 3). When the Anguojun was formed, most of the officers were in their thirties and forties, not much older than their Nationalist counterparts. For example, the chief-of-staff of the Nationalist Army, He Yingqin, was thirty-six years old in 1927.45 His counterpart in the Fengtian Army, Yang Yuting (1886-1929), was

41 Zheng 1985, 142-9; Li 2011, 1023. 42 Others were employed as instructors, but they have not been included in this study. 43 Chen et al. 1985, 4-5. 44 It is worth noting that both Wang Chengzhi and Cao Linsheng refused to serve the Nationalist regime in 1928 and became businessmen; Sacca 2006, 703-42. 45 Xie 2002, 791.

Journal of Chinese MilitaryDownloaded History from 8 Brill.com10/02/2021(2019) 115-158 01:55:07AM via free access The “Warlord Officers” 129 forty.46 In the same year, the average age of the division commanders of the First Army of the NRA was thirty-seven.47 In comparison, the average age of the eleven divisional commanders of Sun Chuanfang’s army was thirty-eight,48 and the average age of the twenty-one brigadiers of the Fengtian Army was thirty-four.49 The two youngest Fengtian brigadiers, Wang Hehua (1900-1996) and Zhang Tingshu (1903-1949), were graduates of the Shikan gakkō and the Imperial Japanese Infantry Academy (Rikugun hohei gakkō) at Chiba.50 At the age of twenty-four, Zhang was possibly too young for the post, and he had been appointed partly because he was the son of Zhang Zuoxiang, the military governor of Jilin and a close ally of Zhang Zuolin.51 However, he was also a keen military intellectual and helped produce the machine-gun training manual of the Fengtian Army.52 The age distribution of the senior commanders from corps to brigade level of the Zhili-Shandong Army was more diverse, because it was a conglomeration of smaller forces with different backgrounds. In all, the officers covered by this study were more receptive to new ideas than the previous generation of officers who were trained before 1914, not only because they were younger but also because many were brought up as military professionals who had the self-awareness to catch up with the latest military developments, especially the perceived lessons of the First World War, from tactical issues to

46 Jin 2006, 904-6; Feng 1986, 48-51. Yang Yuting was born in Shenyang. He received comprehensive military training at the Shinbu (a military preparatory school for Chinese in Japan) and the Shikan gakkō, graduating in 1911 as an artillerist. He briefly served in the Ministry of War in Beijing, before joining the Fengtian Clique in the early 1920s. He became the chief-of-staff of Zhang Zuolin from 1924 until the latter’s death in June 1928. One of his major achievements was the modernization of the Fengtian Arsenal and the Fengtian Military Academy. However, he was distrusted by Zhang Xueliang, who believed that Yang wanted to take over Manchuria. Zhang ordered Yang’s murder in January 1929. 47 Rounded up from 36.5; the ages of the five commanders were as follows: Wang Boling (1889-1942), Liu Zhi (1892-1971), Tan Shuqing (1884-1938), Feng Yifei (1891-1931), Qian Dajun (1893-1982). 48 Mean: 37.63, median: 37. 49 Mean: 33.61, median: 34; the age of one commander was not available. The Fengtian Army did not have any divisions until late 1927. 50 Wang Hehua was a native of Hebei and a graduate of the Qinghe Military Secondary School. After he returned from Japan, he served in the Fengtian Army until 1936 and then served in various education and field command posts in the Nationalist Army in Taiwan until 1965. He passed away in 1996. Zhang Tingshu was born in Liaoning. He was trained at the Northeast Military Academy and the Infantry School of the Japanese Army. He served in various posts in the Fengtian Army until 1935, when he refused to fight the Chinese Communist forces in Shaanxi. He briefly served in the Eighth Route Army but soon left active service because of poor health. He died of illness in July 1949. 51 Chen 2009, 90; Zhang 2005, 8-9. 52 Zhang and Zhang 1929, 49-71.

Journal of Chinese Military History 8 (2019) 115-158Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 01:55:07AM via free access 130 Kwong how a society should be organized and controlled in order to allow the state to sustain prolonged warfare.53

TABLE 3 Age distribution of the Anguojun officers

Year of birth No. of officers

1871-1879 16 1890-1894 63 1880-1884 32 1895-1899 52 1885-1889 57 1900- 6 Unknown 8 Total 234

TABLE 4 Birthplace of the Anguojun officers

North China & Manchuria South China Place of birth No. of officers Place of birth No. of officers

Fengtian 67 Guangdong 5 Zhili 50 Sichuan 4 Shandong 30 Fujian 3 Jilin 13 Guangxi 2 Henan 11 Hunan 2 Heilongjiang 2 Jiangxi 1 Gansu 2 South 17 Shanxi 1 North 176

Central China Place of birth No. of officers

Jiangsu 11 Hubei 11 Zhejiang 8 Anhui 7 Central 37 Unknown 4 Total 234

53 Kwong 2017a, 85-99.

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As for the officers’ place of birth, 176 (75.21%) out of 234 officers came from North China (Zhili, Shandong, Henan, Gansu, Shanxi) or Manchuria (Fengtian, Jilin, Heilongjiang) (Table 4). These northern officers also occupied the senior posts. Of the 121 field officers from brigade to army level whose birthplace could be identified (with three unknown), ninety-two (76.03%) came from the above-mentioned provinces. Eighty-six of them came from Zhili, Shandong, and Manchuria, where the leaders of the Anguojun came from and where they recruited their soldiers. This distribution should not be entirely attributed to provincialism; these provinces produced more professional military officers because of the existence there of modern military education institutions. Primary and secondary military preparatory schools had already been established in these provinces before 1911 to nurture prospective students for the Baoding Military Academy.54 In all, the family background of seventy-five officers could be found. Officers who stayed in mainland China after 1949 (and people such as relatives and subordinates who wrote about them) were often reluctant to mention their family background because of the possible political implications. Among the officers whose background could be found, thirty-seven could be considered as coming from “rich” backgrounds, although a category such as “rich” could encompass a wide range of backgrounds. Some “rich” individuals might come from families that owned a few plots of land and a house, while others were the sons of officials or local gentry. A few of them, such as Zhang Tingshu and Bao Yulin (1897-1995), came from politically powerful families.55 Many less-well-to-do officers received a good military education and later rose to prominence. This illustrates the increased social mobility that was part of the late-Qing military modernization. He Zhuguo (1897-1985), a Guangxi native who commanded a Fengtian brigade in 1927, was an orphan supported by his relatives.56 He received a traditional education and studied at the military preparatory schools in Whampoa (not to be confused with the Whampoa Military Academy that was established in 1924) and Wuchang before entering the Baoding Military Academy in 1916. He was then subsidized by the Beijing

54 Guo 1978; Shi 1996, 57-89. 55 Bao Yulin was the cousin of Bao Guiqing, the Minister of War of the Beijing government and one of the leaders of the Fengtian Clique. He was born in Heilongjiang and served as an officer of the Fengtian Army after studying at the Northeast Military Academy. He left the military in 1935 because of the split of the Fengtian Army and became a businessman. Although he was sympathetic to the CCP cause, he was jailed and his property was seized by the CCP. He died in 1995. 56 He Zhuguo later served in various posts in the Fengtian and Nationalist armies. He stayed in mainland China after 1949, but was purged because of his warlord past. He passed away in 1985 of natural causes.

Journal of Chinese Military History 8 (2019) 115-158Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 01:55:07AM via free access 132 Kwong government to study at the Shikan gakkō for two and a half years.57 Among those who served as brigade to corps commanders in 1926-28, eighteen came from “rich” families and twenty-five came from “poor” families. Thus, at least in theory, the warlord forces were open to talent, especially for those who had the chance to receive a modern military education. This can also be attributed to the fact that many of the key (not necessarily the top) positions in these armies were already controlled by professionally trained officers (such as Yang Yuting) who were more inclined to hire candidates from a similar background and training.

7 Relationship to the State

7.1 Before and during the Northern Expedition Of the officers studied in this article, only nine participated in the 1911 Revolution on the side of the revolutionaries. For example, Xu Yuanquan (1886-1960) organized a student battalion in Wuhan during the Revolution.58 The Revolution witnessed some quick advancements of these officers. Ji Yiqiao (1885-1976), a native of Hubei, was sympathetic to the revolutionary cause long before the Revolution. His cousin Ji Yihui (1878-1908) had been sent by the Qing government to study in Japan. Returned to serve as a junior official in Hubei, he joined Xingzhonghui, a revolutionary organization established by Sun Yat-sen. Ji Yiqiao studied in Shanghai for four years and then entered Beiyang University to study civil engineering in 1905. A year later, Ji Yihui secured a sub- sidy from the Fengtian provincial government and sent Yiqiao to Japan. Yiqiao spent eighteen months at the Shinbu gakkō, the preparatory school for the prospective Chinese students of the Shikan gakkō, and then served as a private in the Imperial Japanese Army for one year. He went on to spend two and a half years at the Shikan gakkō up to 1911. When the Revolution started, Ji Yiqiao went to Nanjing to join the revolutionaries. In 1912, Ji was commissioned by the Republican government as major general at the age of only twenty-seven.59 He then fought for Sun Yat-sen and Cai E against Yuan Shikai and helped to train troops in Yunnan. In 1922, he was invited by his classmate, Yang Yuting, to join the Fengtian Army.60

57 He had not graduated from Baoding as he was sent to Japan because of his excellent per- formance at Baoding. He 1992, 3-8; Chen 1988, 49. 58 Wang Chengbin 1990, 512-13. 59 Chen et al. 1985, 8-13. 60 Chen et al. 1985, 19-27, 35.

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Many of the officers in this group came from the Beiyang Army. Sun Chuanfang commanded a battalion of the Beiyang 2nd Division during the Battle of Wuhan in 1911. During the battle, the smaller but more effective Qing forces retook Hankou and Hanyang from the revolutionaries through difficult terrain after a month of fighting.61 Sun, who performed well during the battle, steadily rose in rank within the division and eventually became its commander in 1921. Lu Xiangting (1880-1948), a Shikan graduate, followed in his footsteps within the 2nd Division and succeeded Sun in 1924.62 As many of Sun’s senior officers had long and steady careers within the 2nd Division and its related formations, they were more experienced and competent compared to commanders of other warlord units who had less formal training and saw fewer large-scale actions. This is illustrated in the heavy losses inflicted by Sun’s army on the Nationalist forces during the battles of Xuzhou (June 1927) and Longtan (August 1927).63 Twenty-four officers covered in this study had served in the ranks before being commissioned. For instance, Yu Xuezhong (1890-1964) was educated in the Yi Army (Yijun, one of the Green Standard armies that was active in Anhui and Henan) and had participated in the First Sino-Japanese War as a military cadet (xuebing) before being commissioned in 1911 as a junior officer following three years of training at the Tongzhou Military Academy (Tongzhou shucheng xuetang). He served under Wu Peifu in the early 1920s before bringing his troops to join the Anguojun in 1927.64 Another notable example was Huang Baitao (1900-1948), the descendant of a soldier of the Huai Army (Huaijun). He first served as a messenger for the military governor of Jiangsu and gradually rose to become a field commander under Zhang Zongchang.65 In a sense, this indicates the prevalence of professionalism in at least the Anguojun and its predecessors, as officers who were seen as competent had some chance to be promoted. The decline of the central authority of the Beijing government in North China as a result of the Second Zhili-Fengtian War in 1924 affected the careers of many of these officers. Of the 228 officers whose pre-1925 careers are known, 129 had served in the Beijing government between 1911 and 1924. Some, such as Liu Yifei (1893-1967), a Tongmenghui member from Liaoning, served as junior officers in the War Participation Army (Canzhanjun) from 1918 to

61 Kwong 2013, 283-307. 62 Lu 1987, 128-31. 63 Jordan 1976, 132-42; Kwong 2017b, 153. 64 Li 2011, 4659. 65 Chen 1979, 193; Anonymous 1997, 193-4.

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1920.66 When it was destroyed during the Zhili-Anfu War of 1920, Liu joined the Fengtian Army. Some of these officers, such as Li Zaolin (1892-1961), joined Zhang Zongchang’s army in 1924. Li had been an instructor at the Baoding Military Academy and the Staff College before joining the Zhili Army. During the Second Zhili-Fengtian War, Li was chief-of-staff of a Zhili division. He was responsible for holding Shanhaiguan against the attack of the Fengtian forces.67 Although his division held its position, the Zhili Army crumbled after Feng Yuxiang launched a coup in Beijing. Li and his commander led the division out of Shanhaiguan, but they were surrounded near Luanzhou by Zhang Zongchang’s forces. Li then joined Zhang’s army and served as his chief-of-staff until June 1928. The political and military chaos of the years 1924 to 1926 led to quick advancement of some of these officers. The main cause for this was the rapid expansion of the warlord armies as a result of the collapse of the Zhili Clique. Many of those who were promoted were officers who had proved their ability during the battles in 1924-1925, or those who showed the necessary skills to manage and command a modern army. Of the sixty officers in this group who commanded a regiment before 1925, forty became brigade and division commanders and six even became corps commanders between 1926 and 1928. Ji Yiqiao, who had earlier proved his ability as a senior staff officer during the Second Zhili-Fengtian War, was promoted in 1927 to command a corps.68 Liu Yifei, who was responsible for the capture of Jiumenkou, a vital strategic point during the same war, became a division commander in 1927 at the age of thirty-four.69 Xu Yuanquan, who commanded a regiment in 1924, expanded his formation into a corps of more than 20,000 men.70 This corps became the main fighting force of the Zhili-Shandong Army and fought con- tinuously in Shandong, Zhili, Jiangsu, Anhui, and Henan from 1925 to 1928.71 Rapid expansion led to increased importance of the staff officers, as many of

66 Liu Yifei was a native of Fengtian. He joined the Tongmenghui in 1910 when he was still a cadet of the Military Primary School at Fengtian. He was then educated at Qinghe and Baoding, and joined the Fengtian Army in 1918. He served in various posts in the Fengtian Army until 1936, when Zhang Xueliang lost control of the army. He stayed in China in 1949 and served in various consultative posts in the CCP government. He was persecuted to death during the Cultural Revolution. 67 Kwong 2012c, 257-9. 68 Chen et al. 1985, 35-44. 69 Chen 2006, 226. 70 Liu et al. 1991, 21. 71 The dates of the campaigns are as follows: southern Shandong (Nov. 1925-Jan. 1926), southern Zhili (Jan.-Apr. 1926), Jiangsu (Nov. 1926), northern Anhui (Dec. 1926-Apr. 1927), Xuzhou (June-Aug. 1927), eastern Henan (Oct.-Dec. 1927), and Shandong (Apr.-June 1928).

Journal of Chinese MilitaryDownloaded History from 8 Brill.com10/02/2021(2019) 115-158 01:55:07AM via free access The “Warlord Officers” 135 the commanders lacked the ability and experience to handle large formations. Xu’s chief-of-staff, Ding Zhipan, recalled that, although Xu was nominally the commander, he and the other staff officers were responsible for the manage- ment and training of the 6th Corps.72 Ding was only thirty years old when he was appointed. Thus, at least in the Anguojun, the abilities to manage staff work and logistics, as well as knowledge of modern tactics, were seen as essential for an officer to be promoted.

7.2 After the Northern Expedition until 1949 In all, during the Northern Expedition twelve out of 234 officers died, ten of whom were killed in action. Among them, eight belonged to the Zhili-Shandong Army, which suffered heavily during the intense fighting against Feng Yuxiang’s army in Henan and Shandong. The careers of the surviving officers faced another watershed when the Anguojun was disbanded after the assassination of Zhang Zuolin in June 1928. The choices of these officers differed, mainly following the fate of their units. Zhang Xueliang, the son and successor of Zhang Zuolin, refused to allow the forces under Sun Chuanfang and Zhang Zongchang to withdraw into Manchuria with the Fengtian Army. Thus, the two armies were eventually absorbed into the Nationalist Army and were used by Chiang Kai-shek as a counterweight against his former allies in North China, Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan.73 A considerable number of the officers of the two armies refused to serve the new regime or were discharged by the Nationalists. In Sun Chuanfang’s army, twelve out of the twenty-seven commanding officers of brigade level or above left the military profession for good. Among them, three had studied at the Shikan gakkō, ten at Baoding, and one at the Staff College. Their average age in 1928 was 43.92 years old. Twenty out of forty-three of the surviving Zhili-Shandong officers retired, some of them following Zhang Zongchang into exile. Twelve of these officers were graduates of Baoding; two were from the Shikan gakkō. The withdrawal of these officers from the military profession was, in the long run, a blow to the Chinese officer corps, as many of them were still of active age and might have acquired more experience and updated knowledge in the 1930s. A number of these officers retired to the foreign concessions in Tianjin or Shanghai, with the notable exception of Lu Xiangting who refused to do so because of his “national pride.”74 As Li Zaolin recalled, when Zhang Zongchang ordered his army to move after the death of Zhang Zuolin, only Xu Kun (1887-?),

72 Liu et al. 1991, 22. 73 Li 2010, 43-6. 74 Lu 1987, 131.

Journal of Chinese Military History 8 (2019) 115-158Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 01:55:07AM via free access 136 Kwong a Baoding graduate, responded.75 “Although [Xu] received a modern education,” Li observed, “he was still a traditional man. His belief in the idea of loyalty was unmovable.”76 Xu retired from the military after his unit was dis- armed by the Fengtian and Nationalist forces near Shanhaiguan in late 1928. Li himself also retired and became a businessman in Tianjin.77 Duan Chengze (1897-1940), a division commander under Sun, started a migration programme to resettle landless peasants at Baotou, where he moved his family and set up an agricultural collective.78 As Zhang Zongchang and Sun Chuanfang were assassinated in 1932 and 1935, their armies were irreversibly absorbed into the Nationalist military. Some of the officers who joined the Nationalists had a successful second career. Shangguan Yunxiang (1895-1969), one of Sun’s division commanders, became the commander of the 47th Division, previously part of Sun Chuanfang’s army.79 He led the division against Feng Yuxiang, the old enemy of the Anguojun, during the War of the Central Plains in 1930. This time, the ex-Anguojun formations defeated Feng with the support of the Nationalist Army in Henan.80 Shangguan was a member of the military mission sent to Italy by the Nationalist government in 1936, and he eventually commanded an army in 1937. In the same battle when Shangguan was fighting Feng Yuxiang’s army, Xu Yuanquan and Ding Zhipan served in the reorganized Zhili-Shandong Army.81 Liu Zhennian (1897-1935), who commanded a brigade under Zhang Zongchang, became a local warlord in Shandong but was arrested and executed by the Nationalist

75 Xu was a native of Hebei. He was a graduate of the Beiyang Military Academy, the predecessor of the Baoding Military Academy. He was graduated from the Staff College of Beijing in 1916. He joined the Fengtian Army with Zhang Zongchang in 1925, and served in various positions in Zhang’s army until 1928. He then retired from the military and no further information concerning him was found. 76 Li 1998, 209. 77 Chen 2009, 463. 78 “Duan Shengwu xiansheng nianpu,” 1947, 10-12. Duan came from a wealthy family in Hebei. He joined the army as a private against the wish of his family and rose through the ranks in Sun Chuanfang’s army. He became one of Sun’s best division commanders by 1926. He refused to join the Nationalist Army until 1938, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, when he served as a member of the committee that was responsible for ex-servicemen. He died of illness and overwork in 1940. 79 Tian and Pan 2002, 357-8. Shangguan was a native of Shandong. After graduating from Baoding, he served in Sun Chuanfang’s army and gradually became the commander of his 4th Division. After 1928, he served in various posts in the Nationalist Army and am- bushed the Communists’ New Fourth Army in 1940. He retired as a senior officer in the Nationalist Army in Taiwan and died in 1969. 80 Liu et al. 1991, 34-8. 81 Redesignated as the Sixth Army.

Journal of Chinese MilitaryDownloaded History from 8 Brill.com10/02/2021(2019) 115-158 01:55:07AM via free access The “Warlord Officers” 137 government in 1935.82 In 1937, thirty-three officers from the two armies were still serving in the Nationalist Army. As for the Fengtian officers who had withdrawn into Manchuria after the death of Zhang Zuolin, they soon faced the problem of allegiance. Soon after Zhang Xueliang became the ruler of the Eastern Three Provinces, he executed the leader of the “Shikan Clique,” Yang Yuting. As Ji Yiqiao noted, many senior officers who had studied in Japan were indignant about this execution. For example, Weng Zhilin (1881-1942), a munitions expert trained in Japan, turned to the Nationalists soon after the death of Yang.83 The Fengtian Clique lost three more general officers during the Sino-Soviet border conflict of 1929; two were killed in battle and the third committed suicide after being captured. Han Linchun, another leader of the Shikan Clique, died after a stroke in 1930. The fall of Manchuria in late 1931 was another major watershed in the careers of the Fengtian officers. In all, forty-one out of the 137 Fengtian officers studied turned to Manchukuo or other Japanese puppet regimes in China at one time or another between 1932 and 1945 (Table 5). Some others, such as Ji Yiqiao, who served as Zhang Xueliang’s chief-of-staff in 1930-1931, were so disillusioned with Zhang’s lack of resolve that they left the Fengtian Army.84 Some of his more capable commanders such as Liu Yifei lost their commands because of the internal bickering of the Fengtian Army. By 1935, Liu was only forty-two years old. The dispirited reaction of Zhang Xueliang during the fall of Manchuria partly explains the high number of defections. In addition, as 24 out of 39 of the collaborators were born in Fengtian, Jilin, or Heilongjiang provinces, their wish to protect their birthplace, family, and personal wealth may have contributed to their decision to defect. Some officers, such as Xi Xia (1883-1950), the chief-of-staff of the Governor of Jilin, were Manchu and supported the idea of an independent Manchuria.85 A number of other officers also followed their superiors, such as Xi Xia, to defect.

82 Li 1981, 157-64; Li 2002, 323-8. Liu was a native of Zhili. He joined the Fengtian Army after graduating from Baoding. His unit joined the Zhili-Shandong Army after 1925. When the Zhili-Shandong Army collapsed in 1928, he was a brigadier in Shandong. 83 Chen et al. 1985, 71-2. Weng was one of the earliest Chinese munition experts to receive systematic training abroad. He was graduated from the Shikan gakkō in 1908. He was the first chief of the Munitions Department of the Ministry of War of the Beijing government. He joined the Fengtian Clique in 1922 and helped to develop the Fengtian Arsenal. He went on to join the Munitions Department of the Nationalist government after the death of Yang Yuting. 84 Chen et al. 1985, 87-90. 85 Chen 2013, 466. Xi Xia was Manchu royalty. He graduated from the Shikan gakkō in 1911 and escaped the chaos of the Revolution as he was in Heilongjiang, a relatively stable region. He served in staff positions in Heilongjiang and Guangdong, before being invited

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TABLE 5 Allegiance of ex-Anguojun officers, 1932-1945

Fengtian army Army of five provinces Zhili-Shandong army

Collaborators 41* Collaborators 6* Collaborators 5 Nationalist Govt. 71* Nationalist Govt. 20* Nationalist Govt. 29 Communists 1** Communists 1 Communists 1˄ Retired/ unknown 1 Retired/ unknown 31 Retired/ unknown 17 Died before 1932 8 Died before 1932 9 Died before 1932 2 Total 137 Total 51 Total 46

* Some officers became collaborators only after 1937, thus they are double-counted. ** Wang Yizhe (1896-1937) formerly served in the Nationalist Army, thus he is double-counted. ˄ Zhang Zhenhan (1893-1967) joined the Communists after he was captured in Jiangxi in 1935.

The Anguojun officers who turned to the Nationalist Army played a role in the anti-Communist campaigns during the 1930s. Shangguan Yunxiang led a corps against the Communists in Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei, and Anhui.86 Some Anguojun officers were less successful, such as Sun Chuanfang’s chief-of-staff Wang Jinyu (1884-1951), who was sacked for his defeat by the Communist forces in 1931.87 Only two officers worked with the Communists before 1937. Wang Yizhe (1896-1937) persuaded Zhang Xueliang to cooperate with the Communists before the Xi’an Incident in 1936. He was assassinated a year later.88 The other was Zhang Zhenhan (1893-1967), who joined the Communist forces after being captured in 1935.89 Two Fengtian officers were killed in action during the anti-Communist campaigns. Both died in Shaanxi, an unfamil- iar battlefield for the Fengtian forces.90 Between 1928 and 1937, some of the ex-Anguojun officers brought their expertise and professionalism to the Nationalist Army by playing a major role in military education and training. The best example of this group of officers

to become the academic head of the Northeast Military Academy. He gradually rose to become the second most powerful man in Jilin, and he used his position to factiliate the Japanese takeover of Jilin in 1931. He became one of the founding fathers of Manchukuo but was captured and sent to Siberia when Japan surrendered. In 1952, he died of illness when he was in jail in Harbin. 86 Liu 1980, 142-8. 87 Chen 2006, 53. 88 Anonymous 1996a, 55-6. 89 Chen 2006, 148. 90 Chen 2006, 83, 379.

Journal of Chinese MilitaryDownloaded History from 8 Brill.com10/02/2021(2019) 115-158 01:55:07AM via free access The “Warlord Officers” 139 is Zhou Yawei (1889-1976), who worked in the Ministry of War of the Beijing government throughout the 1910s.91 Before serving in the Fengtian Army as a senior staff officer, he had been head of the Education Department of the Ministry of War ( junxuesi). After the end of the Northern Expedition, he was appointed as Inspector General of Training of the Fengtian Army. Under his supervision, the Fengtian Army established an academic journal known as the Northeastern Journal of Military Affairs (Dongbei junshi yuekan). By the end of 1928, however, Zhou was appointed as Deputy Inspector General of Training of the Nationalist Army (xunlian zongjianbu fujian). He served in this post until the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and he was partly responsible for overseeing the creation of the military education institutions under the control of the central government, including the Central Military Academy, the Infantry School (Bubing xuexiao), and the Artillery School (Paobing xuexiao). Another notable intellectual officer who served in the Anguojun was Xu Zhuyi (1885-1976), who served as a staff officer in the Fengtian Army during the Northern Expedition and then as chief editor of the Northeastern Journal of Military Affairs.92 After the fall of Manchuria, Xu was on the General Staff of the Nationalist Army and taught at the Staff College. He then became chief-of- staff to Li Zongren during the Battle of Xuzhou in 1938. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, out of the more than 200 officers studied in this article, only ninety-seven fought on the Nationalist side with an average age of around fifty. In all, seven officers were killed in action against the Japanese or died of disease. The Japanese invited and sometimes coerced the retired Anguojun officers to collaborate. As mentioned, a considerable number of officers joined the puppet regimes, but many of them such as Ji Yiqiao and Lu Xiangting refused to serve and went into hiding.93 Among the eighty-nine

91 Zhou was born in Zhejiang. He received his initial military education when serving as a private in the Zhejiang Army, and eventually graduated at the Staff College in Beijing in 1916. He served in various posts in the Ministry of War in Beijing and was the editor and contributor of various military journals. He briefly served as a senior staff officer of the Anguojun. After 1928, he became a senior educator of the Nationalist Army until retiring in 1946. He stayed in China in 1949 and was appointed as the head the Research Section of the Advanced Military Training Department of the Chinese government. He died during the Tangshan earthquake in 1976. 92 Xu was born in Jiangsu. His father was an official serving in Manchuria. He was educated in the Military Primary School at Jilin, Qinghe, and then Baoding. After serving several years in the Fengtian Army, he was sent to study at the Staff College of Japan. He later served in various posts in the Fengtian Army and then in the General Staff of the Nationalist Army. He became more associated with the Nationalist Army after 1931. He went to Taiwan and became a senior official there from 1952. 93 Chen et al. 1985, 107-8; Lu 1987, 131-2.

Journal of Chinese Military History 8 (2019) 115-158Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 01:55:07AM via free access 140 Kwong officers of the Allied Army of the Five Provinces and the Zhili-Shandong Army still living during the war, there were only ten collaborators. Some, such as Duan Chengze, assisted the war effort indirectly, for instance by organizing the Invalided Veterans Association.94 A number of them were trapped in the Japanese occupation zone and were forced to serve in puppet regimes: these included Li Zaolin and Wang Ruihua (1891-1960), a Fengtian artillery commander who became a civilian official in Manchukuo in 1935 after years in hiding.95 Some of the officers rose to prominence during the war. In 1937, He Zhuguo was commander of the 2nd Cavalry Corps. He fought alongside Communist forces in Shanxi. Four years later, he was promoted as commander of the Fifteenth Army Group, and in early 1945 he became deputy commander-in- chief of the Tenth War Area (Shaanxi).96 As commander of the Thirty-second Army Group, Shangguan Yunxiang was responsible for the destruction of the New Fourth Army during the Wannan (Southern Anhui) Incident in 1940. He eventually became deputy commander-in-chief of the Third War Area (Central China).97 Ding Zhipan became deputy commander of the Fourth Army Group in 1945.98 Many officers were promoted together with their old commanding officers from the Anguojun. For example, Pei Changhui (1896-1992), the commander of the 47th Division in 1937, steadily rose to become an army commander under Shangguan Yunxiang before being appointed as a deputy war area commander in 1945.99 The remnants of the Zhili-Shandong Army and the Allied Army of the Five Provinces gradually vanished during the war. The 47th Division fought against the Japanese forces in Hebei, Shanxi, and Henan, but, because of its warlord

94 Xin 1992, 233. 95 Chen 2006, 331; Wang 1987, 31. Wang was a native of Fengtian. He was educated at Baoding and became a junior officer in the Fengtian Army from the early 1920s. His father was executed because as a member of the Boxers he had been responsible for the death of a French missionary. Wang was a senior officer of the Northeast Military Academy when the Japanese attacked Shenyang in 1931, and he participated in the resistance against the Kwantung Army. He then went into hiding but was eventually forced to serve in a number of posts in Manchukuo. He died in 1960. 96 He 1992, 184-220. 97 Yan 1994, 203; Wu Zhifen 2002, 1-3. 98 Zhang 1991, 15. 99 Chen 2006, 876. Pei was a native of Shandong. He entered Baoding in 1918 and went on to serve in the Hubei provincial army. He then served in various posts in Sun Chuanfang’s army and joined the Nationalist Army after Sun’s army was reorganized into the 47th Division. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, he cooperated with the CCP in fighting against the Japanese. He surrendered to the CCP in 1949 and served in various posts in the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang.

Journal of Chinese MilitaryDownloaded History from 8 Brill.com10/02/2021(2019) 115-158 01:55:07AM via free access The “Warlord Officers” 141 background, it was never adequately supplied and provisioned.100 As Chang Jui-te has noted, the Baoding officers, including those who had served in the Anguojun, were slowly replaced during the war by their Whampoa colleagues.101 As Table 6 suggests, most of the Anguojun officers who were serving as field commanders in 1937 were removed from positions of command before 1945. The number of army, corps, division, and brigade commanders decreased from 35 to twelve; on the other hand, the number of those serving in supporting positions increased. This corresponds with the trend that more Whampoa graduates became commanding officers of divisions and armies.102 It was also partly because the professional knowledge of these ex-Anguojun officers was seen as outdated in the context of the influx of American equipment into the Nationalist Chinese forces. Another reason for the decline of the influence of these officers was that during the war they had lost their armies, which had been their basic source of power, influence, and revenue.

TABLE 6 Posts of the ex-Anguojun officers in the Nationalist forces during the Second Sino-Japanese War

1937 1945

War Area CO/Deputy 1* War Area CO/Deputy 4 Army/Army Group CO/Deputy 3* Army/Army Group CO/Deputy 3 Corps CO/Deputy 10 Corps CO/Deputy 6 Division CO/Deputy 16** Division CO/Deputy 3** Brigade CO 6 Brigade CO 0 Regiment CO 1 Regiment CO 1 Staff 32 Staff 37 Instructor 7 Instructor 9 Specialists/Arsenal Commandant 2 Specialists/Arsenal Commandant 1 Others 21 Others/KIA/Discharged 33

* Xu Yuanquan is double-counted as he concurrently commanded an army. ** Including “garrison commanders” ( jingbei siling) who controlled division-sized units.

100 Feng 2002, 368. 101 Chang 1996, 1038. 102 Chang 1996, 1038.

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When Japan surrendered in August 1945, twenty-four officers from this group retired from the Nationalist Army. In the political chaos that followed, they were soon cut off from any support from the government they had served. By then, only sixty-six out of 235 officers were still in active service, and with only a few exceptions they played a minor role during the Civil War. Only one of them, Huang Baitao, died in the fighting (as an army commander during the Huaihai Campaign in 1948). Twenty of them surrendered to or were captured by the Communists. These captured officers, such as Mou Zhongheng (1896- 1981), the deputy commander of the Second Pacification Area,103 served long prison sentences and were not released until the 1960s.104 At least twenty-three officers withdrew to Taiwan with the Nationalists.

7.3 After 1949 Information about the deaths of 149 Anguojun officers was available, of which fifty-four had died in or before 1949. Among those who died between 1945 and 1949, two were shot as collaborators and three died of disease in 1948- 1949, all senior officers of the Fengtian Clique. Zhang Tingshu’s father, Zhang Zuoxiang (1881-1949), the last prominent leader of the Fengtian Clique and a CCP sympathizer, also died in 1949.105 Life was very different for those who went to Taiwan as against those who stayed behind on the mainland. The life expectancy of the officers who went to Taiwan was 80.52 years (a total of 22 officers); for those who stayed in mainland China, it was 72.85 (a total of 53 officers). The former group consisted of active officers who followed the Nationalists to retreat to Taiwan in 1949. Most of them died in the 1970s to 1990s (Table 7). A number of them died in other places such as Hong Kong, Macau, and the United States.

103 Suijingqu, a senior garrison post. 104 Wu Yao 2002, 781-2. Mou was a native of Shandong. He entered Baoding after studying at a local secondary school and became a staff officer in one of the units of Wu Peifu’s army. He joined Yu Xuezhong’s army in 1927, was a close associate of Yu until 1943, and succeeded to Yu’s position in Shandong, although much of the province was already under Japanese control at that time. Mou was the head of the area that was still under nominal Nationalist control until the end of the war. He was captured in 1948 during the Chinese Civil War and was not released until 1966. He died in 1981. 105 Wang 1996, 938; Zhang 2005, 9.

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TABLE 7 Date of death of the ex-Anguojun officers, 1949- (percentage)*

1950-9 1960-9 1970-9 1980-9 1990-

Mainland 38.59 33.33 15.79 8.77 3.51 Taiwan 10.52 26.32 52.63 10.52 15.79

* Only those with a definitive death date are counted.

Life was more difficult for those who stayed in mainland China, including those who supported the new regime. Their professional knowledge and training were irrelevant to the new regime, which had its own military culture and could always look to the Soviet Union for the latest military technology and doctrine. According to the sources available, ten officers joined the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Guomindang (Zhongguo guomindang geming weiyuanhui, or Min’ge). Ten died between 1950 and 1951 as a result of the Campaign for the Suppression of Counter-revolutionaries (Zhenfan yundong). Their average age was 59.79 years old, much younger than those from other cohorts. One such example was Gu Zhen (1901-1950), who served under Zhang Zongchang and was a staff officer in the Nationalist Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War.106 Bao Yulin, the Fengtian brigadier who was responsible for the peaceful transfer of Beijing in June 1928, was jailed for “counterrevolution” and had his property confiscated.107 Sheng Fanghou (1900-1958) is recorded as a victim of the famine of 1958.108 Sheng had survived the 1929 Sino-Soviet border conflict, the war against Japan, the Civil War and the Suppression of Counter- revolutionaries.109 At least fifteen officers were purged during the Anti-Rightist

106 Yin 2004, 289. Gu was a native of Haizhou in Jiangsu. He joined in the military as a private when he was 18 and was illiterate until he was a regimental commander. He was one of the few officers in the Anguojun who reached high ranks but was illiterate. He served in only two posts in the Nationalist government (one military and one civilian) before being captured by the CCP in 1950. 107 Anonymous 1996b, 335-6; Liu 1996, 526. 108 Sheng came from a wealthy family in Anhui. He joined the Fengtian Army after graduating from Baoding in 1923 and served in various frontline posts. By 1928, he was the chief- of-staff of a brigade. He left the military after the fall of Manchuria and refused to serve the Japanese puppet authorities. He stayed in the mainland in 1949 and died during the famine in 1958-1959. 109 Sheng 2006.

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Movement and the Cultural Revolution, some of them members of the Min’ge; ten died between 1967 and 1969. He Zhuguo was purged but survived. His long-time colleague Guo Xipeng (1890-1969) died in jail during the Cultural Revolution at the age of seventy-nine.110 Liu Yifei, another Fengtian general who did not join the KMT and decided to stay in China after 1949, was also purged and died in 1967.111 Their past as warlord officers was a major reason for their plight.

8 Sense of Mission

The self-understanding of their mission was an important source of the cohesion of the Anguojun officers. Statistics also provide insights into the ideological inclinations and the political choices of the officers studied in this article. A feature of this group of officers is the importance of nationalism in their self-image as modern and professional Chinese officers. When they enlisted, joining the army was seen as a means to revive China.112 Many of these officers were among the select few who were funded by local government to study at Baoding or abroad. They shared the idea of “might is right” and showed a dis- trust of internationalism and the international disarmament effort during the 1920s. They had a vision of turning China into a modern state with a strong military. In 1929, Zhang Tingshu summed up this idea succinctly in the pages of the Northeastern Military Affairs Monthly, the professional journal of the Fengtian officers: “as there was no higher authority to arbitrate international disputes, force is the only arbiter.”113 They also saw the Soviet Union and Japan as the greatest enemies of China because, unlike their colleagues in the south, they faced a direct threat from the two powers. Articles about the Japanese and Soviet threats as well as their military capabilities were very common in the Monthly, and many Fengtian officers of different ranks were contributors and readers of this publication.

110 Chen 2009, 803. Guo was a native of Fengtian. After graduating at the Northeast Military Academy, he studied in Japan at the Cavalry School and the Shikan gakkō. He served in various frontline posts in the Fengtian Army and eventually joined the Nationalist forces in 1932. He rose to become deputy commander of an army group in 1943. He stayed in mainland China in 1949 and served briefly in the CCP authority in Liaoning. 111 Chen 2006, 226. 112 Van de Ven 1997, 352-6. 113 Zhang and Zhang 1929, 49.

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Contrary to the belief that warlord officers constantly shifted sides, only five out of the 234 officers covered in this study did so during the Northern Expedition. This shows that the KMT was only able to persuade the leaders of the provincial forces in Central China (particularly in Henan, Anhui, and Zhejiang) as well as Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan to join the KMT during the Northern Expedition. Many of the officers of northern armies, including the younger officers who were more open-minded and nationalistic, were not en- thusiastic about the Nationalist government until it became a truly national regime. Although the Anguojun might lack a coherent ideology such as the Three People’s Principles, the idea of protecting the “Chinese way of life” against the perceived “red menace” helped motivate the officers. Ding Zhipan recalled that although he and his colleagues concurred with the Nationalist Party’s drive to abolish unequal treaties and warlordism during the Northern Expedition, they also believed that Chinese culture was “threatened,” and were “disturbed to see female students with their bobbed hair” in Beijing.114 This reveals Ding’s self-image as the protector of the perceived national culture, by force if necessary. To prepare officers ideologically, the Mukden Military Academy started a course on “anti-communism” from 1926.115 One possible out- come of the influence of these ideas was the officers’ reluctance to turn to the Japanese or the CCP. As Table 5 shows, most of the officers of Sun Chuanfang and Zhang Zongchang’s armies refused to collaborate with the Japanese or the CCP from 1931 to 1945. The political choices of the Fengtian officers deserve more explanation. Many of the Fengtian officers were no less nationalistic than their KMT counterparts. Some officers were openly anti-Japanese, such as Yu Zhen (1887-1959), who served as a brigade commander in the Fengtian Army.116 When Guo

114 Liu et al. 1991, 32; also quoted in Kwong 2017b, 167. 115 “Dai nana ki kōbudō gakusei boshū,” 12/12/1926, RDN, JACAR, Ref: B07090207800. 116 “Hōten senshō keimushochō Yu Chin no Shanhai (Shanghai) keisatsuchōchō nimmei ni kan suru ken,” 25/9/1925, Gaimushō kiroku [Foreign Ministry Records], JACAR, Ref: B03050060000. Yu Zhen (1887-1959) was a native of Fengtian. He was sent by the Qing government to the Shikan gakkō in 1906. When he returned to China in May 1911, he served in Fengtian province as a staff officer. A close associate of Yang Yuting, he was seen as one of the major figures of the “Shikan clique.” In the early 1920s, he was responsible for the military police and the baojia system of Fengtian province before becoming a corps commander. After the deaths of Zhang Zuolin and Yang Yuting, he withdrew from frontline service and was responsible for opening up new lands in Fengtian. After the Japanese takeover, he refused to serve in the Manchukuo army and lived a quiet life throughout the war. It was later noted by his son-in-law that he had aided the Communist anti-Japanese activists during the war. See Wang Wentao 1990, 143.

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Songling rebelled against Zhang Zuolin in 1925, he had to lie to his officers and men that Shenyang had been invaded by Japanese forces so that his men would follow him.117 In articles published in the Northeastern Military Affairs Monthly, the idea of Manchuria as a bulwark against Japanese or Russian ag- gression could be found.118 Although a considerable number of the Fengtian officers turned to Manchukuo or other puppet regimes between 1931 and 1945, the phenomenon had little to do with their foreign exposure. In fact, 66.67 percent of the Japan-educated officers (out of a total of 45) did not collaborate with Japan; in comparison, 72.72 percent of those officers who had not studied in Japan stayed on the Chinese side. Differences in the self-understanding of their mission possibly explain why some of the officers chose to retire rather than serve in the Nationalist regime, as more than half of the officers of Sun Chuanfang and Zhang Zongchang’s armies retired. Some, such as Ji Yiqiao, never joined either the Nationalist or Communist parties. After the Second Sino-Japanese War, he instead became a member of the China Democratic Socialist Party (Zhongguo minzhu shehui dang).119 As already noted, however, many of the younger officers did join the Nationalists. This was because the image of the Nationalist government, particularly during the period between 1928 and 1937, was arguably one of a progressive (albeit authoritarian) regime that could realize these officers’ vision of a strong and modern China. This image was certainly attractive to the ex-Anguojun officers, especially those in their thirties such as Shangguan Yunxiang. The ideological inclination of these officers is also shown by the fact that only a few of them had turned to the Communists before 1949. None of the officers of Sun Chuanfang’s army who are included in this study joined the Communists before 1949, and one officer in Zhang Zongchang’s army did so only after he was captured in 1935.120 Although some officers showed a pro- Communist stance before 1949 (notably Wang Yizhe and Zhang Tingshu), most of them worked with the new regime only after it had gained complete control of mainland China.

117 Guo 2008, 95. 118 Kwong 2017a, 152-4. 119 Chen et al. 1985, 113. 120 His background as a warlord officer probably led to his death during the Cultural Revolution.

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9 Internal Cohesion and Resources

From analysis of the statistics, two major but intertwined sources of cohesion could be identified among the Anguojun officers. On the surface, regional affiliation was the most important one (Table 8). In the Fengtian Army, 75.91 percent of the officers studied were born in Manchuria, Zhili, or Shandong. As millions of Chinese migrated from North China into Manchuria during the late nineteenth century, it is possible that many of the officers who were born in Manchuria could trace their ancestry back to the two provinces.121 As the Allied Army of the Five Provinces was originally the Beiyang 2nd Division that was formed in Zhili in 1904, more than half of its officers (60.87%) came from Zhili and Shandong. Sun Chuanfang—and also Wang Zhanyuan (1861-1934), the previous commander of the 2nd Division— were born in Shandong.122 The situation in the Zhili-Shandong Army was slightly different, as Zhang Zongchang accepted many officers from different parts of China and they brought with them subordinates who were from nei- ther Zhili nor Shandong.

TABLE 8 Birth place of officers, according to armies (percentage)

Fengtian army Army of five provinces Zhili-Shandong army

Manchuria 79 Zhili 22 Shandong 15 Zhili 17 Shandong 6 Zhili 14 Shandong 8 Zhejiang 3 Henan 5 Hubei 6 Hubei 3 Jiangsu 4 Henan 6 Anhui 3 Others/unknown 13 Jiangsu 5 Others/unknown 9 Others/unknown 16

121 Mitter 2000, 20. 122 Zheng 2000, 253.

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A more important source of cohesion of the officers was their professional training (Table 9).123 It was important not only in the sense that the officers tended to join the same military faction if they had studied in the same institution during the same period. The late Qing military reform established a system of military preparatory schools that allowed the officers to form a bond before they entered national military education institutions (Baoding and the Staff College). Many of the officers covered in this study entered these preparatory institutions together; thus, the personal networks developed between them existed long before they entered Baoding, the Shikan gakkō, or the staff colleges in China or Japan. For example, of the 234 officers studied, eighty had attended military primary schools in Fengtian, Jilin, Zhili, Shandong, Shaanxi, Henan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Anhui, Fujian, and Guangdong. Seventy-five of them attended the four military secondary schools, and 61 of these went to the Qinghe Military Secondary School at Beijing. Almost all these officers enrolled in the first six classes of the Baoding Military Academy after 1912 and graduated before 1919. Before Zhang Zuolin had unified Manchuria, he relied on a close-knit group of militia commanders or ex-bandits who had fought together with him before 1911 and shared the same goal of establishing a “Manchuria for the people of Manchuria” (Dongbeiren de dongbei).124 This generation of officers was replaced by a group of professionally trained Fengtian officers after 1922. These officers had received formal military training, some from abroad, and a shared educational background was their primary source of cohesion. As the statistics show, close to one-third (31.39%) of the Fengtian officers covered in this study were graduates of Japanese military academies. Many of them, such as He Zhuguo and Ji Yiqiao, were introduced to Zhang Zuolin through Yang Yuting, who was a graduate of the Shikan gakkō. The Shikan Clique had a great influence in the Fengtian Army until Yang’s death in 1929.125 Similarly, the Allied Army of the Five Provinces was dominated by graduates of the Baoding Military Academy, its predecessors, and the Shikan gakkō. Sun Chuanfang himself was educated at a predecessor of Baoding and the Shikan gakkō. In contrast, as the Zhili-Shandong Army consisted of numerous different formations, its officers clustered as much around their respective units as according to their educational or regional backgrounds. Still, the Baoding graduates were the majority.

123 Ch’i 1976, 43-4. 124 Zhao 1982, 1547-9. 125 McCormack 1977, 102.

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TABLE 9 Education background of officers, according to armies (percentage)*

Fengtian army Army of five provinces Zhili-Shandong army

Baoding 86 Baoding 31 Baoding 28 Japan 43 Japan 20 Japan 7 Staff College 19 Staff College 1 Staff College 6 Jiangwutang 16 Unknown 1 Unknown 11 Others 12 Unknown

* The total percentage could be more than 100 as some of the officers studied at more than one institution listed above.

Another form of cohesion in the Anguojun that is less apparent in the statistics was unit affiliation. When an officer changed his allegiance, many of his subordinates would follow suit. In the more organized armies such as the three main armies of the Anguojun, the availability of a steady ladder of advancement helps explain the willingness of the officers to stay. For example, Ding Zhipan and many of the Zhili-Shandong Army officers followed Xu Yuanquan to join the Nationalist Army until the latter retired after the fall of Wuhan in 1938. Many Fengtian officers served together until the last Fengtian formation was destroyed during the Chinese Civil War. Similarly, many of the officers of Sun’s army such as Shangguan Yunxiang stayed in the same formation as it expanded and then declined from 1928 to the 1940s. This trend is understandable in the context of the widespread factionalism within the Chinese armed forces at that time, and in light of the fact that by staying in the same formation the officers could expect a more steady source of different resources for their personal advancement and collective interest. Although these networks and con- nections helped officers before 1928, their warlord background later became a burden or even a life-threatening stain. These officers were less trusted by the Nationalist regime and were often purged for their past if they stayed in mainland China after 1949.

10 Conclusion

This article reconstructs the diverse, but to an extent similar, lives of 234 officers of the Anguojun, and shows that the warlord officers were not

Journal of Chinese Military History 8 (2019) 115-158Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 01:55:07AM via free access 150 Kwong merely a group of bandit leaders or mercenaries who had little understanding of modern warfare or ideologies. Many of the middle to senior-rank officers of the Anguojun were products of the military reform started at the turn of the twentieth century and were among the first group of professionally trained officers in China. Many of these officers were trained in the same military education system in China, or a very similar one in Japan. They shared a similar world view, and an identity as modern and professional officers. Many factors were important in determining the political choices and affiliations of Chinese military men during the first half of the twentieth century, including birthplace, personal network, and ideology. In the case of the Anguojun officers, military culture and internal cohesion were the most important factors, as many of these officers saw themselves as a group of modern military professionals who should be serving their country instead of a particular party. This made them more likely to serve in a regime that had at least nominal control of the country. The cohesion of these officers both as a group and within their respective formations, in turn, ensured that they were more willing to stay in the same formation as they could expect a stable career and a potential path of advancement. The training and experience of this group of officers reflects the continuities of the modernization of the Chinese military from the late Qing reforms to the 1930s. Many of these officers were professionally educated, and they formed the backbone of the warlord armies that had dominated a substantial part of China during the 1920s. Without these officers, it is inconceivable that the major warlords such as Zhang Zuolin, Sun Chuanfang, and Zhang Zongchang, some of whom lacked modern military knowledge, could have controlled several provinces for several years. After the Northern Expedition, some of these officers withdrew from soldiering, thus depriving China of a group of experienced senior officers who might have played a role in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Of course, one should not assume that more comprehensive education and experience would make these officers more efficient; their training and experience, as well as their intellectual networks, however, led to the formation of a collective identity as professional officers of the Chinese republic. Their efficiency as officers was shown during the battles against the Nationalist forces and subsequently against the Japanese army during the Second Sino- Japanese War. The quality of the armies in North China declined immediate- ly after the Northern Expedition because of the departure of many of these warlord officers; although Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan briefly controlled North China with their armies, they were defeated by Chiang Kai-shek during the War of the Central Plains in 1930 and their armies were subsequently

Journal of Chinese MilitaryDownloaded History from 8 Brill.com10/02/2021(2019) 115-158 01:55:07AM via free access The “Warlord Officers” 151 reduced in size. The Fengtian Army, which had become a financial burden on Manchuria, was also reduced in size and became too small to control both Manchuria and North China. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in September 1931 was a symptom of this change. The slow disintegration of the Fengtian Army after the Manchurian Incident also wasted a large number of qualified officers. Throughout the 1930s, ex-Anguojun officers fought under the Nationalist flag in all the major civil wars in China, and a few of them rose further to command large formations during the Second Sino-Japanese War. They played a major part in the Nationalist military not only in command positions but more importantly in training and administration roles. However, as these officers grew older and also because they were never fully trusted, they were gradually removed from field positions during the war against Japan and the Chinese Civil War. After 1949, some of these officers received long sentences for hav- ing served in collaborationist regimes or for being branded as Nationalist war criminals. Although a handful of them rose to prominence in both the Nationalist and Communist regimes, most of those who stayed in mainland China were purged between 1949 and 1975. Not all of them lived long enough to see their names rehabilitated.

Acknowledgements

The research work of this article was supported by the General Research Fund of the Research Grants Council, Hong Kong (Project Code: 22602316 ECS). The author would like to thank all the reviewers of this work who found factual and grammatical errors in the previous drafts and gave invaluable comments and suggestions.

References

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