Zhang Zuolin (March 19, 1875June 4, 1928) was a Chinese warlord who ruled Manchuria from 1916 until his assassination in 1928. He led the Fengtian clique, one of the most powerful factions during the Warlord Era. In 1927, he became the leader of the Beiyang government and was declared Generalissimo of the Republic of China.
Born to a poor peasant's family in Manchuria, Zhang fought in the First Sino-Japanese War and became a prominent mounted bandit in the 1890s. After the Boxer Rebellion, his troops became a regiment of the Qing dynasty's army, and during the Russo-Japanese War, they were hired by the Japanese Army as mercenaries. During the 1911 Revolution, Zhang initially fought against the revolutionaries, and after the foundation of the Republic of China supported the Beiyang government. Zhang founded the Fengtian clique and gradually expanded his Northeastern Army, which established his supremacy over the three northeastern provinces (Fengtian, Jilin and Heilongjiang).
Zhang's government in Manchuria initiated important reforms and investments in agriculture and industry, resulting in good development. He was supported by the Japanese, who viewed him as best representing their economic interests. Seeking to extend his power to northern China, Zhang fought wars against the Anhui and Zhili cliques, after which he became the most powerful figure in the Beiyang government and proclaimed himself Generalissimo in 1927. Zhang's troops were defeated by the Kuomintang's Northern Expedition in 1928. During his retreat, he was assassinated by officers of the Japanese Kwantung Army. He was succeeded in Manchuria by his son, Zhang Xueliang, who recognized the Nationalist government.
Origins Early life Zhang was born in 1875 in Haicheng,Xiao, Lin, and Li 118 a county in southern Fengtian province (modern Liaoning) in northeastern China, to poor parents. He received little formal education, and the only non-military trade that he learned in his lifetime was a small amount of veterinary science. His grandfather had come to the northeast after fleeing a famine in Zhili (modern Hebei) in 1821. As a child, Zhang was known by the nickname "Pimple." He spent his early youth hunting, fishing and brawling.Bonavia 63 He hunted hares in the Manchurian countryside to help feed his family. In appearance he was thin and short.
Zhang asserted that he was a Han Chinese Bannerman.
When he became old enough to work, he got a job at a stable in an inn, where he became familiar with many bandit gangs operating in Manchuria at the time. At the age of twenty, he enlisted as a cavalry soldier to fight in the First Sino–Japanese War (1894–1895). After the end of the war, he returned to his hometown and became a mounted bandit. In one version of his beginnings as a warlord, during a hunting trip he spotted a wounded bandit (Honghuzi) on horseback, killed him, took his horse and became a bandit himself. By his late 20s he had formed a small personal army, acquiring something of a Robin Hood reputation.Behr 145 His bandit career was euphemistically referred to as his experience in the "University of the Green Forest", as he was illiterate. During his time of banditry, he became close with some figures who later occupied important positions in his military clique.
In 1900 the Boxer Rebellion broke out, and Zhang's gang joined the imperial army. In peacetime he hired his men out as security escorts for traveling merchants. In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 the Japanese Army employed Zhang and his men as mercenaries. At the end of the Qing dynasty Zhang managed to have his men recognised as a regiment of the regular Chinese army, patrolling the borders of Manchuria and suppressing other bandit gangs. The American surgeon Louis Livingston Seaman met Zhang during the Russo-Japanese War, and took several photographs of him and his troops as well as writing an account of his journey.LONDON SIDNEY APPLETON COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Original from the University of California Digitized Nov 21, 2007LONDON SIDNEY APPLETON COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Original from the University of California Digitized Nov 21, 2007
Growth of power in Manchuria During the 1911 Xinhai Revolution some military commanders wanted to declare independence for Manchuria; but the pro-Manchu governor used Zhang's regiment to set up a "Manchurian People's Peacekeeping Council", intimidating would-be rebels and revolutionaries. For his efforts in preventing civil disturbance and revolution, Zhang was named the Vice Minister of Military Affairs.Bonavia 63–64
On January 1, 1912 Sun Yat-sen became the first President of the Republic of China in Nanjing. Yuan Shikai, operating out of Beijing, sent other northern military commanders a series of telegrams, advising them to oppose Sun's administration. To gain Zhang's loyalty, Yuan sent him a large shipment of military provisions; Zhang sent Yuan an enormous (and costly) ginseng root in return to symbolize their friendship. Zhang then murdered a number of leading figures in his base city of Shenyang (then known as "Mukden"), and was rewarded with a series of impressive-sounding titles by the nearly defunct Qing court. When it became obvious to Zhang that Yuan would usurp control of the central government, he endorsed Yuan's rule over that of either Sun or the Manchus. After Zhang put down a rebellion in June 1912, Yuan raised him to the rank of Lieutenant-General. In 1913 Yuan attempted to move Zhang away from Manchuria by having him transferred to Mongolia, but Zhang reminded Yuan of his successful efforts to keep local order, and refused.Bonavia 64–65
In 1915, when it became clear that Yuan intended to declare himself emperor, Zhang was one of the few officials who supported him. Besides political opportunism, Zhang saw Yuan as a central, unifying, and legitimate figure.Chi, Man Kwang. War and Geopolitics in Interwar Manchuria. Brill, 2017, p. 83 Furthermore, Yuan had promoted him to military governor of Fengtian to gain his support. Zhang's main rival for power in Manchuria, Zhang Xiluan, had been asked about Yuan's ambitions, and suggested to Yuan that he "think about it a bit more", for which Zhang Xiluan was recalled to Beijing while Zhang Zuolin was promoted.Bonavia 66
In March 1916, after many southern provinces revolted against Yuan Shikai's government, Zhang supported him but expelled a local military governor sent by Duan Qirui to replace him, with some support from local Japanese officers in the Kwantung Army. Beijing accepted Zhang's authority and Yuan appointed Zhang superintendent of military affairs in Liaoning (known as "Fengtian" until 1929). After Yuan died in June 1916, the new central government named Zhang both military and civil governor of Liaoning, the essential components of a successful warlord.Bonavia 66–67
Zhang, a pragmatist, had always remained cordial with Puyi, the last Emperor of China, and had sent him a gift of £1,600 for his wedding as a token of loyalty. Zhang sought good relations with Puyi in order to increase his power and cement his legitimacy if a restoration was ever attempted. In 1917 he plotted with Zhang Xun, a Qing-loyalist general, to restore the abdicated Puyi to the throne.Behr 105 Zhang Zuolin proposed talking to the National Assembly about a possible restoration. After Zhang Xun rebelled, Zhang Zuolin remained neutral and actually supported Duan Qirui in suppressing Zhang Xun after it became clear that Duan would win. Zhang was able to absorb soldiers of nearby commanders who had been linked to the rebellion, increasing his own power. He intervened and took control of China's northernmost province, Heilongjiang, after a rebellion there forced the local governor to flee. Because the governor of Jilin province had been linked to the attempt to restore the monarchy, Zhang had allies from Jilin successfully agitate for the governor's dismissal in Beijing. By 1918 Zhang's control of Manchuria was complete, except for the small areas held by the Empire of Japan.Bonavia 67–68
A Tianjin-based honghuzi leader negotiated with Zhang Zuolin.
Fortress Manchuria
In 1920 Zhang was the supreme ruler of Manchuria. The central government acknowledged this by appointing him Governor-General of the Three Eastern Provinces. He began to surround himself in luxury, building a chateau-style home near Shenyang, and had at least five wives (an accepted practice of any powerful or wealthy Chinese at the time). In 1925 his personal fortune was estimated at over 18 million yuan (roughly $2.6 million).
His power rested on the Fengtian Army, which was composed of about 100,000 men in 1922 and almost triple that number by the end of the decade. It had obtained large stocks of weapons left over from World War I and included naval units, an air force and an armaments industry. Zhang integrated a large number of local militias into his army, and thus prevented Manchuria from falling into the chaos which reigned in China proper at the time. Jilin province was ruled by a military governor, who was said to be a cousin of Zhang; Heilongjiang had its own regional warlord, who never displayed any ambitions outside the province.
Although Manchuria officially remained a part of the Republic of China, it became more or less an independent state isolated from China by its geography and protected by the Fengtian Army. The only pass at Shanhaiguan, where the Great Wall meets the sea, could easily be closed. In a time when the central government was barely able to pay the salaries of its civil servants, no more revenues were forwarded to Beijing. In 1922 Zhang took control of the only rail link, the Beijing–Shenyang Railway, north of the Great Wall and also kept tax revenues from this railroad. Only postal and customs revenues continued to be sent to Beijing, because they had been pledged to the victorious foreign powers after the failed Boxer Rebellion of 1900, and Zhang feared their intervention.
It was proposed that Zhang Zuolin's domain (the "Three Eastern Provinces") take Outer Mongolia under its administration by the Bogda Khan and Bodo in 1922 after pro-Soviet Mongolian Communists seized control of Outer Mongolia.
Japanese and Russian influences
Manchuria shared a long border with Russia, which had been weakened militarily after the October Revolution. The line of the Chinese Eastern Railway, which was under Russian control, ran through northern Manchuria and the land immediately on either side of the tracks was considered to be Russian territory. From 1917 to about 1924 the new Communist government in Moscow was having such difficulties establishing itself in Siberia that often it was not clear who was in charge of operating the railway on the Russian side. Still, Zhang avoided a showdown and after 1924 the Soviets re-established their dominance over the railroad.
The situation's precariousness was demonstrated by an outbreak of pneumonic plague in Hailar, a town at the western end of the Chinese Eastern Railway, in October 1920. Chinese troops were present in great number and turned railway quarantine into a farce. The soldiers freed some of their comrades who had been imprisoned as contacts, and they escaped to the mining town of Dalainor on the Amur River, where a quarter of the population died. In the other direction, all of the towns along the Chinese Eastern Railway as far as Vladivostok were infected. Around 9,000 died, while only a few contacts were able to reach south Manchuria.Nathan, Carl F. (1967). Plague prevention and politics in Manchuria 1910–1931 Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 66.