Duan Qirui (, pronounced ) (March 6, 1865 – November 2, 1936) was a Chinese statesman and general who controlled the Beijing Government during the late 1910s. He was the Premier of China on four occasions between 1913 and 1918, and from 1924 to 1926 he served as acting Chief Executive of China in Beijing. As the last leader of the Beiyang Army, Duan was highly respected among the warlords and people of China, and was the founder of the Anhui Clique.
A graduate of the Tianjin Military Academy, Duan studied military science in Germany and became a prominent artillery commander under Yuan Shikai. Following the Xinhai Revolution in 1911 and the fall of the Qing dynasty, he became minister of war and premier in the Yuan cabinet. He opposed Yuan's restoration of monarchy in China and, upon Yuan's death, continued as premier and took effective control of northern China. His tenure was marked by political infighting as well as conflict with southern parliamentarians under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen.
In 1917, Duan took part in suppressing another attempt to restore the monarchy, and spearheaded China's involvement in the First World War on the side of the Allies. He also negotiated a series of loans with Japan, with which he built up the Anhui clique and prepared for a conquest of the south. His secret dealings with the Japanese (including the 1918 Sino-Japanese Joint Defence Agreement) later came to light which, along with the Treaty of Versailles's decision to transfer Shandong to Japan, paved way for the May Fourth Movement in 1919. His position weakened, Duan was eventually ousted from power after his defeat in the 1920 Zhili–Anhui War. He came out of retirement in 1924 to head Zhang Zuolin and Feng Yuxiang's Beiyang government, but was again deposed after Zhang's victory over Feng in the Anti-Fengtian War. Duan subsequently retired to Tianjin before settling in Shanghai, where he died in 1936.
Early life Born in Hefei as Duan Qirui (), his courtesy name was Zhiquan (). His grandfather was Duan Pei (), an officer in Li Hongzhang's privately raised Huai Army (Huai Jun, ). His father died early and he was raised by his maternal grandmother.
Early career In 1885 Duan Qirui entered Tianjin Military Academy (), specializing in artillery, and graduated at the top of his class. After graduation, he was sent to Lüshun to oversee the construction of artillery fortifications and came to the attention of Li Hongzhang, who sent him to study military science in Germany for two years. After returning to China he was first named as a commissioner to the Beiyang Armory () and then an instructor at Weihai military academy. Soon he was able to gain the sponsorship of Yuan Shikai, who named him an artillery commander in the New Army.
Duan first saw action in the Boxer Rebellion, where he served Yuan in Shandong province and distinguished himself in combat against the Boxers. Yuan then gave him command over a Beiyang army division in 1904. In 1906 he was appointed director of the Baoding Staff College, which allowed him to begin recruiting his own clique of loyal junior officers. Yuan arranged for the marriage of his niece, whom he had adopted, to Duan in an effort to consolidate his power and solidify Duan's loyalty.
After the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising of 1911 against the Qing dynasty, Duan commanded the loyalist Second Army Corps against the revolutionary army in the Battle of Yangxia and succeeded in taking back Hankou and Hanyang. After Yuan Shikai altered the course of the Xinhai Revolution by forcing the emperor to abdicate, Duan supported him. For his loyalty Yuan appointed him military governor of both Hunan and Hubei provinces. He was further named to Yuan's cabinet as minister of war in 1912, then premier in 1913 while also keeping his position as war minister. Because he had publicly supported the Emperor's abdication while serving as an envoy of the central government in 1911, Duan's promotions were supported by the Kuomintang.
Politics Duan rose to power as a close ally of Yuan Shikai, but the two came to increasingly disagree with each other over various issues as time went on. One of the main problems was that Duan began to amass influence over the Beiyang Army as minister of war, thereby undermining Yuan's own control over the soldiers. Realizing his growing power, Duan became more independent and gradually challenged the President over appointments and reforms in the military. As both had volatile tempers, their quarrels became ever more heated, and Yuan eventually started to counter Duan's rise. Using Duan and the Beiyang Army's failure to suppress the Bai Lang Rebellion as reason, he initiated reforms to purge the military of Duan's followers and raise a new army which was supposed to be more capable than the Beiyang Army while also being loyal to Yuan himself. As Duan fell sick in late 1914, he was unable to stop the President's plans, and he was thus dismissed as minister of war in May 1915.
Having expected to eventually succeed Yuan in the presidency, Duan thus came to oppose Yuan's attempt to declare himself Emperor in late 1915. After several provinces declared independence from Yuan's government, Duan tried to play the intermediary between the rebels and Yuan, just as Yuan had done during the Xinhai Revolution. Their friendship never recovered, even after Duan was given the premiership, partially because Yuan had shrewdly stripped that office of its powers. Duan served as premier intermittently from 1913 to 1918, under several governments, as part of a series of shaky coalitions (which often collapsed). Yuan's attempt to establish his own dynasty had destroyed the unity of China, and many provinces had achieved de facto independence from Beijing as early as 1915.
State Premier In 1916, when Yuan Shikai was on his deathbed, he called several of the most important political and military figures in his government, including Duan, to hear his last political testament. Yuan was only able to say two words: "the Constitution", which no one was able to interpret. Yuan's 1914 constitution stipulated that, in the event of the impending death of China's president, the president would place the names of three men to potentially succeed him after his death. After his death, the box would be opened and one of the men named would be elected.
Yuan died on June 6, 1916. When the box was opened, Duan Qirui, Li Yuanhong and Xu Shichang were named. None initially wanted to take the presidency. Duan consulted with other senior military leaders of northern China, calculated that Li was the weakest and least popular of the three and then successfully pressured him to take the presidency, possibly under the rationale that a weak, unpopular president would be easier to manipulate. Duan served under Li as premier, but dominated him—and the rest of the government—and ruled for a time as the effective dictator of northern China, challenged mostly by semi-independent warlords. Neither Duan nor Li ever attempted to submit Li's appointment as president to a parliamentary or general election, indicating Duan's general contempt for constitutional reform.
Duan Qirui, in his appointment as Premier, refused to recognize the old 1912 constitution. He was opposed by both President Li Yuanhong and Vice President Feng Guozhang, the second most important Beiyang military commander after Duan himself. On June 15, 1917, the admiral of the Chinese First Fleet, Li Tingxin, along with China's most senior naval commanders issued a statement supporting the 1912 constitution and threatened to ignore orders from Beijing if the constitution was not restored, declaring their solidarity with the "National Protection Army" in the southwest, which also claimed to support the constitution. Eventually Feng was able to persuade Duan to relent and the dissident government in the south agreed to dissolve itself when Parliament was reconvened. Nevertheless, the parliament and the country remained as divided as ever between north and south. Duan and the other Beiyang leaders refused to be dictated to by southern parliamentarians, composed mostly of Sun Yat-sen's Guangdong-based Kuomintang party, backed by southern armies outside Beiyang control. Duan decided to take action against southern military commanders by reassigning them to other posts and thereby breaking their control. In order to do this he decided to oust the pro-Kuomintang military commander of Hunan; however, his cabinet refused to do so. In spite of this, Duan's right-hand man and Cabinet Secretary, Xu Shuzheng, issued orders on his own initiative to launch an attack on Hunan.
World War I In Europe World War I had reached a crucial point by 1916–17. Duan saw an opportunity to ingratiate China with the European powers and the US by declaring on the side of the Allies against Central powers. However, Duan was opposed again by both the president and vice-president, along with most of the parliament. He was impatient to gain parliament's approval through negotiation and resorted to bullying tactics with organized mobs. In response, president Li Yuanhong in May 1917 dismissed Duan as premier after parliament had voted to ask for his resignation.
At this juncture a monarchist general, Zhang Xun, marched his army into Beijing and announced the restoration of the Qing dynasty on July 1, 1917. Outraged, the other Beiyang generals, led by vice-president Feng Guozhang, mobilized their forces and ended the short-lived restoration attempt. Duan was returned to power while Li Yuanhong, having had enough of Beiyang politics, resigned the presidency. A few days later, on August 14, 1917, China entered the First World War on the side of the Allies. Duan declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary and took back Germany's settlement and Austria Hungary's settlement in Tianjin. By entering the war, Duan hoped for some quid pro quo from China's new allies, such as the cancellation of many of the indemnities and concessions that China had been forced to sign in the past. He also hoped that China could gain international prestige by involving itself in "The Great War".
Duan's strategy now was to negotiate financial loans with Japan, in exchange for concessions, to fund a military buildup for the conquest of the south. The political cover for this army was the entry of China into the First World War. With the poor state of the government's credit and European wartime expenses making both Western and domestic financing impossible, he secretly negotiated the first of the Nishihara Loans with Japan on September 29, 1917. In exchange he offered Japan the right to station troops in Shandong province as well as the right to build and run two new Shandong railroads. There would be a high political price to pay when these negotiations came to light later on, but in the meantime Duan got the money for his army. This later became part of the reason for the Shandong Problem.
Anhui clique After Feng Guozhang had restored him as premier, Duan Qirui quickly began preparations to mobilize troops for conquest of the south. The south responded by forming another rival government against the north and organizing the Constitutional Protection Movement. Duan dispatched two former subordinates of Feng Guozhang to the south to conquer Hunan, the linchpin of central China; one of these commanders was Wu Peifu. Wu supported Feng's preference for peaceful reconciliation with the south and refused to fight. Embarrassed by this fiasco, Duan was forced to resign a second time as premier in November 1917.