The Tientsin Conference, beginning 10 November 1924, was a series of conferences between powerful Chinese warlords on the future government of China. [1] It was hoped the result would be the reunification of the Beiyang government with the Kuomintang's rival government led by Sun Yat-sen in Canton and an end to the Warlord Era.
From 1916 to 1928, China was divided among former military cliques of the Beiyang Army and other regional factions. The southern provinces of China were notably against the Beiyang government in the north, having resisted the restoration of monarchy by Yuan Shikai and subsequent government in Beijing after his death. Sun Yat-sen along with other southern leaders attempted multiple times to form a rival government in Canton to resist the rule of the Beiyang warlords in what came to be known as the Constitutional Protection War. After succeeding in 1923, a one-party state under the doctrine of Dang Guo was established with the Soviet Union sponsoring the Kuomintang's new Whampoa Military Academy.
In the aftermath of the Beijing Coup that put an end to the Second Zhili–Fengtian War, a new balance of power was struck between the warlords of China. The Zhili clique's domination of the North China Plain was now largely reduced to the province and surrounding areas of Henan under Wu Peifu and, without Beijing, the Zhili clique was now no longer the internationally recognized government of China. The resulting power vacuum allowed the Fengtian clique under Zhang Zuolin and the Guominjun under Feng Yuxiang to greatly expand their power base.
On 27 October 1924 Sun Yat-sen accepted an invitation by Feng Yuxiang to Beijing for national unification negotiations. On 10 November 1924, the same day negotiations began, Sun Yat-sen delivered a speech to suggest a gathering for a "national conference" for the Chinese people. It called for the end of warlord rule and the abolition of all unequal treaties. [2]
The first conference began on 10 November 1924 and included Zhang Zuolin, Feng Yuxiang, and Lu Yongxiang. It was held in Tientsin at the home of Duan Qirui, former Premier of the Republic of China on four occasions between 1913 and 1918, leader of the Anhui clique, and arguably the most powerful man in China from 1916 to 1920 until his defeat and fall from power after the Zhili–Anhui War.
Zhang Zuolin unpredictably named Duan Qirui as the new Chief Executive of the nation on 24 November 1924. Duan's new government was grudgingly accepted by the Zhili clique because, without an army of his own, Duan was now considered a neutral choice. [3] In addition, instead of "President" Duan was now called the "Chief Executive", implying that the position was temporary and therefore politically weak. Duan Qirui called on Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang in the south to restart negotiations towards national reunification. Sun demanded that the "unequal treaties" with foreign powers be repudiated and that a new national assembly be assembled. Bowing to public pressure, Duan promised a new national assembly in three months; however he could not unilaterally discard the "unequal treaties", since the foreign powers had made official recognition of Duan's regime contingent upon respecting these very treaties. [4]
Negotiations fell apart after Sun Yat-sen died in Beijing of gallbladder cancer on 12 March 1925. [5]
In November 1925 the Anti-Fengtian War would break out with Feng Yuxiang fighting Zhang Zuolin along with his new ally and former enemy Wu Peifu. Duan Qirui, knowing that he was hopelessly dependent on Feng Yuxiang and Zhang Zuolin and that they did not get along, secretly tried to play one side against the other. In April 1926 the Guominjun deposed Duan, who was forced to flee to Zhang Zuolin for protection. Zhang, tired of his double-dealings, refused to restore him after re-capturing Beijing. Most of the Anhui clique had already sided with Zhang. Duan Qirui exiled himself to Tianjin and later moved to Shanghai where he died on November 2, 1936.
After Sun's death, a power struggle for leader of the Kuomintang would occur between Hu Hanmin, Wang Jingwei, Liao Zhongkai, and Chiang Kai-shek. Hu Hanmin would be discredited after his alleged involvement in the assassination of Liao Zhongkai and Chiang would ultimately triumph against Wang.
Very little came about from the negotiations. China would only nominally reunite and have its warlords partially subdued under Chiang Kai-shek in the aftermath of the Northern Expedition in 1928 and Central Plains War in 1930.
Feng Yuxiang, courtesy name Huanzhang (焕章), was a Chinese warlord and a leader of the Republic of China from Chaohu, Anhui. He served as Vice Premier of the Republic of China from 1928 to 1930. He was also known as the "Christian General" for his zeal to convert his troops and the "Traitorous General" for his penchant to break with the establishment. In 1911 he was an officer in the ranks of Yuan Shikai's Beiyang Army but joined forces with revolutionaries against the Qing dynasty. He rose to high rank within Wu Peifu's Zhili warlord faction but launched the Beijing Coup in 1924 that knocked Zhili out of power and brought Sun Yat-sen to Beijing. He joined the Nationalist Party (KMT), supported the Northern Expedition and became blood brothers with Chiang Kai-shek, but resisted Chiang's consolidation of power in the Central Plains War and broke with him again in resisting Japanese incursions in 1933. He spent his later years supporting the Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang.
General Cao Kun was a Chinese warlord and politician, who served as the President of the Republic of China from 1923 to 1924, as well as the military leader of the Zhili clique in the Beiyang Army; he also served as a trustee of the Catholic University of Peking.
The Beiyang Army, named after the Beiyang region, was a large, Western-style Imperial Chinese Army established by the Qing dynasty government in the late 19th century. It was the centerpiece of a general reconstruction of Qing China's military system. The Beiyang Army played a major role in Chinese politics for at least three decades and arguably right up to 1949. It made the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 possible, and, by dividing into warlord factions known as the Beiyang Clique, ushered in a period of regional division.
Wu Peifu was a Chinese warlord and major figure in the struggles between the warlords who dominated Republican China from 1916 to 1927.
Sun Chuanfang was a Chinese warlord in the Zhili clique and protégé of the "Jade Marshal" Wu Peifu.
Guo Songling was a Chinese general who served in the Fengtian Army under Zhang Zuolin during the Chinese Warlord Era. A republican sympathiser who briefly served under Sun Yat-Sen, he was a teacher of and an important influence on Zhang Zuolin's son, Zhang Xueliang. Citing desire to avoid civil war, he led a three-month rebellion against Zhang Zuolin which led to his defeat and execution.
The Warlord Era was a period in the history of the Republic of China when control of the country was divided among former military cliques of the Beiyang Army and other regional factions from 1916 to 1928.
The Beiyang government was the internationally recognized government of the Republic of China between 1912 and 1928, based in Beijing. It was dominated by the generals of the Beiyang Army, giving it its name.
The Guominjun, a.k.a. Nationalist Army, KMC, also called the Northwest Army (西北軍) or People's Army, refers to the military faction founded by Feng Yuxiang, Hu Jingyi and Sun Yue during China's Warlord Era.
The Northeastern Army, also known as the Fengtian Army, was a Chinese army that existed from 1911 to 1937. It was created by General Zhang Zuolin and his "Fengtian Clique", who controlled Northeastern China (Manchuria) during China's Warlord Era. The Northeastern Army participated in many of the Warlord Era's conflicts and by the mid-1920s had become the dominant force in north China. However, the Kuomintang defeated the Northeastern Army and Zhang's allies during the Northern Expedition. In 1928, Zhang Zuolin was assassinated and succeeded by his son Zhang Xueliang. Xueliang pledged loyalty to the Kuomintang, bringing almost all of China under the same national government for the first time since 1917.
The Zhili clique was a military faction that split from the Republic of China's Beiyang Army of the during the country's Warlord Era. It was named for Zhili Province, which was the clique's base of power. At its height, it also controlled Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and Hubei.
The Anhui clique was a military and political organization, one of several mutually hostile cliques or factions that split from the Beiyang clique in the Republic of China's Warlord Era. It was named after Anhui province because several of its generals–including its founder, Duan Qirui–were born in Anhui.
The Fengtian clique was the faction that supported warlord Zhang Zuolin during China's Warlord Era. It took its name from Fengtian Province, which served as its original base of support. However, the clique quickly came to control all of the Three Northeastern Provinces. The clique received support from Japan in exchange for protecting Japanese military and economic interests in Manchuria. The Fengtian Army frequently intervened in many of the conflicts of the Warlord Era.
The Second Zhili–Fengtian War of 1924 was a conflict between the Japanese-backed Fengtian clique based in Manchuria, and the more liberal Zhili clique controlling Beijing and backed by Anglo-American business interests. The war is considered the most significant in China's Warlord era, with the Beijing coup by Christian warlord Feng Yuxiang leading to the overall defeat of the Zhili clique. During the war the two cliques fought one large battle near Tianjin in October 1924, as well as a number of smaller skirmishes and sieges. Afterwards, both Feng and Zhang Zuolin, the latter being ruler of the Fengtian clique, appointed Duan Qirui as a figurehead prime minister. In south and central China, more liberal Chinese were dismayed by the Fengtian's advance and by the resulting power vacuum. A wave of protests followed. The war also distracted the northern warlords from the Soviet-backed Nationalists based in the southern province of Guangdong, allowing unhampered preparation for the Northern Expedition (1926–1928), which united China under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek.
The Constitutional Protection Movement was a series of movements led by Sun Yat-sen to resist the Beiyang government between 1917 and 1922, in which Sun established another government in Guangzhou as a result. It was known as the Third Revolution by the Kuomintang. The constitution that it intended to protect was the Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China. The first movement lasted from 1917 to 1920; the second from 1921 to 1922. An attempted third movement, begun in 1923, ultimately became the genesis for the Northern Expedition in 1926.
The Beijing Coup was the October 1924 coup d'état by Feng Yuxiang against Chinese President Cao Kun, leader of the Zhili warlord faction. Feng called it the Capital Revolution. The coup occurred at a crucial moment in the Second Zhili–Fengtian War and allowed the pro-Japanese Fengtian clique to defeat the previously dominant Zhili clique. Followed by a brief period of liberalization under Huang Fu, this government was replaced on November 23, 1924 by a conservative, pro-Japanese government led by Duan Qirui. The coup alienated many liberal Chinese from the Beijing government.
The Anti-Fengtian War was the last major civil war within the Republic of China's northern Beiyang government prior to the Northern Expedition. It lasted from November 1925 to April 1926 and was waged by the Guominjun against the Fengtian clique and their Zhili clique allies. The war ended with the defeat of the Guominjun and the end of the provisional executive government. The war is also known as either Guominjun-Fengtian War, or the Third Zhili–Fengtian War.
Wu Guangxin, (simplified Chinese: 吴光新; traditional Chinese: 吳光新; pinyin: Wú Guāngxīn; Wade–Giles: Wu2 Kuang1-hsin1; IPA:[úku̯ɑ̄ŋɕīn]; 1881–1939) Army general of the Empire of Japan. Military and Civil governor of Hunan in 1920. Army Minister 1924–1925.
Duan Qirui was a Chinese warlord, politician and commander of the Beiyang Army who ruled as the effective dictator of northern China in the late 1910s. He was the Premier of the Republic of China on four occasions between 1913 and 1918, and from 1924 to 1926 he served as acting Chief Executive of the Republic of China in Beijing.
The National Pacification Army (NPA), also known as the Anguojun or Ankuochun, was a warlord coalition led by Fengtian clique General Zhang Zuolin, and was the military arm of the Beiyang government of the Republic of China during its existence.
