Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T07:00:42.749Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Warlords against Warlordism: The Politics of Anti-Militarism in Early Twentieth-Century China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Edward A. McCord
Affiliation:
The George Washington University

Extract

In a recent article published in the Journal of Military History, Arthur Waldron noted that war in Chinese history has been ‘treated at best as a largely unexamined context’. One has only to look at the cursory treatment given by most textbooks to the incessant civil wars of China's ‘warlord’ period (usually dated from 1916 to 1926) to see the truth of this statement. In the above article, Waldron seeks to remedy some of this neglect by pointing out the important relationship in this period between war and the course of modern Chinese nationalism. Although less ambitious, this article also seeks to explore a more specific, yet also largely unexamined, aspect of this relationship, namely the emergence of anti-militarism, or more specifically anti-warlordism, as a defining theme in modern Chinese nationalism.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Waldron, Arthur, ‘War and the Rise of Nationalism in Twentieth-Century China’, Journal of Military History 57 (10 1993), p. 87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 The best discussion of the origins of the term ‘warlord’ and its usage is Waldron, Arthur, ‘The Warlord: Twentieth-Century Chinese Understandings of Violence, Militarism, and Imperialism’, American Historical Review 96, no. 4 (10 1991), pp. 1073–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 The most notable example of this view can be found in Haizong, Lei, Zhongguo wenhuayu Zhongguo de bing (Changsha, 1940). For further discussion of this point,Google Scholar see Kuhn, Philip A., Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and Social Structure, 1796–1864 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 1013.Google Scholar

4 Fried, Morton, ‘Military Status in Chinese Society’, American Journal of Sociology 57 (01 1952), pp. 347–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Fung, Edmund S. K., The Military Dimension of the Chinese Revolution (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1980), p. 99.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., p. 98.

7 For a more detailed discussion of the politicization of the military in the late Qing dynasty, see Fung, chapters 4–7; and McCord, Edward A., The Power of the Gun: The Emergence of Modern Chinese Warlordism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), chapter 2.Google Scholar

8 Zhang, Guogan (ed.), Xinhai geming shiliao [Historical materials on the 1911 Revolution] (Shanghai: Longmen lianhe shuju, 1958), p. 199.Google Scholar

9 Zhang, Pengyuan, Zhongguo xiandaihua de quyu yanjiu: Hunan sheng, 1860–1916 [Regional research on China's modernization: Hunan Province, 1860–1916] (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1983), p. 155.Google Scholar

10 For a further discussion of these points, see McCord, , 1993, chapter 4.Google Scholar

11 See ‘Junzhengfu xuanyan’ [The inaugural manifesto of the military government] and ‘Junzhengfu yu ge guominjun zhi tiaojian’ [Articles of the military government and citizens armies], cited in Zou Lu, ‘Zhongguo Tongmenghui’ [China's Tongmenghui], in shixuehui, Zhongguo [Chinese Historical Association] (ed.), Xinhai geming [The 1911 Revolution] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1957), vol. 2, pp. 1321.Google Scholar

12 I have argued that the provinces of Human and Hubei represented cases such as this. McCord, Edward A., ‘Warlordism at Bay: Civil Alternatives to Military Rule in Early Republican China’, Republican China 17, no. 1 (11 1991), pp. 3869. Also see McCord, 1993, chapters 3–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Yuanhong, Li, Li fuzongtong zhengshu [The official correspondence of vicepresident Li] (Shanghai: Gujin tushuju, 1915), 9 juan, pp. 10b14a.Google Scholar

14 Shibao, May 5 and April 22, 1912.Google Scholar

15 Young, Ernest P., The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai: Liberalism and Dictatorship in Early Republican China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1977), pp. 157–8.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., pp. 241–2.

17 McCord, , 1993.Google Scholar

18 Young, 222–7; Juyin, Tao, Beiyang junfa tongzhi shiqi shihua [A historical narrative of the period of Beiyang warlord rule] (Reprint: Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 19571961), vol. 2, pp. 180–2, 216–19.Google Scholar

19 Shibao, August 12, 1916.Google Scholar

20 Shibao, August 16, 1916.Google Scholar

21 Xinxia, Lai (ed.), Zhongguo jindaishi ziliao congkan: Beiyang junfa [Collection of modern Chinese historical materials: Beiyang warlords] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1993), vol. 3, pp. 422–3.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., pp. 423–4.

23 Shibao, September 16 and 20, 1916. The signers of the wire included Zhang Xun, Ni Sichong, Zhao Ti, Jiang Guiti, Zhang Zuolin, Meng Enyuan, Yang Shande, Tian Zhongyu, Li Houji, Tian Wenlie, Wang Zhanyuan, Zhang Huaizhi, Xu Lanzhou, Bi Guifang and Feng Delin.Google Scholar

24 Shibao, September 16, 1916.Google Scholar

25 This information was contained in a secret report on the Xuzhou meeting that was placed in Li Yuanhong's files, reprinted in Xinxia, Lai, pp. 425–6.Google Scholar

26 Shibao, September 28, 1916.Google Scholar

27 Shibao, September 17, 1916.Google Scholar

28 Shibao, September 21, 1916.Google Scholar

29 Shibao, October 4, 1916.Google Scholar

30 Juyin, Tao, vol. 1, p. 510.Google Scholar

31 Shibao, April 13, 1917.Google Scholar

32 Shibao, April 14, 1917.Google Scholar

33 Shibao, April 11 and 15, 1917.Google Scholar

34 Shibao, June 5, 1917.Google Scholar

35 Shibao, May 27, 1917.Google Scholar

36 Shibao, June 1, 1917.Google Scholar

37 A detailed history of this conference can be found in Tongfa, Lin, Minguo banian zhi nanbei yihe [The 1919 north–south peace negotiations] (Taibei: Nantian shuju, 1990).Google Scholar

38 Duxiu, Chen [Shuangyan, pseud.], ‘Junmin fenzhi’, in Meizhou pinglun 3 (01 5, 1919), p. 4;Google ScholarDuxiu, Chen, ‘Wode guonei heping yijian’, in Meizhou pinglun 8 (02 9, 1919), p. 2.Google Scholar

39 Meizhou pinglun 8 (Februry 9, 1919), p. 2.Google Scholar

40 Meizhou pinglun 2 (December 29, 1918), p. 1.Google Scholar

41 Gongchuo, Ye, ‘Yijiuyijiu nian nanbei yihe zhi jingguo ji qi neimu’ [The experience and inside story of the 1919 north-south peace negotiations], in Chunhe, Du, Binsheng, Lin and Quanzheng, Qiu (eds), Beiyang junfa shiliao xuanji [Selected historical materials on the Beiyang warlords] (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1981), vol. 2, p. 10.Google Scholar

42 Shibao, November 10, 1918.Google Scholar

43 Dagongbao (Changsha edition), 11 17, 1918.Google Scholar

44 Meizhou pinglun 1 (December 22, 1918), p. 2.Google Scholar

45 Shibao, November 28, 1918.Google Scholar

46 The signers of this telegram included Lin Baoyi, Mo Rongxin, Li Liejun, Li Genyuan, Lu Gongwang, Fan Shengtao, and Cheng Qian. Dagongbao, April 28, 1919.Google Scholar

47 Shuntian ribao, April 22, 1919; Shibao, April 24, 1919.Google Scholar

48 Among those issuing circular telegrams on this issue were: Kun, Cao (Zhili military governor), Ni Sichong (Anhui military governor), Shibao, April 26, 1919; Zhang Zuolin (Fengtian military governor), Shuntian ribao, April 26 and May 5, 1919; Wang Zhanyuan (Hubei military governor), Tian Zhongyu (Jilin military governor), Wang Tingzhen, Zhao Ti (Henan military governor), Shibao, April 27, 1919; Li Chun (Jiangsu military governor), Shuntian ribao, April 27, 1919; Jiang Guiti (Rehe military governor), Bao Guiqing (Heilongjiang military governor), Li Houji (Fujian military governor), Shuntian ribao, April 28, 1919; Zhang Shuyuan (Shandong military governor), Chen Guangyuan (Jiangxi military governor), Meng Enyuan, Shuntian ribao, April 30, 1919; Yang Shande (Zhejiang military governor), Yan Xishan (Shanxi military governor), Shuntian ribao, May 1, 1919; Chen Shufan (Shaanxi military governor) Wu Guangxin (Upper Yangzi Commander-in-Chief), Dagongbao, May 2, 1919; and Ma Fuxiang (Ningxia garrison commander), Shuntian ribao, May 7, 1919.Google Scholar

49 Pye, Lucian W., Warlord Politics: Conflict and Coalition in the Modernization of Republican China (New York: Praeger, 1971), pp. 115–21.Google Scholar

50 Duxiu, Chen [Shuangyan, pseud.], ‘Ganzheng de junren fandui junren ganzheng’ [Military men who intervene in politics oppose military men intervening in politics], in Meizhou pinglun 19 (04 27, 1919), p. 8.Google Scholar

51 Shibao, April 25, 1919.Google Scholar

52 Shibao, April 24, 1919.Google Scholar

53 Dagongbao, April 27, 1919.Google Scholar

54 Dagongbao, April 28, 1919.Google Scholar

55 Interestingly, one of the military commanders issuing a wire against military interference in politics, Yang Shande, referred at one point to his ‘warlord comrades’ (junfa tongbao), showing that the newly introduced term was still not perceived by all in its disparaging sense. Shuntian ribao, May 1, 1919.Google Scholar

56 Waldron, 1991.Google Scholar

57 Various proposals for the promotion of ‘militarism’ in the form of military education and drill in schools, the militarization of youth organizations, etc., continued to be made even at times when controversies over the military's role in politics raged. See, for example, Shibao, September 4 and 14, 1916; Dagongbao, May 24, 1918 and April 7, 1919.

58 Xiumei, Lin, Lin Xiumei yizhu [The bequeathed writings of Lin Xiumei] (n.p. 1921), pp. 1015.Google Scholar

59 Diana Lary has shown that by the mid-1920s even strong regional commanders were eager to associate themselves with the Nationalist Party and the nationalist movement it represented. Lary, Diana, Region and Nation: The Kwangsi Clique in Chinese Politics, 1925–1937 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), pp. 5763.Google Scholar

60 Hsiao-shih, Cheng, Party-Military Relations in the PRC and Taiwan: Paradoxes of Control (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990).Google Scholar

61 Zhang Yufa, for example, describes three levels of warlord politics as military control of politics (junren Zhangzheng), military intervention in politics (junren ganzheng), and military disturbance of politics (junren luanzheng). Yufa, Zhang, Zhongguo xiandai zhengzhishi lun [Essays on China's modern political history] (Huadong shuju, 1988), p. 165. Also see the critique of the ‘military governors' association’ inGoogle ScholarShixiang, Mo, Hufa yundong shi [History of the constitutional protection movement] (Taibei: Daohe chubanshe, 1991), pp. 810. Many other examples could be given.Google Scholar

62 Waldron, 1991, pp. 1098–9.Google Scholar

63 Zili wanbao, May 6, 1990, p. 6.Google Scholar

64 Ziyou shibao, May 4, 1990, p. 1.Google Scholar

65 Cited in Liangting, Guo, ‘Li, Hao lienshou, Taiwan qianjing shi xi? shi you?’, Guangjiaojing yuekan, May 1990, p. 50.Google Scholar