Early Life & Rise To Leadership
Cao was born in a poor family in Tianjin. During the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894, he went with the army to fight in Choson. After the war was over, he joined Yuan Shikai to participate in the training of New Army (Known as the Beiyang Army). Admired by Yuan, Cao managed to rise very quickly.
He was made a general in the Beiyang Army and led the Zhili clique after the death of Feng Guozhang. During the 1918 election, he was promised the vice-presidency by Duan Qirui but the office remained vacant after most of the National Assembly left, depriving it of a quorum. He felt betrayed by Duan and defeated him in battle in 1920. He forced the resignations of both Xu Shichang and Li Yuanhong and was president of the Republic of China (in Beijing) from October 10, 1923 to November 2, 1924.
Cao had a family connection to the Chinese Muslim military commander Ma Fuxing, who resided in Xinjiang.
Read more about this topic: Cao Kun
Famous quotes containing the words early, life, rise and/or leadership:
“I realized how for all of us who came of age in the late sixties and early seventies the war was a defining experience. You went or you didn’t, but the fact of it and the decisions it forced us to make marked us for the rest of our lives, just as the depression and World War II had marked my parents.”
—Linda Grant (b. 1949)
“A simple child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“Man will rise, if God by exception lends him a hand; he will rise by abandoning and renouncing his own means, and letting himself be raised and uplifted by purely celestial means.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“During the first World War women in the United States had a chance to try their capacities in wider fields of executive leadership in industry. Must we always wait for war to give us opportunity? And must the pendulum always swing back in the busy world of work and workers during times of peace?”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)