Zhang Zuolin - The Beginning of The End

The Beginning of The End

After the disastrous defeat of 1922, Zhang had reorganized his Fengtian Army, started a training program and had bought new equipment like mobile radios and machine guns. In the autumn of 1924, fighting broke out again in Central China and Zhang saw an opportunity to capture North China and Beijing and become head of the Central Government. While most other warlord armies fought along the Yangtze River, Zhang attacked North China. The Second Zhili-Fengtian War had begun. In a surprise move a Zhili commander, Feng Yuxiang, toppled Cao Kun and took control of Beijing. He shared power with Zhang and both appointed the same Duan Qirui he had ousted in 1920. By August 1925, the Fengtian Army controlled four large provinces within the Great Wall (Zhili, where Beijing was located, but not Beijing itself, Shandong, Jiangsu, and Anhui). One unit even marched as far south as the city of Shanghai. But the military situation was so unstable, that Sun Chuanfang, a Zhili clique warlord whose sphere of influence extended along the Yangtze, managed to push back the Fengtian Army again. By November, Zhang held only a small corner of North China including a corridor connecting Beijing with Manchuria. Attacks on Beijing continued into the spring of 1926.

Manchuria was placed under martial law again, while its economy disintegrated under the burden of the insatiable war machine. Old taxes were increased and new taxes invented. Zhang demanded that more paper money was being printed out of step with silver reserves. A most serious crisis erupted when in November 1925 Guo Songling revolted and ordered his troops to turn back and march on Shenyang. The Japanese brought in reinforcements to protect their interests in Manchuria, but Zhang managed to put down the revolt in December. Even more seriously, Manchuria's top civil official, Civil Governor Wang Yongjiang, realized that his work of nine years had been in vain. He left Shenyang in February 1926 and handed in his resignation. This time he didn't react, when Zhang asked him to return. Wang died from kidney failure 1 November 1927.