Beiyang government
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The title of the Beiyang government ( Chinese 北洋 政府 , Pinyin Běiyáng Zhèngf wird ) denotes a number of civil and military governments of the Republic of China from 1912 to 1928. They ruled the country from Beijing , while a Kuomintang government was formed in Guangzhou in 1917 under Sun Yat-sen , which did not recognize the legitimacy of the northern government and initially called itself a constitutional preservation movement.
The name of the Beijing government was derived from the Beiyang army of the Qing government , whose general Yuan Shikai was sworn in as president of the new Republic of China after the Xinhai revolution . Although the government split under various warlords , also known as Northern Warlords , after Yuan Shikai's death , it always remained in the hands of generals of the Beiyang Army and was recognized internationally as the legitimate government. The legitimation as head of government was usually held by the person whose troops controlled Beijing. It was finally thrown down by Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition from 1926–1928 and the capital was moved to Nanjing .
structure
According to the provisions of the Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China, which had been passed by a Provisional Senate in February 1912, the National Assembly elected the President and Vice-President of the Republic for five years each and confirmed the Prime Minister proposed by the President, who put together the cabinet and chaired it . Bills had to be countersigned by the responsible ministers in order to become valid. Important ministerial posts were those of the army, finance, communications and interior ministers while the importance of the naval ministry collapsed after most of the ships for the constitutional maintenance movement in Guangzhou defected in 1917. The Ministry of Communications was also responsible for the transport and postal services and the Bank of Communications .
Over time, the so-called communication clique formed from members of the ministry. Many later famous personalities such as Wellington Koo served in the State Department . Since the integrity of China was endangered by external powers during this time, the generals were dependent on the diplomats of the Foreign Ministry, which enjoyed a high degree of independence over the entire time of the Beiyang government. One of the Foreign Ministry's greatest successes was the return of the Shandong Peninsula, ceded to the German Empire and occupied by Japan during World War I, in 1922, and the League of Nations not recognizing the southern government until it came to power in 1928.
The National Assembly was divided into two chambers, the first consisted of a first and second class senate, whose members were to be elected for six years each, while a term in the House of Representatives was to last three years. The senators were elected by the provincial assemblies, while the representatives were elected by electors, who were appointed, however, only to limited public elections. The main tasks of the National Assembly should be the drawing up of a permanent constitution, the formation of a legislature , voting on budget issues and contracts with foreign powers and the approval of the cabinet. A judiciary with a Supreme Court was established to indict and convict corrupt officials . The model for the early legislation was above all the civil code of the German Empire.
In the political reality, the National Assembly was mainly characterized by the formation of cliques and sometimes extreme corruption. Strengthening the military and approving the necessary budget was the main concern of many members. In addition, what was known as the warlord era, the government was characterized by tremendous instability. In the 16 years of its existence it had five presidents, five emergency governments, 34 prime ministers, 25 cabinets, five houses of representatives and four statutes. Several times it was close to bankruptcy and was often only able to save itself through private donors. The main sources of income were taxes, foreign credits and trade agreements. After the Zhili-Anhui War of 1920, only taxes were collected in Zhili Province, i.e. the immediate vicinity of Beijing, while the income from all other areas flowed into the coffers of various warlords.
Under Yuan Shikai
After the Xinhai Revolution, the rebels established a provisional republican government in Nanjing in 1912, headed by Sun Yat-sen and Li Yuanhong as president and vice president. However, since the revolution was only successful in southeast China, the two entered into secret negotiations with Yuan Shikai, the commander of the Beiyang Army, whereupon the latter overthrew the Qing dynasty in Beijing. In gratitude for this, he was appointed provisional president of the republic and the capital relocated to Beijing, as he feared he would be assassinated in Nanjing. Other reasons for the relocation were that Yuan had his center of power in Beijing and he argued that it would be advantageous for the administration of the republic to be able to take over the well-developed bureaucracy there from the times of the monarchy.
In the elections for the first National Assembly, the Kuomintang Sun Yat-sens won over half of the seats in both chambers. The second strongest force was Jinbudang , favored by Yuan, under Liang Qichao . Many agreed that Song Jiaoren would become the next prime minister, but he was assassinated less than two weeks before his inauguration. Many suspected that Yuan was behind the attack, as he was upset about Songs' plan to name only members of the Kuomintang as ministers. An investigation accused Prime Minister Zhao Bingjun, while rumors continued, that Yuan himself was the client. Yuan then vehemently denied that he or Zhao had any connection with the murder.
When he finally took out a large foreign loan in the summer of 1913 without first obtaining the necessary approval in parliament, Sun left parliament with his faction and proclaimed the Second Revolution . However, he and his followers were beaten by Yuan's forces within two months and had to go into hiding. Sun fled into exile in Japan. Despite the internal unrest, the remaining parliament elected Yuan as full president on October 10, 1913. As a first official act, he expelled the remaining supporters of the Kuomintang in parliament, which meant that Parliament no longer had a quorum and was dissolved for the time being.
In 1914 a Legislative Conference convened, which further strengthened the rights of the President. Although the new parliament, the National Council, had the opportunity to remove the President from his office, the President had the power to dissolve the National Council in return before his removal became legally valid. Around that time, Yuan decided to end the republic and be crowned emperor. This decision was supported by a monarchist tendency within parliament, which from 1915 onwards repeatedly urged him to ascend the throne. Officially, Yuan repeatedly rejected the petitions and demanded that a national assembly with almost 2,000 delegates elect him as emperor. When this congregation had come together and elected him, he gave in to the requests and ascended the throne.
Liang Qichao, disappointed by Yuan, approached the so-called Yunnan clique and encouraged them to rebel against Yuan's enthronement, which resulted in the National War of Protection . In the course of the war more and more supporters of Yuan defected to the republican forces. In order to at least retain power as president, he announced the end of the empire on March 22, 1916 . However, his opponents were not satisfied with this and demanded his resignation from the office of president. Before he could do so, however, Yuan died in June 1916.
Formation of the war principality
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On June 7th, Li Yuanhong was elected as the new president of the republic, while Feng Guozhang , who had distinguished himself for his strong anti-monarchist stance, became vice-president and Duan Qirui was again prime minister. The National Assembly, elected in 1913, convened again and reinstated the Provisional Constitution. In addition to the Kuomintang, there were two other interest groups in the National Assembly: the faction to examine the constitution under Liang Qichao and the faction to discuss the constitution under Tang Hualong .
The first decision after the restoration of the constitution should be the establishment of a republican, national army in order to be able to evade the influence of various regional warlords and their troops. However, this met with resistance from the generals of the South, who feared losing their command posts, so there was no final decision. Another point of discussion was the First World War, which was raging at the time. Duan and Liang were for China to join the war against the Central Powers on the side of the Triple Entente , while Li and Sun consistently opposed this.
However, through various intrigues, Duan managed to get the parliament through the decision to break off diplomatic contacts with the German Empire. When it was found that Duan had accepted funds from Japan, President Li removed him from office. He withdrew to Tianjin with some followers , but called his dismissal illegal and requested his reinstatement. He was supported by most of the generals in the Beiyang Army, who called for parliament to be dissolved.
In June 1917, General Zhang Xun offered himself as a mediator and entered Beijing with his soldiers. There he took control of the city, supported by funds from Germany, and forced President Li to dissolve the parliament. Subsequently, on July 1, 1917, he reinstated the overthrown Qing Emperor Puyi , who at that time was still allowed to stay in the Forbidden City , as emperor. President Li took refuge in the Japanese embassy and contacted Duan Qirui, reinstated him as prime minister and tasked him with protecting the republic. Duan led his troops to Beijing and within a short time defeated Zhang's troops and deposed Puyi again.
After the situation was brought back under control, Li resigned and turned it over to Feng Guozhang. However, due to his bad experience, Duan refused to approve the reinstatement of parliament. He argued that his overthrow of the brief restoration of the monarchy would count as a second Xinhai revolution and that a new provisional senate would have to be convened, which would have to determine the electoral guidelines for a new parliament. After his appointment, the Senate reduced the number of seats in the future elected Senate to almost half.
The opponents of this procedure stated that, according to this argument, Duan would also have to renounce his office as prime minister, as this could not exist without a parliament. Sun Yat-sen and his followers then moved to Canton and founded an anti-constitutional movement under the protection of the Yunnan and Guangxi cliques .
In August 1917, the Beijing government finally declared war on the Central Powers. Since the Allies refused to send Chinese troops to the European theater of war, the Beiyang government sent a Chinese workers' corps to Europe instead . Duan nonetheless accepted large Japanese loans with which he claimed he wanted to expand an army of one million soldiers that was to be sent to Europe.
In reality, this army, which should not be subordinate to the Army Ministry but to Duan himself, was supposed to put down possible resistance to his government and serve to maintain his power. Meanwhile, the forces of the Beijing and Canton governments came to a standstill as both sides realized that they were unable to defeat the other.
Since Duan practiced an increasingly strong nepotism over time and heaved many relatives and friends into important positions, he also lost his support within the northern government. His opponents gathered around President Feng and formed the so-called Zhili clique against Duan's Anhui clique . The main concerns of the Zhili clique were peaceful negotiations with the southern government, while Duan preferred a military solution. Realizing the level of opposition against him, Duan resigned, but his supporters forced President Feng to reinstate him.
The Anfu Club, the faction of Duan's Anhui clique, emerged from the elections to the National Assembly in 1918 as the strongest party and won three quarters of the seats. In October 1918, Feng's term of office as president also expired, since the establishment of Yuan Shikai as president was still considered to be the beginning of the term of office. The office of president was then occupied by Duan's favorite Xu Shichang . Cao Kun was supposed to become vice-president, but since he was said to have had an extremely expensive affair with a prostitute, he could not be enforced in parliament.
The supporters of the Zhili clique then came up with the idea of appointing a member of the government of the South as vice-president to show a sign of reconciliation. However, since no member of the southern government showed up on the scheduled election date, the post remained vacant. From the failed candidacy of Cao, a strong hostility developed between him and Duan, who had also resigned shortly after Feng's resignation. Although now without office, he remained one of the most powerful men in the north and had excellent connections with the government.
When Duan's supporter Cao Rulin at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 promised the Japanese the handover of all former German concessions on the Chinese Shandong Peninsula, the May Fourth Movement ensued , which weakened the influence of the Anhui clique on the government. Although the First World War was long over, the time allotted for use in Europe army was still not resolved, but was under the command of Xu Shuzheng sent to the Outer Mongolia to occupy.
This led to tension with the Fengtian clique under Zhang Zuolin in Manchuria, who viewed such a large army right on its open border as a threat. After Feng Guozhang's death in December 1919, Cao Kun and Wu Peifu took over the leadership of the Zhili clique and pushed for more influence in parliament and the recall of Xu Shuzheng. President Xu Shichang agreed and dismissed Xu Shuzheng on accusing Duan and his supporters of torpedoing peace negotiations with the southern government. As a result, Duan and Xu Shuzheng declared war on the Beijing government on July 6, 1920. On July 14th, the troops of the Zhili and Anhui cliques met for the first time. After just a few days, Duan's troops were defeated and the Zhili-Anhui War ended. On August 30, 1920, the old parliament was finally dissolved.
Dominance of the Zhili clique
Although the troops of Zhang Zuolin's Fengtian clique had little influence in overthrowing the Anhui clique, they were involved in the new government in Beijing. With Jin Yunpeng man with good connections to both cliques was appointed prime minister. New parliamentary elections were scheduled for the summer of 1921 by President Xu. However, since only eleven provinces participated in this, the election was declared invalid and no new national assembly convened.
During the time, Zhang Zuolin, who had strong supporters in Japan, viewed Wu Peifu's growing military strength and strictly anti-Japanese stance with increasing concern. In December 1921, he took advantage of a financial crisis in the government and got Prime Minister Jin replaced by the more benevolent Liang Shiyi. After only a month, however, Wu forced him to resign because he was too pro-Japanese. As proof of this, he submitted a telegram from Liang to the Chinese diplomats at the Washington Naval Conference , in which he instructed them to adopt a pro-Japanese stance in the negotiations on the status of the Shandong Peninsula. In response to these events, Zhang formed an alliance with Duan Qirui and Sun Yat-sen. After both sides tried to gather as many supporters as possible, the First Zhili-Fengtian War broke out on April 28, 1922 , from which the troops of Wu emerged victorious. Zhang then withdrew to Manchuria.
Strengthened by the outcome of the war, the Zhili clique declared Xu Shichang's presidency illegal because he was elected by an illegal parliament under Duan Qirui, and called for Li Yuanhong to be reinstated as president. They also called on Sun Yat-sen to relinquish the presidency of the southern government so that the two governments could be united. When Sun refused, Wu managed to convince Chen Jiongming to attempt to drive Sun from the south. In return, this should receive control over the province of Guangdong in the united China . Despite Sun's rejection, many members of parliament from the south who had originally been elected in the north went to Beijing, so that the parliament in its composition could meet in a quorum before the split in China in 1917. It then re-elected Li Yuanhong as president.
However, the new government under Li could not exert the same power as his first. The cabinet decisions had to be approved by Wu Peifu, whose growing power and influence increasingly worried his former mentor, Cao Kun, who brokered the relationship between Li and Wu. Cao had not come to terms with his defeat when it came to the office of vice president and was now seeking the office of president. Wu tried to suppress these ambitions by supporting Li. However, he ruined the cabinet of experts he had set up by having his finance minister Luo Wengan arrested according to rumors. As a result, the cabinet closed down and Wu was no longer able to protect Li. The new cabinet was dominated by supporters of Cao, who was also able to win parliament over. He secretly organized strikes by the police who had not been fully paid for a long time. He then occupied the presidential mansion and detained Li, who had tried to escape wearing the presidential insignia.
Over the next several months, Cao prepared for his presidential election and also offered $ 5,000 to each member of parliament who elect him. Although there were protests against this apparent bribery, Cao was elected president and sworn in on the twelfth anniversary of the Wuchang uprising , October 10, 1923. The office of vice president was offered to Zhang Zuolin, Duan Qirui and Lu Yongxiang , but since all three refused, it remained vacant again.
When in September 1924 the Zhili general Qi Xieyuan , who was also the governor of Jiangsu , demanded that Shanghai be placed under the control of his province, tensions arose, since this had been under the administration of Lu Yongxiang, who had been with him until then Zhejiang owned the last province under the control of the Anhui clique. When Zhang Zuolin and Sun Yat-sen sided with Lu, the Second Zhili-Fengtian War broke out , in the course of which the Zhili troops occupied Zhejiang and pushed Zhang back. On October 23, however, Zhili general Feng Yuxiang betrayed Wu Peifu and occupied Beijing with his troops. He placed Cao Kun under house arrest. When Wu withdrew his troops from the front to save Cao, Zhang fell in the back and was able to force him to flee. He fled to General Sun Chuanfang , whose troops could still resist the Zhangs.
Provisional government
On November 2, 1924, Huang Fu became president under pressure from Feng Yuxiang. He pronounced Cao Kun dismissed for bribery and placed every member of parliament who elected Cao under arrest. The 1923 Constitution was repealed and replaced by the guidelines of the Provisional Government . Pu Yi was forced to leave the Forbidden City. Zhang, who was a monarchist, protested the practice unsuccessfully. A short time later, however, he and Huang decided again to appoint Duan Qirui as head of government and to finally dissolve the old parliament. Although the new post of Provisional President combined the power of the President and Prime Minister and eliminated the legislature, Duan could not wield any real power because he was dependent on Feng and Zhang.
Feng, Zhang and Duan invited Sun Yat-sen to Beijing to negotiate national reunification. Sun accepted this invitation, but was barely able to keep the trial dates due to his progressive liver cancer. Furthermore, during the Restoration Conference on February 1, 1925, Sun felt offended that Zhang and Feng were considering reinstating Pu Yi as emperor. The negotiations ended unsuccessfully with Sun's death in March.
On July 30, 1925, Duan called a provisional meeting. However, after the Fengtian general Guo Songling defected to the Guominjun founded by Feng in November , the deliberations were stopped because of the anti-Fengtian war . Zhang made an alliance with Wu Peifu, who wanted to take revenge on Feng. After Guo was killed in combat on December 24th and Feng's troops could not assert themselves, Feng resigned from all offices and went into exile in the Soviet Union , from which he was recalled after a few months. When a massacre of demonstrators against the arbitrariness of the warlords broke out in Beijing on March 18, 1926, Guominjun troops occupied Beijing and forced Duan to seek refuge in a foreign embassy. When Zhang's troops finally retook the city, the latter refused to reinstate Duan. During the conquest by Duan's and Wu Peifu's troops, large parts of the city were plundered and devastated.
Decline
After the victory, Zhang and Wu disagreed as to who should succeed Duan. Wu wanted to reinstate Cao Kun as president, but Zhang vehemently refused. As a result, there were a number of interim and sham governments, some of which only existed on paper. In some cases, the official order collapsed, and cabinet ministers had to be prevented by the military from resigning.
In July 1926, the southern government under Chiang Kai-shek began its northern campaign . This made great progress by April 1927, but then had to be interrupted because Chiang had the members of the Communist Party , which had entered into an alliance with the Kuomintang a few years earlier, forcibly removed from the party and the National Revolutionary Army . After the defeat of the Zhili troops, Zhang personally took over the government in Beijing as generalissimo under the mandate to organize the military government . This was the first time that the government in Beijing also officially presented and understood itself as a military government. Under Zhang's leadership, a functioning bureaucracy revived.
The Guominjun and Governor Yan Xishan subsequently allied with Chiang against Zhang. This decided in June 1928 in particular to pressure the Japanese to abandon Beijing and into the Manchuria retreat, where on 4. June 1928 with the so-called Huanggutun stop an officer of the Japanese Kwantung Army , near Mukden a bomb attack perpetrated on his train and killed him. Yan's troops then occupied Beijing and officially ended the northern government.
Although Zhang's son, Zhang Xueliang set up a government in exile and appointed Pan Fu as prime minister, he was unable to assert himself. The United States was the first state to withdraw its recognition from the northern government on October 1st and recognized the southern government, which now ruled from Nanjing, as the official government. Because of its anti-Japanese attitude, Japan was one of the last states to recognize the southern government. After negotiations between Zhang and Chiang, Chinese reunification finally took place on December 29th .
literature
- Jay Taylor: The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-Shek and the Struggle for Modern China , Harvard University Press, Cambridge, USA, 2009, ISBN 978-0-674-03338-2 .