Northeastern Army

Northeastern Army
A company of Northeastern Army soldiers
Active	1911–1937
Allegiance	Fengtian Clique (1911–1928)  National Pacification Army (1926–1928)  Nationalist China (1928–1937)
Size	170,000–250,000 soldiers (1924)[1][2] 4 gunboats and 7 support craft (1929)[3] 40–100 planes (1924)[4][5][6]
Headquarters	Shenyang, Liaoning
Foreign Suppliers	Japan Germany United Kingdom France
Major Engagements	First Zhili–Fengtian War Second Zhili–Fengtian War Anti-Fengtian War Northern Expedition Sino-Soviet conflict Japanese invasion of Manchuria Chinese Civil War
Commanders
Commander-in-chief	Zhang Zuolin (first) Zhang Xueliang (last)
Notable commanders	Zhang Zongchang Guo Songling Li Jinglin ...full list

The Northeastern Army, also known as the Fengtian Army (see

As General He Zhuguo pointed out, the “Fengtian Army” (Fengjun) should be named the “Northeast Army” (dongbeijun) because it was centrally controlled by Zhang Zuolin and his staff; it was called the Fengtian Army only because the people were accustomed to call it the Fengtian Army.

Nonetheless, many modern scholars use "Fengtian Army" and "Northeast/Northeastern Army" interchangeably for the period before 1928.^{[11][12][13][14]} After 1928, the army was incorporated into the National Revolutionary Army and rechristened the "Northeastern Border Defense Force" (simplified Chinese: 东北边防军; traditional Chinese: 東北邊防軍; pinyin: Dōngběi bian fáng jūn; see Early Nanjing Decade). From that point on, English sources almost exclusively use some variant of "Northeastern Army".^{[15][16][8][17]}

History

Background

The Northeastern Army had its roots in

The Fengtian Army used the symbols of the Beiyang Army during its early years, of which it was nominally a part.^[22]

In late October 1911, the Qing Dynasty brought

Yuan Shikai's death left a power vacuum in Beijing. Zhang Zuolin and the Fengtian clique sided with

By 1920, however, Zhang had grown wary of Duan Qirui's growing power. He therefore sided with Duan's rival

Nonetheless, by 1922 Zhang was once again afraid that the balance of power had begun to tip in the favor of Cao Kun's Zhili clique that now governed Beijing. He launched a war against his former ally to try and shore up his strategic position.^[42] In April, the Fengtian Army marched through the Shanhai Pass with the intention of occupying Hebei. Zhang Jinghui was in overall command with Zuo Fen in charge of the right flank.^[43] Sources disagree drastically on the army's size at this time—McCormack places it at 70–80,000, while Tong puts it as high as 120,000.^[44][45] The opposing force under General Wu Peifu was roughly equivalent in size or slightly smaller. Sources disagree about which force was better equipped.^[44][46] The armies clashed for control of Hebei's strategic railway lines. The Fengtian Army was defeated when its right flank was turned, either because of bad generalship or possibly because the Fengtian commanders had a secret deal with the Zhili Clique.^{[44][45][47][48][49]} The Fengtian Army had made heavy use of its artillery and some use of machine guns, but poor training and a lack of experience with modern weapons meant they had little practical effect.^[50] The routed army was forced to retreat back to Manchuria. The 1st and 16th divisions were nearly completely destroyed, only one brigade of the 28th survived the retreat. Several of the mixed brigades were scattered as well.^[51] Many of Zhang's officers who had been with him since his bandit days were discredited by the defeat.^[52]

Military reforms and the Second Zhili-Fengtian War

One of the most important periods in the history of the Fengtian Army was the two years between the First and Second Zhili-Fengtian Wars. Zhang Zuolin and his advisors came away from their defeat with the lesson that the army would need massive reorganization and re-equipment in order to fight the Zhili. Many of his old associates were purged from command for incompetence or suspected disloyalty. Zhang poured millions into purchasing foreign arms and developing domestic manufacture at the Mukden Arsenal (see Equipment).^[53] Funding also went towards a small navy and air force. The effectiveness of these reforms was mixed. Overall, the Fengtian Army was significantly better-equipped and led in 1924 than in 1922. However, corrupt and despotic officers such as Zhang Zongchang remained in high positions and tensions had been created between the new officers from staff colleges and the old officers from Zhang Zuolin's bandit days.^[54]

The

The Republic of China before (left) and after (right) the Second Zhili–Fengtian War:

  Fengtian clique control

  Zhili clique control

  Guominjun control

The unstable political situation kept the Fengtian Army in intermittent action over the next year. A conference held from 11 to 16 November in Tianjin between Zhang, Feng,

The lack of a single dominant faction made the resumption of large-scale conflict inevitable.^[67] In October, Wu Peifu re-emerged as military governor of Hubei and was set on returning to national leadership.^[68] That same month, independent military governor of Zhejiang, Sun Chuanfang, invaded Jiangsu and Anhui. He quickly defeated Yang Yuting and Jiang Dengxuan and began to fight with Zhang Zongchang over Shandong.^[69] Adding to the Fengtian Army's difficulties, the division of spoils had exacerbated existing tensions in the command. Guo Songling, a leader of the reformist Baoding faction, was frustrated that he had been passed over for promotion. Only one member of his faction, Li Jinglin, had received a military governorship: Zhang and Kan were "old" men and Yang and Jiang, while new men, were members of the Tokyo-educated faction.^[70] Guo wanted to replace Zhang Zuolin with Zhang Xueliang, who had been Guo's student at the Military Academy of the Three Eastern Provinces and looked up to Guo as a friend and mentor.^[71] Most likely with tacit support from Li Jinglin and Feng Yuxiang, Guo revolted on 22 November. He was in command of 70,000 of the Fengtian Army's best troops and seized the Shanhai Pass to divide Zhang in Shenyang from the rest of his army.^[69] Guo marched north to put Shenyang under siege, imprisoning Jiang Dengxuan and over thirty other Fengtian commanders along the way. Jiang, one of Guo's main rivals for influence, was shot. Feng Yuxiang joined the war on 27 November. However, Zhang Zongchang remained loyal to Zhang Zuolin and Li Jinglin backed away from supporting Guo, fighting the Guominjun and leaving Guo without the forces or supplies he needed to take Shenyang.^[72] With the help of the Japanese, Zhang was able to defeat Guo's demoralized forces and retake control of Manchuria by the end of 1925. Besides depriving Zhang of some of his most capable commanders (such as Guo and Jiang), the rebellion showed Zhang how contingent the loyalty of his other officers was on his immediate fortunes. Of particular note were Li Jinglin and Zhang Zongchang, whose distance from Shenyang made them virtually independent.^[73]

During Guo's rebellion, the Guominjun had managed to drive Li Jinglin out of Zhili Province and Kan Zhaoxi out of Rehe in spite of the Second Army's dogged resistance. Now that Guo had been defeated, Fengtian began to retake territory. They allied themselves with Wu Peifu, who was leading an army allied with the Red Spears. A general offensive forced the Guominjun to retreat from Beijing in March, although with its army intact. In a major show of its logistical sophistication and proficiency with modern tactics, the Fengtian Army employed concentrated heavy artillery to overcome the next line of Guominjun defenses at Nankou.^[74] Nonetheless, Feng Yuxiang's army was able to mostly retreat into the rugged terrain of the northwest until the Northern Expedition began to change the military calculus.^[75]

The Northern Expedition and death of Zhang Zuolin

While Wu Peifu had been fighting alongside the Fengtian Army against the Guominjun, the

Despite some victories in the field, the NPA faced a continuing series of major setbacks. The Japanese had supported Zhang at several key points in the past in order to gain his acquiescence to their economic ambitions in Manchuria, but Zhang's growing power threatened to free him from any reliance on their aid. Japanese diplomats had concluded that allowing the KMT to win and forcing Zhang back to Manchuria was preferable to letting Zhang unite China under his personal control. In May 1927, Japanese Colonel

The severely weakened National Pacification Army continued to be pushed back throughout 1928. A coalition of Chiang, Feng, Yan, and Li Zongren surrounded it to the south, and Yan's forces flanked it to the west.^[91] The NPA had planned to retake Henan, but they were in no position to do so. In mid-April, Yan launched an offensive against the Fengtian Army and drove them out of Shuozhou. Nearly one million soldiers participated in the battle along the railway connecting Shanxi with Beijing. In order to immobilize the railways and artillery on trains, Yan and Feng launched a joint siege of Shijiazhuang, a major railway hub, which fell on 9 May. Yan took Zhangjiakou on 25 May. Feng's forces were moving up the Beijing–Hankou railway, forcing the NPA to split their defense.^[96] In April, the Shandong front collapsed as Zhang Zongchang was fully defeated. As NRA forces reached Beijing, Zhang directed 200,000 men to hold the southern front. Although this succeeded in pushing Feng back to Dingzhou, the Guominjun was victorious on the eastern front and immediately moved to sever NPA communications. The Japanese, anxious for Zhang to preserve what was left of his forces so that the NRA would not be able to invade Manchuria unopposed, threatened that they would block Zhang Zuolin from retreating if he allowed himself to be defeated in an engagement. As a result, Zhang decided on 3 June to retreat beyond the passes.^[97] As he was returning to Manchuria on 4 June 1928, his train was blown up by officers of the Kwantung Army.^[98]

Early Nanjing Decade

Zhang Xueliang succeeded his father as leader of the Fengtian Clique. On 1 July 1928, he announced an armistice with the Nationalists and proclaimed that he would not interfere with reunification. This was the opposite of what the Japanese had expected and they demanded that Zhang proclaim Manchurian independence. He refused, and on 3 July, Chiang Kai-shek arrived in Beijing to negotiate a peaceful settlement. On 29 December, Zhang Xueliang announced the replacement of all flags in Manchuria with the flag of Nationalist China, symbolically marking the reunification of the Republic and ending the Northern Expedition.^[99] But although the NPA was formally dissolved and the erstwhile Fengtian Army was renamed the "Northeastern Border Defense Army", it retained its internal structure and autonomy. Zhang, like the other warlords who had declared their allegiance to Chiang, was de facto independent of the central government.^[100][101]

The decision to join with the KMT left important Fengtian commanders dissatisfied. Yang Yuting, who had been put in charge of military strategy in July, reluctantly went along but felt that Fengtian–KMT unity would not last.^[102] He advised Zhang Xueliang to hold the line east of Shanhai Pass and Rehe Province, as well as asking for him to take control of the remnants of Sun Chuanfang's and Zhang Zongchang's armies, each consisting of over 50,000 men, who were now situated between Tangshan and Shanhai Pass. Yang wanted to capitalize on KMT disagreements and infighting in order to prepare for a comeback of the NPA.^[103] But Zhang did not want to pursue this course of action, and he began to suspect Yang of plotting a coup with the Japanese.^[102] In January 1929, Zhang ordered Yang's execution, along with that of one of Yang's associates, Heilongjiang governor Chang Yinhuai. This ended the influence of Japanese-educated clique of officers and helped Zhang consolidate his control.^[104][105]

Nonetheless, the Northeastern Army was not in a strong position in 1929. The financial burden of supporting the army and its many wars had had a crushing impact on the Manchurian economy, especially during Zhang Zuolin's final years.^[106] Zhang Xueliang was forced to cut down on the army's size and funding to the Mukden Arsenal.^[107] Meanwhile, petty warlords began to assert their control over parts of Manchuria and Zhang came under intense pressure from Soviet and Japanese imperialism.^[108] He allowed himself to be convinced by Chiang Kai-shek to seize sole control of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) by force, which for the last few years had been under joint Soviet and Chinese management.^[109][110] This led to the Sino-Soviet Conflict throughout the second half of 1929. The Northeastern Army was outmaneuvered and outfought by the Red Army. Chinese soldiers alienated the local population by killing civilians and forcefully requisitioning supplies. Several thousand were killed or captured and Zhang had to accept a return to the status quo ante bellum.^{[111][112][113]}

In 1929, the Central Plains War began between the Nanjing government and a coalition of northern warlords resisting demilitarization.^[114] Zhang Xueliang was courted by both sides because the Northeastern Army was strong enough to swing the balance of power in either direction. He eventually sided with the Nationalists in return for a 10 million yuan bribe and the promise that he'd be able to administer all of China north of the Yellow River. In mid-September, he marched 100,000 Northeastern soldiers to occupy the Beijing-Tianjin area, taking control of the local railroads and customs revenue. Although this won the war for the Nationalists, it left North China outside central administrative control. Chiang tacitly accepted warlord autonomy in return for their official subservience to Nanjing.^[115][116] Zhang began to play host to political dissents in Hubei, including Communist sympathizers.^[117]

Japanese invasion of Manchuria

In October 1935, the

In November 1936, Zhang asked Chiang to come to Xi'an to raise the morale of troops unwilling to fight the Communists. When he arrived, Northeastern soldiers overwhelmed his bodyguard and placed him under house arrest.^[143] A faction of the army led by Yang Hucheng and the radical young officers of the "Anti-Japanese Comrade Society" wanted to execute Chiang, but Zhang and the Communists insisted that he be kept alive and convinced to change his policy towards Japan and the Communists.^[144][145] They argued that an alliance with Chiang was their best chance to combat the Japanese, while killing him would only provoke retaliation from the Nanjing Government.^[142] The Northeastern Army attempted to broadcast 8 demands to the Chinese public explaining why they arrested Chiang and the conditions for his release, but Nationalist censorship prevented their publication outside the Communist-held areas. Nonetheless, Chiang eventually agreed to negotiate with CCP diplomats Zhou Enlai and Lin Boqu.^[146][141] By late December Chiang had given a verbal promise that he would end the civil war and resist Japanese aggression.^[146]

Chiang was released on 26 December and returned to Nanjing with Zhang Xueliang. Although he announced a cease fire in the civil war, he repudiated any promises that he had made in Xi'an. Zhang was imprisoned and charged with treason. Chiang then sent 37 army divisions north to surround the Northeastern Army and force them to stand down. The army was deeply divided on the appropriate response. Yang Hucheng and the Anti-Japanese Comrade Society wanted to stand and fight if the KMT army attacked, and refuse to negotiate until Zhang was released. The Communist representatives strongly disagreed and cautioned that civil war would, in the words of Zhou Enlai, "make China into another Spain".^[147] Negotiations between the CCP and Nanjing continued. However, when a conference of Northeastern officers in January 1937 overwhelmingly resolved not to surrender peacefully, the CCP reluctantly decided that they could not abandon their allies and pledged to fight alongside them if the KMT attacked. The situation was again reversed when the five most senior Northeastern generals met separately and decided to surrender. The radical officers were enraged and assassinated one of the generals on 2 February, but this only turned the majority of the soldiers against the plan to stand and fight.^[148] The Northeastern Army peacefully surrendered to advancing KMT forces and was divided into new units, which were sent to Hebei, Hunan, and Anhui.^[149] Yang Hucheng, however, was arrested and eventually executed, while the leaders of the Anti-Japanese Comrade Society defected to the Red Army. Zhang was kept under house arrest for over 50 years before emigrating to Hawaii in 1993. Chiang did eventually keep his promise to the CCP. After six months of continued negotiations, he signed a formal agreement creating the Second United Front, a military alliance of the Communists and Nationalists against Japan.^[150]

Structure

Originally, the Fengtian Army was composed solely of the 27th division. In 1917, the army expanded to include the 28th division (whose commander had been dismissed for supporting the Manchu Restoration) and the newly created 29th division.^[151] In theory, these units remained part of the national Beiyang Army, but in reality they answered to Zhang Zuolin alone.

After the army reorganization program undertaken following the First Zhili-Fengtian War, the basic unit became the brigade. Although not strictly observed in practice, brigades were in theory divided into three regiments, each regiment into three battalions, and each battalion into three companies of 150 men each.^[51] The total manpower of a standard brigade was therefore around 4,000 men.^[152] Brigades were not necessarily subdivisions of divisions. Some were, but most operated as independent mixed brigades in the style of the Japanese Army.^[51]

Command

In 1923, the senior staff of the Fengtian Army included commander-in-chief Zhang Zuolin, deputy commanders Sun Liechen and Wu Junsheng, and Yang Yuting as chief of staff. The senior staff in 1929 included commander-in-chief Zhang Xueliang, vice-commander (in Jilin) Zhang Zuoxiang, vice-commander (in Heilongjiang) Wan Fulin, and commander of the Harbin special district Zhang Jinghui.^[154] Other notable commanders included:

• Time magazine to dub him "China's basest warlord."^[155]
• Wu Junsheng – Commander of the cavalry and military governor of Heilongjiang until his death alongside Zhang Zuolin in the Huanggutun incident.^[156][157]
• Guo Songling – Artillery officer, teacher at the military college, and mentor of Zhang Xueliang. Would later rebel against Zhang Zuolin.^[158][70]
• Li Jinglin – Commander of the Fengtian clique's Zhili Army and governor of Zhili province 1924–25.^[159]
• Chu Yupu – Succeeded Li and Governor of Zhili and commander of the Zhili Army.^[160]
• Konstantin Petrovich Nechaev – De facto commander of all White Russian mercenaries who served in the Fengtian armies; official commander of the 65th Infantry Division^[161][162]

Naval and Air Forces

Although mainly a land-based force, the Northeastern Army also had a small navy and air force. The navy had its origins in the

When Zhang Zuolin was appointed commander of the forward and center route armies of Manchuria in 1911, he brought with him the irregulars he already had under his command. His closest associates became senior officers of the combined force, including Zhang Jinghui, Zhang Zuoxiang, Tang Yulin, and Zuo Fen.^[166] Fengtian soldiers were mostly ethnically Chinese and overwhelmingly from Fengtian province, because this was where the 27th division did its recruiting according to the territorial system of recruitment laid out under the Qing.^[30][23] This recruitment system was preserved by Zhang in his early years because of its benefits to unit cohesion.^[167] As additional divisions based in other Manchurian provinces were absorbed, the geographical makeup of the army became consequently more diverse.^[30] When Li Jinglin and Zhang Zongchang's divisions were relocated to Zhili and Shandong respectively after the Second Zhili-Fengtian War, they began recruiting from the local populations and soon locals made up a majority in both armies. The monthly salary remained the same as it had been under the Qing—in 1922, that was 4.2 yuan for a second-class private.^[52] At its height, circa 1926, the Fengtian Army consisted of somewhere between 170,000 and 250,000 men.^[1][2][55]

The Fengtian Army included a number of foreigners in its ranks as soldiers, officers, and advisors. The most important were the Japanese advisors, who not only provided Zhang with military expertise but—because they retained their positions as officers in the

As mentioned, the original officer core consisted of Zhang's former bandit comrades who were personally loyal to him. But in 1919, the Beiyang government's War Department sponsored the creation of the Military Academy of the Three Eastern Provinces, which Zhang enthusiastically supported. Graduates of the Baoding Military Academy, including artillery officer Guo Songling, were recruited to the faculty. This academy trained 7,971 officers from 1919 to 1930, forming the backbone of the Fengtian's lower- and mid-level officers.^[158] Zhang also sent many of his ex-bandit officers, who rarely had formal military training, to study at the academy. In most cases, though, this seemed to have little effect on their accustomed ways of thinking. After the Fengtian Army's defeat in the First Zhili-Fengtian War, it was clear to Zhang and his advisors that the incompetence of these so-called "old men" had been a major contributing factor. Several were removed from command and replaced with "new men", officers who had begun their careers with formal military training. The new men could be broadly separated into two factions. The first, centered around figures who had been educated domestically, either at Baoding Military Academy (Guo Songling, Li Jinglin) or the Military Academy of the Three Eastern Provinces (Zhang Xueliang). The second faction had been educated in Japan at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. They included Han Linchun, Yang Yuting, and Jiang Dengxuan.^[178][179] Relations between officers of these three factions—the old men and the two groups of new men—were often bitter to the point of threatening to break up the army. The Japanese-educated clique wanted to intervene in Chinese politics more directly and actively, while the Chinese-educated clique opposed many military ventures.^[180] The old men, on the other hand, often showed little interest in military affairs other than as a means of personal profit (such as in the case of Kan Zhaoxi).^[64][g] Factional rivalries were an important cause of the 1925 rebellion led by Guo Songling, which nearly overthrew Zhang Zuolin.^[70] Zhang's ultimate triumph dealt a fatal blow to Guo's Chinese-educated faction, and the final years of Zhang's regime were marked by a return to valuing loyalty above professional skill.^[181][182]

Equipment

During the Warlord Era, modern weaponry was expensive and often difficult to acquire. When created, the Fengtian Army was composed of former bandits armed with what was available. The Hanyang 88, designed based on the German Gewehr 1888, had been the standard infantry rifle under the Qing and was therefore widely available.^[183][184] A smaller quantity of the Type 1 rifle (a Chinese copy of the Mauser Model 1907) were produced towards the end of the Qing and during the early Republican period and may have been used as well.^[185] Given Manchuria's location between Russia and Japanese-occupied Korea, other common rifles included the Russian Mosin–Nagant model 1891, various models of the Japanese Murata, and the Japanese Arisakas of 1897 and 1905.^[183][186] Overall, the quality of these weapons were low. The China Yearbook estimated that even in 1924, 80 percent of Chinese rifles generally were "antiquated, badly kept, or in poor condition".^[187] A major difficulty for the Fengtian Army was that, at the start of the Warlord Era in 1916, none of the eight Chinese armories capable of producing new armaments were located in Manchuria.^[188] Before 1922, the Mukden "Arsenal" was capable of producing only small amounts of ammunition.^[189] New supplies came in piecemeal: Zhang received a shipment of arms from Yuan Shikai in 1911, and by agreement with Duan Qirui, seized 17 million yen worth of Japanese military supplies in 1917.^[35] To this was added a large amount of Japanese-funded equipment, including cars and airplanes, that was captured from the defeated Anhui Clique in 1920.^[40] The cars were particularly valuable: by 1926 there were still only 8,000 motor vehicles in all of China.^[190] French Renault FT tanks deployed to Vladivostok during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War were given to the Fengtian Army in 1919.^[191] Yet after 1919, even these irregular windfalls became less frequent, thanks to an arms embargo on China agreed to by most of the major world powers.^[192]

The Fengtian Army's defeat in the First Zhili-Fengtian War spurred Zhang Zuolin to launch a campaign of modernization. He poured over 17 million yuan into expanding and improving the Mukden Arsenal, which was overseen by a series of talented superintendents: Tao Zhiping in 1922,

See also

• Order of battle Defense of the Great Wall: shows the command structure of the Northeastern Army in 1933
• Zhili Army: a breakoff of the Fengtian Army based in Zhili province, 1924–1928
• Other Armies in Warlord Era China:

• National Pacification Army
• Guominjun
• National Revolutionary Army

Notes

References

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