Sheridan, James. "The Warlord Era: Politics and Militarism under the Peking Government, 1916-1928". In The Cambridge History of China, Vol.12, Republican China, 1912-1949, Part 1, edited by John K. Fairbank, 284-321. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Sheridan, James. "The Warlord Era: Politics and Militarism under the Peking Government, 1916-1928". In The Cambridge History of China, Vol.12, Republican China, 1912-1949, Part 1, edited by John K. Fairbank, 284-321. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

• The warlords and military governors of China during the Republican period had diverse backgrounds. Those prominent during the years immediately after Yuan Shikai's death tended to have been senior Qing military commanders. Many had held administrative positions in the Yuan government. By the early 1920s, however, many warlords were young and of humble backgrounds (284-285).
• Unlike warlords in other places during other periods of history, Chinese warlords presided over well-trained and organized armies that remained in tact after the commander's death. Warlords were instead defined by exercising both military and political authority in their territories (287).
• Warlords often sought to bind their armies together through personal connections with senior officers. This included appointing family members to key positions, taking on the roles of mentor to junior officers, and marrying into the families of prominent officers (287-288).
• Most soldiers during the Warlord period were peasants, recruited because armed service provided a guaranteed source of food and because the army was seen as a means of social mobility. Most warlord armies recruited anyone who volunteered, allowing total troop numbers to swell from 500,000 in 1916 to over 2 million by 1928 (288).
• After victory over a rival army, it was common for the victorious commander to recruit entire units of the defeated force into his own army. These units typically remained in tact with their original command structures. By the late 1920s, many platoons had served in three or four different armies (288).
• The lack of loyalty among the rank-and-file troops in Chinese armies manifested in consistently poor combat performance. Extreme tactics, like having the rearguard shoot fleeing soldiers, had to be used to enforce discipline. Since defeat in battle could sometimes risk the defection of large parts of your army, warlords sought to avoid fights they might lose and often sought to bribe officers to defect rather than fight (289).
• Combat casualties when battles did occur were usually very high by contemporary standards. There were few if any trained medical officers or facilities. What minimal medical care existed was either provided within units by untrained soldiers or by nurses and doctors associated with missionary groups (289).
• The actual governance of warlords varied greatly across the country. Some warlords were even quite progressive. For example, Yan Xishan 阎锡山, Governor of Shanxi throughout the Warlord era, banned foot-binding, improved education for women, and provided some basic level of medical care. On the other hand, many other warlords -- most infamously Zhang Jingyao 张敬尧 -- were corrupt and rapacious (289-290).
• Military and civilian government were nominally independent in China, although the civilian government was subordinate to military authority. As the Warlord era continued, however, more levels of civilian government came to be dominated by military officials. By the 1920s, most civilian officials had previously been in military service (290-291).
• Warlords were always strapped for cash and sought to maximize revenue in the smallest possible time period because control over taxable resources or population was liable to change due to military losses (291).
• The most common source of revenue was land taxes, often collected 'in advance'. Other government taxed commerce, printed their own currencies to forcibly sell to businesses, seized railways, or set up monopolies on certain goods. Some governments set up rackets on previously illicit goods, in particular opium, gambling, and prostitution (291-292).
• Printing currency was a common method of acquiring revenue from the population during the Warlord era. This inflationary trend led to a decline in commerce as most merchants were reticent to conduct business with the money printed by warlords (318).
• Military government needed immediate cash more than they sought long-term revenue streams, so businesses and landowners would often forced and encouraged to pay tariffs, licensing fees, and taxes far in advance, often at discounted rates in return for early or advance payment (292).
• Warlord often sought to squeeze the last possible amount of revenue out of a city before losing military control. For example, when Zhang Jingyao was forced to evacuate Changsha in 1920, he demanded $800,000 or else he would loot the city before fleeing (292).
• Almost all government revenue during this period went to military expenditure, with expenditure on civilian services declining despite significant increases in the rate of taxation. Almost all money either went into soldier salaries, military equipment and upkeep, or the growing personal fortunes of warlords (292).
• Most prominent warlords were organized into four main cliques: the Anhui clique, the Fengtian clique, the Guangxi clique, and the Zhili clique. The Fengtian and Guangxi cliques were very closely knit, while the other two cliques had decidedly weaker internal cohesion, as they had formed out of the collapse of Yuan Shikai's government (293-294).
• In 1920, before the first major war between the rival cliques since the death of Yuan Shikai, the Fengtian clique controlled the provinces of Fengtian, Jilin, and Heilongjiang; the Anhui clique controlled Fujian, Zhejiang, Anhui, Shandong, Rehe, Chahaer, Suiyuan, Shaanxi, northern Hunan, and Beijing; the Zhili clique controlled Henan, Jiangsu, Hubei, Jiangxi, southern Hunan, and southern Zhili; and Yunan, Shanxi, Guizhou, Guangxi and Guangdong, and the western provinces remained under independent warlords (298).
• Duan Qirui 段祺瑞, head of the Anhui clique, inherited military authority after Yuan Shikai's death, but alienated many elements of the military by favoring his own supporters and dominating politics through the Anfu Club, stacked with his loyalists. Many of these disaffected officers supported  Feng Guozhang 冯国璋, head of the Zhili clique (294).
• After the death of Feng Guozhang in 1919, the Zhili clique splintered into two factions: one led by Cao Kun 曹锟 and one led by Wu Peifu 吴佩孚, which itself later splintered into small factions (296).
• The Fengtian clique was formed by Zhang Zuolin 张作霖, a Manchurian peasant who usurped effective power from the appointed military governor of Fengtian in 1916. Taking advantage of the dismissal of several pro-Manchu restoration officials from Manchuria in the late 1910s, Zhang seized effective control of all three provinces, with significant influence over commanders in other parts of the northern China (295).
• The Guangxi clique was a triumvirate of Li Zongren 李宗仁, Bai Chongxi 白崇禧, and Huang Xuchu 黄旭初. Originally formed in the 1920s among the strongest warlords to united the extremely fractured province, at the time of victory in 1924, they continued to rule collectively (295-296).
• Although cliques certainly were the major center of power within the Chinese political system during the Warlord era, they did not include many local or regional warlords. Importantly, these warlord often controlled key areas or vital resources. The control of even the most powerful cliques was thus far from absolute in most of their claimed territory (302).
• The Warlord era was characterized by hundreds of wars between different factions, most of which were fought over small territories or control of local revenue streams. The more significant wars during this period were fought between the major clique for control of the official government in Beijing (296). These war varied widely in length, but those in 1920 and 1922 often lasted under two weeks, with fighting concentrated in very small areas. The 1926 war against Feng Yuxiang was by far the longest, lasting 8 months (303).
• The first major war was in 1920, as the Zhili clique and Fengtian clique tried to remove the Anhui clique of Duan Qirui from power as they saw it as becoming too powerful. The coalition won the war, restricting the clique's supporters in Hunan, Fujian, and Zhejiang, and dividing provinces previously under its control: Inner Mongolia going to the Fengtian clique and other provinces coming under the Zhili clique's control (297, 299).
• The second major war broke out in 1922, due to a perception that the Zhili clique, under Cao Kun, had become too powerful. The war pitted the Zhili clique against the Fengtian clique, the remaining supporters of the Anhui clique, and Sun Yatsen's government in Guangdong. The Zhili clique won the war, but was unable to invade Manchuria or the extreme south (297, 300).
• Another war broke out between the Fengtian and Zhili cliques in 1924, the former supported by southern warlords and pro-Anhui units in northern China. This attempt to unseat the Zhili government succeeded because the Fengtian clique managed to convince Feng Yuxiang 馮玉祥, a prominent general, to betray Wu Peifu and support the Fengtian clique. This placed Shandong and Zhili under the control of the Fengtian clique, gave Feng Yuxiang control of Shaaxi, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, and Henan, and reduced the Zhili clique to Wu Peifu's domain in Hunan and Hubei, and his protege Sun Chuanfang's 孙传芳 control over Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Zhejiang (297, 301).
• The Anhui clique continued to resist opposition forces after the defection of Feng Yuxiang in 1924. They allied themselves with the Fengtian clique against General Feng in 1926, managing to push his forces back to the west. At the end of this campaign, General Zhang controlled Beijing and was the most powerful military leader in China (297).
• The end of the joint Anhui-Fengtian war against Feng Yuxiang marked the start of a new era in Chinese politics, as General Zhang now faced the National Revolutionary Army 国民革命军, a force organized by the Guomindang to end warlordism in China (297).
• While the weakness of the central government in Beijing made the country vulnerable to the depredations of foreign powers, the actual presence of the warlords interrupted the economic exploitation of the country by those same powers. Warlords taxed, looted, or seized foreign-owned businesses, further reducing profits greatly reduced by wartime instability (303).
• Foreign governments continually petitioned the Beijing government to deal with the illegal actions of warlords towards foreigners and foreign property in the country, but the weakness of the central government meant that nothing could actually be done (304).
• If they did want foreign-owned infrastructure and businesses to be protected, foreign governments had to take extraordinary measures. In most cases, continued operation depending on paying protection and bribes to local military commanders. For example, to implement an agreement on the management of the Chinese Eastern Railway in 1924, the Soviet government had to make separate deals with both the Beijing government and Zhang Zuolin (304).
• Although the Arms Embargo Treaty of 1919 prohibited many the USA, Japan, Brazil, and many European states from selling arms to China, foreigners still supplied large quantities of arms for various Chinese warlords. There were also some foreigners who played minor roles in the conflict: General Zhang's arsenal was managed by an Englishman and several American pilots fought for Chen Jiongming 陳炯明, a revolutionary Guangdong warlord (304).
• Japan was intimately involved in Chinese politics during the Warlord era, backing and arming different factions throughout the period. In 1916, Japan supported the Anhui clique of Duan Qirui, seeking to make him into a Japanese client through government debt to Japan. This plan initially worked, as the Beijing government under General Duan became heavily indebted to Japan and Japanese businessmen were allowed to dominate the economic exploitation of China (304-305).
• After the defeat of the Anhui clique in 1920, Japan became more directly involved in Manchurian politics. They sought stability for Japanese investment in northern China, offering General Zhang a deal by which the Japanese would support his government in Manchuria on the condition that he abandon his goals to overthrow the Beijing government, which would have destabilize the Japanese position in the country (305).
• The conditions of cooperation between Japan and General Zhang were deeply exploitative and contractual. The Japanese explicitly offered money to purchase weapons in return for ownership of key areas of Manchurian industry and natural resources (305).
• General Zhang did not abide by Japanese wishes that he remain involved in national politics. Despite this, the Japanese considered him the best guarantee of stability in Manchuria so they continued supporting him. This assistance was often crucial, as it was the Japanese who provided the cash to bribe Feng Yuxiang in 1924 and Japanese troops crushed a potentially crippling mutiny in Mukden in 1925 (306).
• It was the Japanese army that killed Zhang Zuolin as well, with extremist army officers shooting him in 1928 in the hope, contrary to government policy, that instability in Manchuria could be exploited to Japan's advantage (306).
• The Soviet government backed Feng Yuxiang beginning in 1924, when General Feng sought foreign assistance to assist in a future conflict against Zhang Zuolin's Japan-backed forces. In return for accepting some Guomindang policies, which were usually not actually implemented, the Soviet Union provided General Feng with weapons, funds, and military advisers (306).
• After several months of losing a war against General Zhang, General Feng gave up his command in early 1926 to tour the Soviet Union for 5 months. When he returned to China in Fall 1926, he army had been badly defeated, but he had secured a 4.5 million ruble loan from the Soviet government (306).
• Impressed by the organization and wealth of the Soviet Union, General Feng decided to back the New Revolutionary Army of the Guomindang, which had officially allied with the Communists. After Guomindang victory in the Northern Expedition and the subsequent purge of Communists from the Guomindang, the Soviets expected Feng Yuxiang to lead a left-wing faction against Chiang Kai-Shek, but instead he severed all ties with the USSR and supported Chiang Kai-Shek (307). 
• The British sought the restoration of a stable and unified Chinese government after the death of Yuan Shikai, seeing this as the way to restore its investments and trade dominance in China. In this capacity they reluctantly supported Duan Qirui, who they disliked for his pro-Japanese orientation, and then the Zhili clique, which they believed had the potential to reunite China (307).
• Britain, unlike Japan and the USSR, actually abided by the 1919 Arms Embargo Treaty, refusing to sell weapons or transfer funds to Chinese warlords, despite strong diplomatic support for Wu Peifu. General Wu was still indirectly supported, however, as British companies paid his army large sums of money in return for protection (307).
• The internationally recognized Beijing government underwent frequent change during the Warlord era, as different factions seized control. From 1916 to 1928, there were seven different presidents, four period of president-less cabinet rule, five distinct parliament, four different constitution, and a brief restoration of the Manchu monarchy (307-308).
• After the death of Yuan Shikai, Duan Qirui had become Prime Minister. The contemporary President was Li Yuanhong 黎元洪, but his government was dominated by the military influence wielded by Prime Minister Duan. Although they supported a weaker presidency, most Republicans were deeply opposed to Duan Qirui and sought to undermine his national rule (308).
• The first constitutional crisis unfolded in 1917 over Chinese involvement in World War I. Prime Minister Duan, with support from Liang Qichao 梁啟超, believed Chinese participation on the Allied side would improve China's international prestige. To pressure the reticent Parliament into declaring war, Prime Minister Duan assembled a number of military leaders in Beijing in April 1917 to declare their support for war against the Central Powers. Parliament refused to do so as long as Duan Qirui remained Prime Minister, prompting militarist warlords to call on President Li to disband Parliament. Instead, President Li sided with Parliament and dismissed President Duan in May 1917 (308).
• Duan Qirui refused to accept the decision and called on the military to support him. In response, the military governors of the eight northern provinces declared their support for Duan Qirui over the Li government. The Beijing government has paralyzed during this time, as no one was willing to risk military reprisal by replacing Duan Qirui as Prime Minister (308).
• Zhang Xun 张勋, a northern general who famously refused to cut his queue, offered to mediate between Duan Qirui and Li Yuanhong. Zhang Xun originally appeared to support the militarists under General Duan, as he demanded that President Li disband Parliament. When President Li acceded to this request in July 1917, however, Zhang Xun marched his own forces into Beijing and declared the restoration of the Manchu monarchy under Pu Yi (308-309).
• Although knowledge of Zhang Xun royalist sympathies were well-known, no one thought the madman would actually try to restore the Emperor. The warlords turned on Zhang Xun immediately after the Manchu restoration, supporting a military campaign led by Duan Qirui, who has reappointed Premier by Li Yuanhong. After two weeks of fighting, Zhang Xun was forced to flee into the Netherlandish embassy and Duan Qirui entered Beijing, declaring himself head of government and forcing Li Yuanhong to resign the presidency in favor of Feng Guozhang (309).
• Feng Guozhang was cognizant of the growing militarization of Chinese politics and made sure that, before he accepted the presidency, his supporters were in power as military governors of Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and Hubei (309).
• Duan Qirui decided not to recall Parliament after his military victory of Zhang Xun in July 1917, instead organizing new elections that he rigged by engineering the political domination of the Anfu Club, his own political organization. As Premier, Duan Qirui sought to restore the direct national power that Yuan Shikai had enjoyed. Warlords who feared for their continued power banded together into the Zhili clique to resist him (309-310).
• Premier Duan's first move to consolidate power was to appoint a friendly government in Hunan, which has accessible by railroad from the north and bordered the three secessionist provinces of the south. In August 1917, Premier Duan appointed his own military governor of Hunan, prompting to current Hunanese government to revolt and forcing Duan Qirui's appointment out of the province. In Spring 1918, Wu Peifu managed to defeat the Hunanese government, but was sidelined when Duan Qirui appointed Zhang Jingyao as military governor instead of him (310).
• The sidelining of Wu Peifu in Hunan marked another split in Chinese government, prompting Wu Peifu to halt his military campaign in the south and become increasingly vocal in his opposition to Premier Duan (310).
• Following declaration of war against Germany in August 1917, the Duan government began to receive seizble loans and support from Japan, allegedly to outfit a force for deployment in Europe. This shift of power towards Duan Qirui made other warlords deeply suspicious, including General Wu's superior, Cao Kun, who feared he would be removed as governor of Zhili (310).
• Wu Peifu, Cao Kun, and other militarists not allied to Duan Qirui's Anhui clique looked towards President Feng as another locus of power, supporting him against Duan Qirui. When Feng Guozhang resigned from the presidency in 1918 and died in 1919, control of the Zhili clique passed onto Cao Kun (310-311).
• During this time, Zhang Zuolin was also trying to expand his power from Manchuria into northern China. He was concerned with Premier Duan's attempts to expand state power in Inner Mongolia, a region he considered to be under his influence. This conflict led the Fengtian and Zhili cliques to cooperate (311).
• The conflict between the Anhui clique and the Fengtian and Zhili cliques developed from a popular anger about the pro-Japanese orientation of the Duan government. The transfer of the Shandong peninsula to Japanese control at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference caused massive public anger, especially among Chinese intellectuals and Zhili clique generals. In 1920, a coalition of anti-Duan warlords demanded that Premier Duan reorganize the Beijing government to eliminate the Anhui clique's political monopoly, reopen peace talks with the south, and reduce the Anhui clique's military forces (311).
• Premier Duan refused to accept these demands and conflict broke out in July 1920. The coalition of Fengtian and Zhili cliques defeated the Anhui clique after less than two weeks of low-intensity fighting. Seeing his imminent defeat, Duan Qirui followed the tradition of defeated Chinese leaders and retired to study Buddhism (311).
• After their victory in 1920, the Fengtian and Zhili cliques began the difficult task of reorganizing the Beijing government to reflect the power balance between all of the factions within each clique. Xu Shichang 徐世昌, a close friend of Yuan Shikai who had been appointed President in 1918, had no strong political affiliation and was allowed to continue in this role. Jin Yunpeng 靳云鹏, seen as loyal to both camps as a former protege of Wu Peifu and a relative by marriage of Zhang Zuolin, has appointed as Prime Minister (311-312).
• Cao Kun was named Inspecting Commissioner, a position with the power to appoint military governors, of Zhili, Shandong, and Hunan, while Zhang Zuolin was made Inspecting Commissioner of Mongolia and Xinjiang. Wu Peifu was made assistant to Cao Kun, but also exercised independent power in Hunan (312).
• The Anfu Parliament had been dissolved after Duan Qirui's defeat, but there was still a division on whether to call new elections. President Xu called new elections for Parliament, but the Constitutional Protection Movement in Guangdong refused to participate on the basis that the original parliament dismissed by Duan Qirui in 1917 had never finished serving its term. New elections were held, but only in 11 provinces, meaning that the new Parliament did not have enough members for the quorum and never actually met (312).
• Wu Peifu agitated for more power within the Zhili clique, dissatisfied with his assistant role to Cao Kun. He established control over Hubei in 1921 by taking advantage of internal disorder in the province. In 1921, politicians in Hubei demanded that the province organize its own constitution and democratic government. When Wang Zhangyuan, 王占元, the military governor of Hubei refused, the federalist governor of Hunan declared himself in favor of the movement and moved to remove General Wang from power. General Wang looked towards Wu Peifu for support, but instead Wu Peifu waited until Wang Zhangyuan had been defeated, then drove the Hunanese army out and took control of Hubei himself. Through this action, Wu Peifu increasingly challenged Cao Kun for control of the Zhili clique (312-313).
• Tensions over the power of the Zhili clique after 1920 reached a peak in 1921 when General Wu sought to centralize his power over the five provinces of the Yangtze. This threat brought the Fengtian clique and the Guangzhou government of Sun Yatsen together in opposition to the Zhili clique (313).
• During a financial crisis in 1921, Zhang Zuolin took the opportunity to replace Jin Yunpeng as Prime Minister with Liang Shiyi 梁士詒, a man more loyal to Zhang Zuolin. Wu Peifu strongly objected to this change, attacking Prime Minister Liang for his pro-Japanese policies and blaming Zhang Zuolin for his appointment (313).
• The leadership of the Fengtian and Zhili cliques denounced each other in a series of telegrams throughout early 1922, with the actual conflict not beginning until Spring 1922. In a series of short surprise victories, Zhili clique forces managed to push Zhang Zuolin back into Manchuria. Zhang Zuolin was removed from all of his official positions; in response to this, Zhang Zuolin declared Manchuria as independent (313).
• While Sun Yatsen sent an expedition northwards to fight the Zhili clique, Chen Jiongming, a Guomindang military leader, attacked the Guomindang headquarters in Guangzhou and forced Sun Yatsen to flee. General Chen then established himself as the military governor of Guangdong with the support of Wu Peifu (313).
• The Zhili clique dismissed President Xu and replaced him with Li Yuanhong. They also recalled the original parliament, whose members had been dismissed by Yuan Shikai in 1914 and by Duan Qirui in 1917. The government was wracked by division between supporters of Wu Peifu and those of Cao Kun (313-314).
• In late 1922, the government was dominated by supporters of General Wu, who controlled the Cabinet. In early 1923, however, the Cabinet was ousted on corruption charges, allowing General Cao to appoint his own loyalists. Neither body allowed Li Yuanhong to actually govern, and he was not even given funds to pay the salaries of administrative staff or appointees (314).
• After establishing domination of the Cabinet in 1923, General Cao decided to pursue his presidential ambitions. Li Yuanhong was literally chased from Beijing by soldiers in June 1923 and declared to have resigned the presidency. In October, Cao Kun bribed enough members of the Parliament to elect him President (314).
• Whereas previously, Wu Peifu had supported national reconciliation, the continuation of Zhang Zuolin's government in Mukden and the behavior of Cao Kun in Beijing convinced him that China could only be reunified through military force (314).
• Zhang Zuolin had been training and modernizing his army during the entire peacetime period, as well as restoring his alliance with Sun Yatsen, who had regained control over Guangdong. After months of jingoistic proclamations and telegrams, fighting began in Autumn 1924 (314).
• Zhili clique forces initially seemed to be very successful against the Fengtian clique, but in October 1924, Feng Yuxiang defected and turned on Zhili clique forces. On 23 October 1924, General Feng seized control of Beijing, imprisoned President Cao, and declared an end to the fighting. General Wu tried to muster remaining Zhili clique members to drive out Feng Yuxiang, but his armies were too distant to make a difference and defections left him surrounded by hostile forces in Hunan and Hubei (314).
• Feng Yuxiang had defected because he had felt sidelined by Wu Peifu, whose personal moral character he disliked. General Feng had refused to send certain taxes to General Wu when he had been governor of Hunan, and had been transferred to a vulnerable position in Beijing in retaliation. Feng Yuxiang did not see himself gaining anything from a Zhili victory in the war, and was offered a lot of money, perhaps around ¥1.5 million yen, to defect to the Fengtian clique (314-315).
• The division of power between Feng Yuxiang and Zhang Zuolin reflected their areas of military control, with Zhang Zuolin controlling the northeast and Feng Yuxiang establishing control over the northwest to Shaanxi and Henan (315).
• Feng Yuxiang recalled Duan Qirui from retirement to led a new government in Beijing as the Chief Executive, a power used to issue a new constitution (315-316).
• Following the Zhili clique's defeat in 1924, alliance changed to reflect the new challenge for control over Beijing posed by General Feng. After a failed invasion of Jiangsu and Anhui, from which he was driven out by Sun Chuanfang, Zhang Zuolin created an alliance with Wu Peifu against Feng Yuxiang (315). In December 1925, war broke out between Feng Yuxiang and Zhang Zuolin (316).
• By mid-1926, it was clear to Feng Yuxiang that he was losing the war against Wu Peifu and Zhang Zuolin, and he retired his commission to tour the Soviet Union. By the Summer of 1926, Feng Yuxiang's forces were in retreat into western China, leaving Wu Peifu and Zhang Zuolin in control of the government (316).
• After an attempt by Feng Yuxiang's soldiers to arrest him in April 1926 on charges of intriguing with the enemy, Duan Qirui fled and hid in the Legation Quarter of Beijing. He was briefly returned to the presidency after General Feng's army was driven from Beijing, but was forced to resign on 20 April 1926 by Zhang Zuolin (316).
• Zhang Zuolin and Wu Peifu could not agree on a candidate for the presidency or resolve any issues regarding the Parliament, so instead a 'regency cabinet' was appointed of officials selected by the major warlords. Multiple regency cabinets collapsed, leading to the appointment of new ones with different members (316).
• "From the middle of 1926 to mid 1927, the regency cabinets had 'no more substance than a ruler in a motion picture'. The minister of finance had no money. The minister of communications regulated no railways because they were all in the hands of military commanders. The minister of education presumably controlled government schools, but they were closed because utility bills had not been paid and teachers had received no salaries. The minister of interior 'could not name a single subordinate without first consulting the wishes of a warlord who happened to control the district in which the subordinate would act.' Provincial officials, working through local consulates, settled all disputes with foreign governments, so the minister of foreign affairs had nothing to do. The minister of the army had no authority over the troop units throughout the country; he took orders from the most powerful militarist" (316).
• On 17 June 1927, Zhang Zuolin abolished the regency cabinet and declared himself Grand Marshall of China. He organized a military government, but in practice it only formalized de facto control. The country had not had a functioning national government in a year and Grand Marshal Zhang's rule was not recognized by Wu Peifu or the Guangzhou government (317).
• The power of both Wu Peifu and Zhang Zuolin was challenged in the Northern Expedition of the New Revolutionary Army of the Guomindang, which had been conducting an active military campaign since 1926 and managed to force Grand Marshall Zhang to abandon Beijing in June 1928 (317).
• Warlord rule in China was the impetus for massive famines across northern China in the 1920s. These famines had multiple causes, the primary ones being the warlord practice of forcing farmers to replace food crops with opium or other cash crops, and the seizure of draft animals by soldiers, decreasing the agricultural productivity of farms (318).
• The intense militarization of Chinese society during the Warlord era coincided with massive destruction of peasant livelihoods, leading to widespread issues of banditry across the country. This problem persisted even after the end of the Warlord era, with unorganized soldiers continuing to rob and loot after their armies were disbanded (318).
• Chinese nationalism was intimately shaped by the experiences of the Warlord era. While much Chinese nationalism was a direct reaction to the disunity and vulnerability of the Warlord era, many warlords were also very nationalistic and saw their long-term goals in nationalist terms. The period also forced all political forces to become militarized, and it is because of the Warlord period that the Guomindang and Communist Party both developed large military wings (319).
• Although this period encouraged the militarization of the political movements, it also demonstrated the inability of purely military forces to unify China. The repeated failure of any faction to establish control over China demonstrated the necessity of strong civilian government and unifying ideologies to China, increasing support for the Communists and the Guomindang (319-320).
• Accordingly, Chinese universities and intelligentsia produced radical and severely critical works during this period, as warlords lacked the capacity to effectively censor them. Reactions against warlordism prompted the foundation of the Communist Party in 1921 and the reorganization of the Guomindang in 1924 (321).