Beiyang Army
The Beiyang Army, named after the Beiyang region, was an army established by Yuan Shikai in 1895. It was the centerpiece of a general overhaul of the Qing military system in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion and the First Sino-Japanese War, becoming the dynasty's first regular army in terms of its training, equipment, and structure. The Beiyang Army played a major role in Chinese politics for at least three decades and arguably right up to 1949. It played an instrumental role in the 1911 Revolution against the Qing dynasty, and, by dividing into warlord factions known as the Beiyang clique, ushered in a period of regional division.
The Beiyang Army had its origins in the Newly Created Army established in late 1895 under Yuan Shikai's command, after China was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War. Unlike its predecessors, it had a formal structure with infantry, cavalry, artillery, and logistical branches, and maintained strict training and discipline. The brigade-sized force was expanded over the years with new recruits and by incorporating other units, before serving as the core of a larger army after Yuan was appointed the Viceroy of Zhili and Minister of Beiyang in 1901. The tensions in Manchuria leading up to the Russo-Japanese War caused Empress Dowager Cixi to accept Yuan's request to raise more divisions, and he also used his influential position in the Army Reorganization Bureau to prioritize its funding. By 1907 the Beiyang Army had 60,000 men organized in six divisions, some of whom served in the Inner City of Beijing as the emperor's palace guard, and on the eve of the 1911 Revolution it was the strongest military force of the Qing dynasty.
Yuan Shikai used his position as the commander of the Beiyang Army as leverage to negotiate the abdication of the Qing emperor during the Revolution in exchange for himself to be the first president of the Republic of China. He used the army to maintain his control, but his decision to stop rotating officers during that time led to them turning their divisions into their own power base. This made them influential leaders in their own right after Yuan's death in 1916. A series of political crises ended with the general Duan Qirui taking control of the Beiyang clique until disputes over strategy and a power struggle split the army between his Anhui clique and the Zhili clique of Feng Guozhang and Cao Kun. Military commanders had expanded their armies in response to the Second Revolution, the National Protection War, and the Constitutional Protection Movement, so as the Warlord Era began there were an estimated 536,000 soldiers in northern China as of 1919.
Duan Qirui was able to maintain control over the government in Beijing through figureheads from 1917 to 1920, but that year saw the outbreak of the Zhili–Anhui War, causing the split of the Beiyang Army between several factions. The next four years resulted in several wars between the Anhui, Zhili, and Fengtian cliques, the latter representing the holdings of Zhang Zuolin in Manchuria. The warlord conflicts of the early 1920s led to Zhang Zuolin emerging as the strongest of the northern warlords by 1926, when the Kuomintang's National Revolutionary Army began its Northern Expedition to reunite China. Zhang put together the National Pacification Army from his and other Beiyang warlord forces, which had a total strength of around 700,000. After they were defeated in 1928, the Kuomintang capture of northern China marked the formal end of the Warlord Era and the Beiyang government, though some parts of China continued to be led by warlords until the Communist takeover in 1949.
Origins in the late Qing (to 1900)
The traditional military forces of the Qing dynasty were the Manchu Banners and the Green Standard Army. The Bannermen were hereditary soldiers and in addition to pay also received other privileges from the government. They were stationed in garrisons in Beijing and other major cities. The Green Standard Army, despite its name, was primarily a police force rather than an army, and had garrisons in each province. The military skills of both the Bannermen and the Green Standard troops gradually declined over the next two centuries, in large part because their officers did not consider training to be important, and by the middle of the 19th century they could only put up a minimal defense. As late as the 1890s much of the Chinese army was still equipped with long bows, swords, and spears, and many of their firearms were antiquated matchlocks. Starting around that time two other forces emerged in China after the traditional army failed to stop the Nian and Taiping Rebellions: mercenaries hired by provincial governors known as "braves," and modernized units consisting of braves who were trained with European military drill. The most prominent of the latter were Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army and Li Hongzhang's Huai Army. The braves, relatively well armed and paid, were estimated to make up ten percent of the Qing dynasty's armed forces and were private armies raised and funded by provincial officials. The ethnic Manchu dynasty was reluctant to provide funding for armies led by Han Chinese. The Green Standard Army was relegated to local security duty while the braves were the rapid response force that could be deployed to any part of the Qing Empire. Li Hongzhang, who founded the Huai Army in 1862 and later became the Viceroy of Zhili and Commissioner of the Northern Seas, used it as his personal power base and provided for its equipment and funding.By the time of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894–95, the Huai Army was considered to be the best force the Qing dynasty could field. Its arsenal included Mauser breechloader rifles, Krupp artillery, and a large quantity of ammunition. The quality of this equipment was comparable to that of the Imperial Japanese Army at the time, and its field commanders were experienced veterans who distinguished themselves during the Nian Rebellion. However, the Huai Army was still not considered a fully modernized force. The training of its soldiers used elements of old Chinese drill, sometimes with spears and other medieval weapons instead of firearms, and lacked proper marksmanship practice and the coordination of small units. There were reports during the war that some soldiers did not know how to use their firearms or artillery. Discipline was not strongly maintained, and the Chinese were more likely to abandon their positions during battle. The Huai Army also did not have organized supply, medical, transport, or engineering services, so the soldiers on campaign had to live off the land or take goods from the local population, as they did in Korea during the war. Chinese forces in Korea suffered a series of defeats, and in September 1894 the Japanese victory at the Battle of Pyongyang largely destroyed the Huai Army.
The defeat of China's best forces by Japan caused the Qing court to authorize the creation of units based entirely on the Western model. Before the end of 1895 two organizations were established for this purpose: the Newly Created Army organized by Yuan Shikai in the province of Zhili, and the Self-Strengthening Army organized by Zhang Zhidong in Nanjing. In contrast to the simple organization of the braves, these two armies both had dedicated infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineering, and other technical branches, and specific attention was given to the recruitment, training, discipline, and pay of the soldiers. German officers assisted with the creation of these forces, and the German Army was specifically used as the example to follow. Unlike earlier forces, the Newly Created Army received its funding from the central government's Ministry of Finance. It was initially the size of a brigade and its foreign staff included Constantin von Hanneken and Johan Wilhelm Normann Munthe. The idea for it originated with Hanneken during the war, who wanted to create a foreign-trained corps to become the basis of a new imperial army, and Prince Gong submitted his plan in a memorial to the throne. On 8 December 1895, Yuan Shikai was appointed commander of the Newly Created Army, with the backing of the Prince Qing, Minister of War Ronglu, and Li Hongzhang.
The officer corps of this brigade-sized force in the late 1890s included five future presidents of the Republic of China, one prime minister, and multiple provincial governors; a testament to how influential the Beiyang Army would become. But during the first several years of their existence, the Newly Created and Self-Strengthening Armies were considered experimental units. During the coup that ended the Hundred Days' Reform of the Guangxu Emperor, the reformers attempted to gain the support of Yuan Shikai and his troops, which were considered the best in north China, to counter the military forces of the conservative Ronglu. Yuan refused to participate in the plot, instead giving it away, and Empress Dowager Cixi regained full control over the Qing government after the emperor was detained. Following the coup, the Qing court wanted to strengthen the defenses of the capital. On the recommendation of Ronglu in December 1898, several existing units in north China were placed under his direct command as the Wuwei Corps, which is also translated as the Guards Army. Yuan Shikai's Newly Created Army was made part of the Wuwei Corps as its Right Division and was considered to be the best of the corps' five divisions. When the Boxer Rebellion started in late 1899 Yuan was appointed as provincial governor of Shandong to maintain order there, and he took the Right Division with him. The four other divisions of the Guards Army were either destroyed or took heavy casualties in combat against the foreign relief forces that arrived in Zhili in the summer of 1900.
Yuan Shikai's ascendancy (1901–1908)
Yuan Shikai had been recognized as a military specialist by the Qing court in 1899, whose Right Division of the Guards Army was well trained and well equipped with standardized uniforms and weaponry, the latter consisting of Mauser rifles, Maxim machine guns, and one- to six-pounder artillery pieces. During his time in Shandong the division was strengthened with additional troops, including Zhang Zhidong's Self-Strengthening Army, and became the only unit of the Wuwei Corps that was not decimated by the Boxer Rebellion, which ended the corps as an organization. The other semi-modernized Manchu Banner forces, the Peking Field Force and the Tiger Spirit Division, were also destroyed in battle. When the imperial court began rebuilding the security forces of the Beijing metropolitan area in 1901, Yuan Shikai was put in charge of this task.The Empress Dowager Cixi and conservative officials recognized the need for reform to preserve the dynasty after the Boxer Rebellion. They were willing to embrace military reorganization much more than other aspects of modernization. Among the main changes of the Qing New Policies, ordered by edicts in September 1901, were the establishment of a military academy in each province to entirely replace the antiquated military examinations and the creation of a Western-style standing army along with reserves.
The Beiyang Army began to take shape after Yuan Shikai became the Viceroy of Zhili in late 1901, following the death of Li Hongzhang. He started by putting together two divisions for the standing army in Zhili, with the first of these, founded in October 1902, being a new formation known as the Left Division of the Beiyang Standing Army. In December 1902, the Qing court also ordered him to begin training a force of several thousand Manchu Bannermen volunteers who could serve as Imperial Guards in the Inner City of Beijing. During their initial training in 1903 they were called the Metropolitan Banners Standing Army, and were led by the nobleman Tieliang. Yuan had requested Tieliang's assistance with the training of the Bannermen, and in June 1903 they created an office for training the Metropolitan Banners. This became the basis for the Military Training Bureau that was created in December 1903 as a section of the larger Army Reorganization Bureau, which was established to oversee the military reform taking place all over China. The Army Reorganization Bureau's leadership included Yuan Shikai and Tieliang, and its overall director was Prince Qing. It eventually became more important than the traditional Ministry of War, and was an adjunct of the Grand Council that reported directly to Empress Dowager Cixi.
In January 1904, as tensions rose between Japan and Russia in China's Manchuria region shortly before the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Yuan Shikai sent a memorial to the throne asking for funding to double the size of the Beiyang Army. This increase in Yuan Shikai's military power around the Qing capital reflected the trust he had with Empress Dowager Cixi. The staffing for the Army Reorganization Bureau in Beijing came from Yuan Shikai's military associates, and it became an extension of his influence to such a degree that the Japanese military attaché to China claimed in 1906 that it was more of a nominal organization and had less relevance than one of its departments, Yuan's Military Training Bureau in Tianjin. But in reality, Yuan Shikai was able to make use of the Army Reorganization Bureau to oversee all of the New Army forces across the entire Qing Empire and to funnel money from the military reform budget to his own Beiyang Army. Although every province was ordered to create New Army units in 1904, they rarely received funds for this purpose from the Army Reorganization Bureau, because it was mostly going to Yuan Shikai's administration in Zhili.
In 1904–05 the Beiyang Army was expanded to a size of four divisions. The Metropolitan Banners Standing Army was redesignated as the 1st Division, while the Left Division of the Beiyang Standing Army became the 2nd Division. Some members of Zhang Zhidong's Self-Strengthening Army became the cadre of the 3rd Division, which was put together from the Tianjin police force founded by Yuan in 1902. The original Newly Created Army, which had been Right Division of the Guards Army, became the 4th Division. Later on in 1905, two more divisions were added, bringing the total to six. The 5th Division was created from elements of the Right Division in Shandong that fought against rebels during Boxer Rebellion, and the 6th Division was made from elements of the Left Division of the Guards Army and the Self-Strengthening Army. The designations of some these was changed several times. The six divisions together had about 60,000 men.
In addition, in 1902 several military schools were established in Zhili for the Beiyang Army by Yuan Shikai, including a two-year military academy, a staff college, an NCO school, and a few specialized officer courses. The Baoding Academy became the largest military training school in China until after the 1920s and produced the majority of officers that served in Chinese armies over the next few decades. Yuan Shikai also sent many officer cadets to study in Japan, and while foreign-trained officers were a small fraction of the overall Chinese officer corps, they were a significant portion of Beiyang Army officers. The staff or war college was for senior officers and focused on higher level staff work, the necessity of which was made more clear by the massive armies that fought on both sides of the Russo-Japanese War, which required complex logistical management.
During this early period from 1901 to 1904, foreign observers noted that the quality of the soldier in the Beiyang Army was a noticeable improvement from the previous forces. More efficient drill and stronger discipline were among the changes. But these changes were mostly limited to the Beiyang Army. In the rest of the empire, no real effort was made to eliminate obsolete units, so the Chinese ground forces remained a mix of modernized and medieval forces. The New Army divisions that were equipped with Mauser and Krupp weaponry and took part in field maneuvers existed alongside traditional Banner, Green Standard, and local militia troops that still trained with matchlocks and long bows. The progress made in this period was still a major development compared to just several years earlier, and in September 1904 the imperial court approved a proposal from the Army Reorganization Bureau to create a standardized table of ranks and pay, organization, and system of supply and support, along with other policies to form the basis for 36 New Army divisions across China. The plan was officially announced in January 1905. Many of these suggestions were already in use by the Beiyang Army and were based on the Japanese system. However, it did not alter the balance of power between the provinces and the imperial government, allowing provincial governments to organize and finance the New Armies and have command over them except in major wars. These divisions were bureaucratic organizations rather than private armies of individual leaders.
In the fall of 1904 the Beiyang Army started holding field maneuvers involving the newly formed divisions. Held in Hejian, to the southeast of Baoding, in November 1904, these field maneuvers were China's first modern war game. There were a small number of foreign observers and they praised the performance of the Beiyang troops. Larger war games were held in October 1905 at the same location. The intended goal was to show both the Chinese public and the world that China now had a capable army. Foreign journalists and government officials from other parts of China were invited to watch the field maneuvers, which involved by some estimates as many as 50,000 troops, who were divided into two armies to stage a mock invasion of Zhili from Shandong. Infantry, artillery, cavalry, engineering, medical, veterinary, transportation, and telegraph units were involved. The event was praised by civilian officials and journalists, and although military observers were more critical, they noted that it was still a massive improvement since the Boxer Rebellion. The capability of the technical branches was still limited, despite the usage of the Beijing–Hankou railway to quickly move units for the first time. Officers were well trained but had some shortfalls, such as a lack of knowledge of their role and a lack of initiative, while the enlisted soldiers received the most praise for their higher military bearing and esprit de corps compared to the troops of the old-style armies. Later, the 1907 field maneuvers were also notable because they focused on training lower level officers, being carried out at the level of mixed brigades. Another change from the previous iterations was that Japanese military advisors were not involved in the planning or execution of the 1907 war game.
Desertion among the Beiyang Army still occurred at a significant level, and some of that was among the conscripts that had been drafted from different parts of northern China. The Qing government officially did not have conscription, but it was practiced by the Beiyang Army. Decapitation was one punishment that was used for desertion. Yuan Shikai maintained strict discipline, but he tried to make sure that the troops received their pay on time. Officers were recruited on the basis of their education and ability rather than on personal connections, and eventually about half of the Beiyang Army officers were either from military schools other than Yuan's Baoding Military Academy, or, more often, had studied abroad, especially in Japan.
Yuan Shikai's influence up to this point reached its peak by 1906. The Beiyang Army had become the strongest military force of the Qing dynasty and was the largest of the New Armies created over the previous decade. Graduates of the officer schools that Yuan had set up in Zhili were sent back to their home provinces to lead New Army units there, and cadres from Beiyang divisions that were personally selected by him were used in other parts of the country to create new formations. Other Beiyang generals were given high ranks in the Green Standard Army or as commanders of provincial forces. The Army Reorganization Bureau was largely staffed by Yuan's associates, and he had allies in the form of the Empress Dowager and Prince Qing. However, he also had many enemies in both the imperial court and the provinces because of his past intrigues and new rivalries. These included conservative Manchu nobles that were suspicious of his power and other provincial governors who had to fund his Beiyang Army with their tax revenue.
His rivals struck in the fall of 1906, during debates over administrative reforms to the military bureaucracy. He and Prince Qing were accused of corruption and abuse of power by Tieliang, their former ally, and Grand Councilor Qu Hongji. Tieliang had previously assisted Yuan in building the Beiyang Army, but turned against him for several reasons. After this Yuan himself requested that the Empress Dowager reduce his power by transferring four of the six Beiyang divisions from his command as Viceroy of Zhili to the newly formed Ministry of the Army, which replaced the Army Reorganization Bureau. However, except for in the 1st Division, some of the senior officers were more loyal to Yuan than to the Banner officer Fengshan, who had been appointed by Tieliang to lead the Beiyang divisions under the Ministry of the Army, and they resigned. The decline in Yuan Shikai's position was only temporary, because in September 1907 he was appointed to the Grand Council and was made the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Although his direct control over the Beiyang Army was reduced, some of Yuan's close allies were appointed as commanders of units sent to the Manchurian or Jiangsu provinces, or to key posts in the Ministry of the Army. After the death of Empress Dowager Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in November 1908, the Prince Regent of the new young emperor, Prince Chun, initially worked with him, but on 2 January 1909 he had Yuan dismissed from his posts and retired, ostensibly for medical reasons.