Northeastern Army

For other uses, see Northeast Army.

Northeastern Army
simplified Chinese: 东北军; traditional Chinese: 東北軍; pinyin: Dōngběi Jūn; Wade–Giles: Tung-pei Chün
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 (1924) ~12 naval vessels (1924)
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 (simplified Chinese: 东北军; traditional Chinese: 東北軍; pinyin: Dōngběi Jūn; Wade–Giles: Tung-pei Chün), also known as the Fengtian Army before 1928 (simplified Chinese: 奉系军; traditional Chinese: 奉系軍; pinyin: Fèng xì jūn; see terminology), was an army founded and led by Chinese warlord Zhang Zuolin from 1911 until his death in 1928, and afterwards by his son Zhang Xueliang. It was consequently the military arm of the Zhang-controlled Fengtian Clique until the latter's absorption into the Nationalist Government in 1928.

The Northeastern Army began as a peripheral force without the training, equipment, or leadership necessary to play a decisive role in the early contests of the Warlord Period. But the relative safety of its Manchurian base allowed the army to recover and learn from its early defeats. By 1924 it had grown to three divisions and seventeen mixed brigades numbering nearly a quarter of a million men. Massive investment the Mukden Arsenal and frequent purchases of foreign arms supplied the army with an unusually large number of modern weapons. Although the Northeastern Army's leadership would always include many corrupt officers chosen on the basis of personal connections, after 1922 they were supplemented and sometimes replaced by officers with formal military training. Zhang's political conservatism and willingness to preserve the status quo won him support from the Japanese Kwantung Army, and they intervened on Zhang's behalf at several key moments in his career. The Northeastern Army reached the zenith of its political influence in the aftermath of the Second Zhili-Fengtian War, when it occupied large swathes of China north of the Yangtze. However, Zhang's attempt to reunify China under his own auspices was more than the army could bear. The Manchurian economy was bankrupted by years of exorbitant military expenditures. The overextended Northeastern Army could not maintain an effective command structure, and distant garrisons such as the Zhili and Shandong Armys became functionally independent. When Zhang attempted to oppose the rising tide of Chinese nationalism that swept north with the Northern Expedition, he was ultimately defeated by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA). Critically, he had lost the support of the Japanese, who opposed Zhang's interventions south of the Great Wall because they created uncertainty in Manchuria. A group of Japanese officers, hoping that Zhang Xueliang would be a better puppet, assassinated Zhang as he returned northwards. Contrary to their expectations, Zhang Xueliang proved even more independent from Japanese designs than his father and immediately began negotiations that brought the Northeastern Army into the NRA.

Rechristened the "Northeastern Border Defense Force", the army retained its de facto independence during the first half of the Nanjing Decade and continued to intervene in Chinese politics. It helped put down a warlord rebellion in return for a major bribe and increased political control over north China. However, it was unable to stand up to Russian and Japanese imperial ambitions in Manchuria. In 1929, it unsuccessfully challenged the Soviet Red Army for control of the Chinese Eastern Railway. In September 1931, the Japanese launched a full-scale invasion of Manchuria. Chiang Kai-shek ordered the Northeastern Army not to engage the advancing Japanese, hoping to resolve the issue diplomatically. Northeastern cavalry commander Ma Zhanshan disobeyed orders and fought the futile Jiangqiao campaign in early November. The rest of the army lost the majority of its equipment and retreated from Manchuria with a deep resentment towards the Japanese and a desire to retake their homeland. It took up defensive positions south of the Great Wall, but corrupt officers such as Tang Yulin allowed the Japanese to invade Rehe in 1933. Zhang Xueliang took the fall for this defeat and resigned his command from 1933 to 1936. When he returned, the army had been reassigned to the encirclement campaigns against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), then located near the Gansu-Ningxia border. Both Zhang and his soldiers resented fighting fellow Chinese while Manchuria was under occupation. After the CCP made overtures regarding a united front, the Northeastern Army negotiated an unofficial ceasefire with the Red Army. In late 1936, Zhang flew to Northeastern Army headquarters in Xi'an to motivate the troops to action. He was arrested and forced to negotiate the Second United Front with the CCP. After the Xi'an Incident, Zhang was placed under house arrest and the Northeastern Army was dissolved.

Terminology

The Northeastern Army is referred to by a variety of different names by different historians and for different periods of its history. From its founding until it became part of the NRA in 1928, it is commonly called the "Fengtian Army", a reference to Fengtian Province, the most populous province in Manchuria and the base of Zhang Zuolin's support. However, "Fengtian Army" was never an official name, because at the time Zhang Zuolin's forces were not officially a separate army. They nominally remained part of the national Beiyang Army until Zhang declared independence from the central government in 1923. Kwong notes in War and Geopolitics in Interwar Manchuria that

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.

This is because "Fengtian Army" can narrowly mean the armed forces based in Fengtian Province itself, excluding those parts of the Northeastern Army based in Jilin or Heilongjiang. During the late Warlord Era, Zhang Zuolin sometimes gave his army, such as the "Peace Preservation Forces" or, with his allies, the "National Pacification Army". After Zhang Xueliang pledged allegiance to Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Government, the army was officially given the name of 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). This official term is often shortened to "Dongbei Army" or "Northeast/Northeastern Army". Northeast China is generally understood to be synonymous with Manchuria, so authors often use "Northeast Army" when referring to the army at any point in its existence, but never use Fengtian Army after 1928. Thus, this article uses "Northeast Army" throughout, but only uses "Fengtian Army" when referring to the force before 1928.

History

Background

The Northeastern Army had its roots in bandit forces organized by Zhang Zuolin in Manchuria around the turn of the twentieth century. At that time, the poverty of Manchuria encouraged many young men (known as Honghuzi or red-beards) to resort to banditry in order to feed themselves and their families. The declining Qing Dynasty lacked the resources to keep the peace and its sovereignty was challenged by Russian and Japanese imperialism. Qing soldiers had a reputation for petty tyranny and were often no more popular than bandits. Local authorities would even attempt to co-op successful bandits: in 1903, Zhang and his few hundred followers were made the official garrison of Xinmin. Nonetheless, they remained more loyal to their commander than to the state, and when the Russo-Japanese War temporarily destroyed any semblance of local Qing authority, they fought as mercenaries for both sides.

Foundations of the Fengtian Army

The Fengtian Army in 1917

In late October 1911, the Qing Dynasty brought Yuan Shikai out of retirement to command the New Army against the developing Xinhai Revolution. Yuan withdrew the New Army divisions from Manchuria, leaving Zhang Zuolin's border patrol battalion as one of the few military forces in the region. The reformist assembly was threatening to declare independence from the Qing, so Viceroy Zhao Erxun requested that Zhang marched into Shenyang to help suppress the assembly. This Zhang did, and he then carried out a bloody purge of nationalists supportive of Sun Yat-sen's rival government in Guangdong. As thanks for his efforts, Yuan reorganized and expanded the border patrol battalions into the 27th division of the Beiyang Army, with Zhang as its commander. In June, Zhang was promoted to Lieutenant General. He was also named the Vice Minister of Military Affairs, but because his nominal superior had no local power base, Zhang was def facto head of all troops in Fengtian. Zhang supported Yuan against the failed Manchu Restoration, and as a reward was able to add the 28th and 29th divisions to his army. By this point, Zhang's small battalion had grown into a force of between 50,000 and 70,000 men. Local elites supportive of Zhang had gradually coalesced into what became known as the "Fengtian Clique". After Zhang became governor in 1915, the Fengtian Clique soon exerted control over the entirety of Manchuria.

Early Warlord Era

Main article: Warlord Era

A group photo of commanders of the Zhili–Fengtian united army, victors of the Zhili–Anhui war.

In the years following Yuan Shikai's death, China quickly descended into the Warlord Era, with military governors like Zhang Zuolin exercising increasingly independent authority over their province while giving nominal allegiance to the Beiyang Government in Beijing. In August 1917, the warlords of Hunan and Sichuan successfully resisted Premier Duan Qirui's attempt to replace them with loyalists. Hubei, Jiangsu, and several Beiyang armies likewise rose in rebellion and President Feng Guozhang dismissed him. With the help of northern warlords including Zhang, Duan was able to convince Feng to return him to government as head of the War Participation Bureau. As thanks, in February 1918 Duan encouraged Zhang to seize 17 million yen worth of Japanese military supplies intended for the War Participation Army. Zhang also agreed to help the central government put down the ongoing rebellions in South China. The campaign under the overall command of Xu Shuzheng. The Fengtian Army participated in the successful fighting during the spring, but by the summer the situation had reached a stalemate and the Beiyang government was unable to force Sun Yat-sen's government in Guangdong to surrender. Meanwhile, the rest of the army helped secure the Russian-operated Manchurian railways and guard the border during the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War, and for this Zhang was promoted to full General in 1919.

Zhang grew suspicious of Duan's growing power, and he sided with Cao Kun against Duan in the Zhili-Anhui War. But the Fengtian Army did little to contribute to the Zhili victory, only engaging the Anhui forces inconclusively after the decisive battles. Nonetheless, it emerged in a very strong post-war position. It captured high-quality equipment, added the 16th division under Zhang Jinghui and four new brigades, and left a 30,000 man garrison south of the Great Wall to exert influence on the Beiyang Government.

The delicate balance of Zhili and Fengtian interests had begun to tip in the former's favor by 1922, and Zhang launched the First Zhili–Fengtian War to try and consolidate control over north China. In April the Fengtian Army passed through the Shanhai Pass to occupy Hebei, under overall command of Zhang Jinghui. Zuo Fen commanded the 16th division on the right flank. 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. The opposing force under Wu Peifu was roughly equivalent in size or slightly smaller. Sources also disagree about which force was better equipped. Fengtian made heavy use of their artillery and some use of machine guns, but poor training and a lack of experience with modern weapons meant they had little tactical effect. The Fengtian Army was defeated in the main engagement around the strategic railway lines. McCormack offers several commonly given causes for this defeat: first that Zhang Jinghui's right flank was turned, second that he and Zuo Fen were in secret league with Zhili, and third that Zhang was given false intelligence of a flanking attack and panicked. Historians today agree that a flanking attack did take place, but there is no consensus on whether its success was due to Zhang and Zuo's treason or simply their bad tactics. The upshot was the Fengtian army was routed and forced back to Manchuria. The 1st and 16th were nearly completely destroyed, only one brigade of the 28th survived the retreat, and several of the mixed brigades were scattered as well. Many of Zhang's officers who had been with him since his bandit days were discredited by the defeat.

Military reforms and the Second Zhili-Fengtian War

Main article: Second Zhili-Fengtian War

The trench mortar works at Shenyang (i.e., Mukden), near the main arsenal, was a state-of-the art facility for 1920s China. The produced an improved version of the Stokes mortar developed by Francis Sutton, a British Army veteran.

Zhang Zuolin and his advisors came away from their defeat in the First Zhili-Fengtian War 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. As described in the section on equipment, the latter soon had the highest output of any arsenal in China. 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.

The decisive confrontation with Wu Peifu came in late 1924. Zhang had managed to secure a triangular alliance with the Anhui Clique based in Zhejiang and the Kuomintang based in Guangdong. The Fengtian Army was organized into six route armies totaling 170,000 to 250,000 men, under Zhang's overall command. The Second Army (under Li Jinglin) and the Sixth Army (Xu Langzhou) went north to Chaoyang to head off any potential flanking maneuvers, and they were able to surprise the unprepared Zhili garrison. Their superior rifles and grenades helped them secure control of the strategically important passes in Rehe by the time Feng Yuxiang's Third Zhili Army arrived. Further south the Fengtian Army had less luck at first. The First Army (Jiang Dengxuan) and the Third Army (Zhang Xueliang) failed to take Shanhai Pass before it was occupied by the enemy (they were later joined by the Fourth and Fifth). Direct assaults on the gate led by Guo Songling failed. However, Fengtian forces freed up by the victory at Chaoyang came south and flanked the Zhili position. Further breakthroughs at Jiumenkou led by Jiang Dengxuan and his deputy commander Han Linchun (once again assisted by superior weaponry) forced Zhili to retreat from Shanhai Pass and only Wu Peifu's personal presence finally stabilized the battle lines. Feng Yuxiang marched his forces back to Beijing and on October 20 seized control of the capital with the Beijing Coup. Although not necessarily fatal on its own, it became so after Yan Xishan stopped Zhili reinforcements from taking the railroad lines north through his territory. The Japanese intervened to stop Wu from embarking the reinforcements around the severed line and the Marshal's position quickly collapsed.

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 November 11 to 16 in Tianjin between Zhang, Feng, Duan Qirui, and Lu Yongxiang confirmed Fengtian control of the northeast and set up a new national government under Duan. Brigade commander Kan Zhaoxi was promoted and put in charge of Rehe and Li Jinglin was assigned to Zhili Province. However, the provinces of central and southern China were outside of Zhang and Feng's direct military control and did not fully submit to their authority, although they were hesitant to openly defy it. From December 1924 to late January 1925, Zhang Zongchang had to lead a detachment including the White Russians of the Fengtian foreign legion to put down the rebellious Qi Xieyuan in Jiangsu and Shanghai. The Fengtian Army was victorious, "but their struggles had not clarified the military situation; rather, they had rendered it more complex." It took five more months for the army to complete the Fengtian expansion. In April Zhang Zongchang took over Shandong and in August Yang Yuting received Jiangsu and Anhui went to Jiang Dengxuan. Although this represented a major extension of Fengtian control, it also marked the beginning of its division into separate forces: Zhang's Shandong Army and Li's Zhili Army were too far from Shenyang to receive direct supervision, and gradually became independent forces.

The Anti-Fengtian War

Forces under the command of Zhang Zongchang, 1927

The lack of a single dominant faction made the resumption of large-scale conflict inevitable. In October, Wu Peifu re-emerged as military governor of Hubei and was set on returning to national leadership. 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. 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. Guo wanted to replace Zhang Zuolin with his son 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. Most likely with tacit support from Li Jinglin and Feng Yuxiang, Guo revolted on November 22. 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. 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 November 27. 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. 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.

During Guo Songling'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. 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.

The Northern Expedition and death of Zhang Zuolin

Main article: National Pacification Army

Routes of the Northern Expedition

While Wu Peifu had been fighting alongside the Fengtian Army against the Guominjun, the Kuomintang had taken advantage of the situation to launch the Northern Expedition. They targeted Wu first, and with the advice of Mikhail Borodin and Vasily Blyukher, Nationalist Commander-in-Chief Chiang Kai-shek won a series of rapid victories. Surprised by the KMT advance (Zhang was increasingly concerned with what he perceived as the rise of Communist influence in China), the Fengtian clique offered its support to Wu but was refused. Wu feared that the northern warlords would undermine his position if he allowed their troops into his territory. By 2 September, the NRA had nearly surrounded Wuchang. Whilst Wu and most of his army fled north to Henan province, his remaining troops in the walled city held out for over a month. His failure in the face of the NRA, however, left his hold on power and reputation broken. What remained of his army would disintegrate in the following months. In November Zhang called a conference of the remaining conservative warlords—Yan Xishan, Sun Chuanfang, Zhang Zongchang, and Chu Yupu—to declare the establishment of a unified National Pacification Army (NPA), of which he became the commander-in-chief. Sun and Zhang Zhongchang were appointed deputy commanders of the new force, and its headquarters was established in the Pukou–Nanjing area. In total the NPA counted 500,000 men, 100,000 of which was the Fengtian Army (excluding those portions based in Zhili and Shandong provinces, which by this point were functionally separate commands). In early 1927, the forces of the NPA engaged the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) in Henan and Jiangsu.

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 Doihara Kenji asked Yan Xishan to establish peace between the NRA and the NPA and "take over northern China". Confident of Japanese support, Yan defected to the KMT. This had the short term effect of forcing the NPA to abandon Henan to the NRA. The British, while less than optimistic about the KMT, were forced by the economic pressure of the Canton–Hong Kong strike to make an effort to appease them. In addition to other concessions, they turned a cold shoulder to Zhang's requests for financial aid. Things began to look up for Zhang after Chiang's purge of the Communists, and Nanjing began to enter into negotiations with Nanjing to split China. The Fengtian Army inflicted 100,000 casualties on an ill-planned offensive by the Wuhan government's troops in May. However, negotiations ultimately went nowhere and the Fengtian Army was unable to eradicate the Guominjun during the respite they had been granted. In August Sun Chuanfang launched an offensive into Jiangsu that seized Xuzhou and briefly put the NRA on the defensive, but by the end of the month he was in retreat and lost 50,000 men in September. Likewise, the Fengtian Army had some initial success against Yan Xishan, but by October Yan had begun his own offensive along the Beijing-Suiyuan Railroad. A major offensive by the reunited NRA began in November, rolling back what remained of Sun's gains and driving all the way to Shandong. Despite Fengtian reinforcements in the form of air support and 60,000 soldiers, the united forces of Sun and Zhang Zongchang were unable to halt the Kuomintang advance. Sun's Long-Hai railroad front subsequently disintegrated and the NPA were forced to retreat to Shandong and dig in.

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. 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. 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 June 3 to retreat beyond the passes. As he was returning to Manchuria on 4 June 1928, his train was blown up by officers of the Kwantung Army.

Early Nanjing Decade

Zhang Xueliang succeeded his father as leader of the Fengtian Clique. On July 1 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 July 3 Chiang Kai-shek arrived in Beijing to negotiate a peaceful settlement. On December 29 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. 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.

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. 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. But Zhang did not want to pursue this course of action, and he began to suspect Yang of plotting a coup with the Japanese. 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.

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. Zhang Xueliang was forced to cut down on the army's size and funding to the Mukden Arsenal. Meanwhile, petty warlords began to assert their control over parts of Manchuria and Zhang came under intense pressure from Soviet and Japanese imperialism. 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. 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.

In 1929, the Central Plains War began between the Nanjing government and a coalition of northern warlords resisting demilitarization. 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. Zhang began to play host to political dissents in Hubei, including Communist sympathizers.

Japanese invasion of Manchuria

Main articles: Japanese invasion of Manchuria and Defense of the Great Wall

The Northeastern Army's Beidaying Barracks, now a National Historic Site, was the site of the first attack during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

On September 18 1931, the Kwantung Army staged a false flag attack on the Japanese-owned South Manchuria Railway near the Northeastern Army's headquarters in Shenyang. The Japanese Imperial General Headquarters told the Kwantung Army that they had decided to localize the incident, but Kwantung commander-in-chief General Shigeru Honjō instead ordered his forces to proceed to expand operations all along the South Manchuria Railway. The 2nd Division moved up the rail line and captured virtually every city along its 1,170-kilometre (730-mile) length in a matter of days. On September 19, the Japanese occupied Yingkou, Liaoyang, Shenyang, Fushun, Dandong, Siping (Jilin Province), and Changchun. On September 21, the Japanese captured Jilin City. On 23 September, the Japanese took Jiaohe (Jilin) Province) and Dunhua. On 1 October, Zhang Haipeng surrendered the Taonan area. Sometime in October, Ji Xing (吉興) surrendered the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture area and on 17 October, Yu Zhishan surrendered Eastern Liaoning to the Japanese.

From its stronghold in occupied Manchuria, Japan invaded China's Rehe Province with 30,000 troops and 1,000 from Manchukuo. Zhang was widely criticized for this loss of territory. He resigned from his position and went on a tour of Europe for the next five years.

Xi'an Incident and dissolution

Main article: Xi'an Incident

The Northeastern Army was transferred to Shaanxi in October 1936 to assist in the encirclement of the Chinese Communists (CCP). The CCP had set up rural soviets in the neighboring provinces of Gansu and Ningxia after completing their Long March, and Chiang Kai-shek was intent on eliminating them before confronting the Japanese. The Nationalist armies initially gave no notice to the Communist exhortations for war against Japan, but this began to change because of the Red Army's "eastern expedition" from February to April 1936. The Communists declared that they were sending a detachment through Shanxi to fight the Japanese in Rehe and Hubei. Letting the Red Army through would have broken the encirclement, so Yan Xishan stopped them by force. Although defeated militarily, the Red Army had convinced the Shanxi peasantry of their patriotism and gained 8,000 new recruits on their retreat. Zhang Xueliang was likewise impressed and began to seem them as potential allies rather than foes. When Mao announced on March 14 that the Communists were willing to conclude a truce, Zhang covertly agreed. He proposed to Chiang Kai-shek that he reverse the Nationalist policy of prioritizing the purge of Communists, and instead focusing on military preparation against Japanese aggression. After Chiang refused, Zhang began to plot a coup in "great secrecy". By June 1936, the secret agreement between Zhang and the CCP had been successfully settled.

In November 1936, Zhang asked Chiang to come to Xi'an, and when he arrived, Northeastern soldiers arrested him. The Northeastern Army was blocked by Nationalist censorship from publishing their 8 demands, but eventually pressured Chiang into negotiating with CCP diplomats Zhou Enlai and Lin Boqu. Many young officers in the Northeast Army demanded Chiang be killed. However, both Zhang and the Communists insisted that he be kept alive and that their intention was "only to change his policy". Had Chiang been killed, it would have ruined any chances of forming a united front against Japan. By the end of the negotiations, Chiang promised to end the civil war, to resist the Japanese together, and to invite Zhou to Nanjing for further talks. This Xi'an Incident was a turning point for the CCP. Chiang's leadership over political and military affairs in China was affirmed, while the CCP was able to expand its own strength under the new united front, which later played a factor in the Chinese Communist Revolution. Zhang was kept under house arrest for over 50 years before emigrating to Hawaii in 1993, while Yang was imprisoned and eventually executed on the order of Chiang Kai-shek in 1949, before the Nationalist retreat to Taiwan. The Northeastern Army itself was gradually broken up and merged into other units.

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. In theory, these units remained part of the national New Army, but in reality they answered to Zhang Zuolin alone.

After the army reorganization program described above, 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. The total manpower of a standard brigade was therefore around 4,000 men. Brigades were not necessarily subdivisions of divisions. Some were, but most operated as independent mixed brigades in the style of the Japanese Army.

Command

Command Structure, 1923

Unit or Role	Commander	Location
Commander in chief	General Zhang Zuolin
Deputy Commander	General Sun Liechen
Deputy Commander	General Wu Junsheng
Chief of staff	General Yang Yuting
First Division	General Li Jinglin	Fengtian
Twenty-Seventh Division	General Zhang Zuoxiang	Fengtian
Twenty-Ninth Division	General Wu Junsheng	Heilongjiang
1st Brigade	Lt. General Kan Zhaoxi	Fengtian
2nd Brigade	Lt. General Zhang Xueliang	Fengtian
3rd Brigade	Lt. General Zhang Zongchang	Fengtian
4th Brigade	Lt. General Zhang Zuotao	Fengtian
5th Brigade	Lt. General Li Zhensheng	Fengtian
6th Brigade	Lt. General Guo Songling	Fengtian
7th Brigade	Lt. General Tang Yulin	Fengtian
8th Brigade	Lt. General Chen Yukun	Jilin
9th Brigade	Lt. General Liu Xiangjiu	Jilin
10th Brigade	Lt. General Yu Shencheng	Jilin
11th Brigade	Lt. General Ba Yinge	Heilongjiang
12th Brigade	Lt. General Zhao Enzhen	Fengtian
13th Brigade	Lt. General Ding Zhao	Jilin
14th Brigade	Lt. General Yang Desheng	Fengtian
15th Brigade	Lt. General Wan Fulin	Heilongjiang
16th Brigade	Lt. General Qi Enming	Fengtian
17th Brigade	Lt. General Zhang Mingjiu	Heilongjiang
18th Brigade	Lt. General Zhang Huanxiang	Jilin
19th Brigade	Lt. General Gao Weiyo	Fengtian
20th Brigade	Lt. General Hu Yungkui	Jilin
21st Brigade	Lt. General Cai Yungzhen	Jilin
22nd Brigade	Lt. General Shi Deshan	Heilongjiang
23rd Brigade	Lt. General Li Shuangkai	Fengtian
24th Brigade	Lt. General Xing Shilian	Fengtian
25th Brigade	Lt. General Cai Pingben	Fengtian
26th Brigade	Lt. General Li Guilin	Jilin
27th Brigade	Lt. General Pei Junsheng	Fengtian
1st Cavalry Brigade	Lt. General Mu Qun	Fengtian
2nd Cavalry Brigade	Lt. General Peng Jinshan	Heilongjiang
3rd Cavalry Brigade	Lt. General Su Xilin	Fengtian
4th Cavalry Brigade	Lt. General Zhang Kuijiu	Heilongjiang
5th Cavalry Brigade	Lt. General Chen Fusheng	Heilongjiang

Naval and Air Forces

The commander-in-chief of the Northeast Sea Defense Squadron was Vice Admiral Shen Honglie, appointed in 1923. A large portion of the naval vessels were transferred to Zhang Zongchang in late 1924. After Zhang Xueliang pledged his allegiance to Chiang Kai-shek, Shen remained in charge of his squadron but was effectively separated from the Fengtian Army's command structure.

A small air force of purchased French planes and poorly trained Chinese and Russian pilots was formed after the First Zhili-Fengtian War. It became the personal project of Zhang Xueliang, and had about forty planes by 1924, but only a handful were truly operational.

Personnel

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. 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. The 28th division, the next to be added, was based in western Manchuria. This recruitment system was preserved by Zhang in his early years because of its benefits to unit cohesion. As additional divisions based in other Manchurian provinces were absorbed, the geographical makeup of the army became consequently more diverse. 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. At its height circa 1926, the Fengtian Army consisted of somewhere between 170,000 and 250,000 men.

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 position as officers in the Kwangtung Army—also served as intermediaries with the Japanese commanders. The presence of Japanese advisors in Chinese armies predated the establishment of the Fengtian army, and Zhang inherited several from previous Manchurian generals. Several dozen were in service at any one time, some of the most important being Takema Machino, Takeo Kikuchi, and Shigeru Honjō. The largest contingent of foreign soldiers were White Russians who had fled to Manchuria following their defeat in the Russian Civil War. Mercenary service was attractive for White émigrés due to the fact that many of them had problems finding stable employment, and the warlords at least offered a regular income. Led by Konstantin Petrovich Nechaev, the Russians earned a reputation as extremely capable fighting force,, but were also feared due to their high indiscipline and extreme brutality against civilians and prisoners of war. In 1926 the number of Russians reached its peak at about 5,270 men, mostly serving in Nechaev's 65th Infantry Division under Zhang Zongchang. However, they suffered heavy casualties in the 1926-1927 fighting against Sun Chuanfang, and Zhang Xueliang demobilized the remaining White Russian units after they sided with Zhang Zongchang's revolt.

The Military Academy of the Three Eastern Provinces was established to train officers for the Fengtian Army. Zhang Xueliang was a member of the first graduating class.

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. 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 such as Guo Songling, Li Jinglin, and Zhang Xueliang had been educated domestically, usually at either the Baoding Military Academy or the Military Academy of the Three Eastern Provinces. The second faction had been educated in Japan at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. They included Han Linchun, Yang Yuting, and Jiang Dengxuan. 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. 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). Factional rivalries were an important cause of the 1925 rebellion led by Guo Songling, which nearly overthrew Zhang Zuolin. 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.

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. 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 used as well. 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. 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". 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. Before 1922, the Mukden "Arsenal" was capable of producing only small amounts of ammunition. 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. 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. The cars were particularly valuable: by 1926 there were still only 8,000 motor vehicles in all of China. Yet after 1919 even these irregular windfalls became less frequent, thanks to an arms embargo on China agreed by most of the major world powers.

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, Han Linchun in 1923, and Yang Yuting beginning in 1924. By 1924 the budget of the Mukden Arsenal was 2 million yuan per month; an enormous investment compared with the Hanyang Arsenal's annual 1916 operating budget of just over a million yuan (before the Warlord Era, the Hanyang Arsenal was the largest in China). The arsenal employed a workforce of 20-30,000 that included thousands of foreign specialists brought in from across the globe. The main rifle in production was the Mukden Arsenal Mauser, a copy of the Arisaka tweaked by Han Linchun. An English arms manufacturer, Francis Sutton, was paid to build a state-of-the-art trench mortar works nearby, and he helped Zhang set up a smuggling operation through Shandong. Fengtian was also China's single largest arms importer. It purchased weapons from Germany, France, Italy, and especially Japan. Additional Fengtian-controlled arsenals included one built in Heilongjiang in 1924 and two based in Jinan that were acquired after the Second Zhili-Fengtian War. By 1928, the newly constructed arsenals in Manchuria could rival and in some cases exceed the output of the rest of China combined. Every month in 1928, the Fengtian Clique produced 7,500 rifles, 70-80 machine guns, 120,000 artillery shells, and about 9 million cartridges, among other equipment. The Fengtian Army also made effective use of other modern weaponry, such as mines, barbed-wire, armored trains, and tanks. But this extraordinary output put an unsustainable strain on the Manchurian economy. After 1929, Zhang Xueliang was forced to cut funding to the arsenal.

Fengtian Army Equipment

• 
  Machine guns were not used to their full potential. In 1924 a foreign observer was surprised by the failure to use Maxim guns to spread enfilading fire or harass enemy supply lines.
• 
  By 1927, the Fengtian Army was estimated to have 8 field gun regiments, including seven using 77mm guns and one with 150mm guns.
• 
  The Northeastern Army made heavy and effective use of field artillery. This contributed to a decline in siege tactics which had been frequent in Chinese wars of the 19th Century.
• 
  During the retreat from Manchuria, much of the Northeastern Army's heavy weaponry was captured by the Japanese. Pictured is a captured garage filled with Ft-17 tanks.

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

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