Zhang Zuolin

Zhang Zuolin

Zhāng Zuòlín (Traditional Chinese: 張作霖,Simplified Chinese: 张作霖 , pinyin: Zhāng Zuòlín, WG: Chang Tso-lin) (according to some accounts born in 1873 in Haicheng county in southern Fengtian province, assassinated on 4 June 1928 in Shenyang, although often 21 June is being cited as the official date of his death), nicknamed the "Old Marshal" (大帥), "Rain Marshal" (雨帥）or "Mukden Tiger", was one of the major warlords of China in the early 20th century. He was the warlord of Manchuria from 1916 to 1928, and at one time ruled an enormous area of north China.

Origins

Little is known about his origins. He was born to poor parents, who can hardly have offered him any formal education. In appearance he was always thin and rather short. Zhang Zuolin joined a group of bandits and became their leader by his late 20s. In the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05, the Japanese Army employed them as mercenaries. At the end of the Qing-dynasty Zhang managed to have his men recognized as a regiment of the regular Chinese army. When fighting broke out in China proper in late 1911 he ordered 3,500 of his men to occupy Shenyang (then called Fengtian City), the political center of Manchuria.

The Republic of China appointed a new military commander in Manchuria, but in practice the troops remained loyal to Zhang. In 1915 the Central Government decided to appoint another commander and ordered Zhang to move his forces to Hubei province in north China. Zhang refused. In April 1916 the new commander left, and Zhang Zuolin became the Civil and Military Governor of Fengtian province (in most provinces it was the practice to have two governors, who divided civil and military affairs between themselves). Later the same year the division stationed in the northernmost province of Manchuria, Heilongjiang, pledged its loyalty to Zhang, in 1918 the same happened in Jilin province, so that the whole of Manchuria was under the control of Zhang Zuolin.

Fortress Manchuria

In 1920, when he had passed his mid-40s, Zhang was the supreme ruler of Manchuria. The Central Government acknowledged this fact by appointing him to be Governor-General of the Three Eastern Provinces. He started to surround himself in luxury, built a chateau-style home near Shenyang, and had at least five wives (an accepted practice of any powerful or wealthy Chinese at the time). In 1925, his personal fortune was estimated at over 18 million yuan (which can roughly be divided by two to obtain the value in US dollars).

His power rested on the Fengtian Army, which was composed of about 100,000 men by 1922 and almost triple that number by the end of the decade. It had obtained large stocks of weapons left over from World War I, and even included naval units, an air force, and an armaments industry. Zhang integrated a large number of local militias in his Army, and thus prevented Manchuria from falling into the chaos which reigned in China proper at this time. Jilin province was ruled by a military governor, who was said to be a cousin of Zhang; Heilongjiang had its own regional warlord, who never displayed any ambitions outside the province.

Although Manchuria officially remained a part of the Republic of China, it became more or less an independent kingdom isolated from China by its geography and protected by the Fengtian Army. The only pass at Shanhaiguan, where the Great Wall meets the sea, could easily be closed. In a time when the Central Government was hardly able to pay the salaries of its civil servants, no more revenues were forwarded to Beijing. In 1922 Zhang took control of the only rail link, the Beijing-Shenyang Railway, north of the Great Wall and also kept these revenues. Only postal and customs revenues were continued to be sent to Beijing, because they had been pledged to foreign powers after the Boxer rebellion of 1900, and Zhang feared their intervention.

Japanese and Russian influences

Manchuria shared a long border with Russia, which had been weakened after the October Revolution. The line of the Chinese Eastern Railway, which was under Russian control, ran through northern Manchuria, and the land immediately on either side of the tracks was considered to be Russian territory. From 1917 to about 1924 the new Communist government was having such difficulties establishing itself in Siberia that often it wasn't clear, who was in charge of operating the railway on the Russian side. Still, Zhang avoided a showdown, and after 1924 the Russians managed to re-establish their dominance over the railroad.

How precarious the situation could develop at times was demonstrated by an outbreak of pneumonic plague in Hailar, a town at the western end of the Chinese Eastern Railway, in October 1920 . Chinese Troops were present in great number and turned railway quarantine into a farce. The soldiers set free some of their comrades who had been imprisoned as contacts, and they escaped to the mining town of Dalainor on the Amur River, where a quarter of the population succumbed. In the other direction all the towns along the Chinese Eastern Railway as far as Vladivostok were infected. In all, about 9,000 died, on the other hand only a few contacts were able to reach south Manchuria.

The Japanese posed more of a problem. After the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05 they had gained two important outposts in south Manchuria: The Guandong Leased Territory consisted of a 218 square mile peninsula in the southernmost part of Manchuria. It included the ice-free port of Dairen (known as Dalian in Chinese), which became the main link to Japan. Reaching northward from the colony the South Manchurian Railway passed through Shenyang (referred to as Mukden by the Japanese) linking up with the Chinese Eastern Railway in Changchun. The land on either side of the railway tracks remained extra territorial, now being controlled by the Japanese Guandong Army. This army maintained from 7,000 to 14,000 men in Manchuria tolerating and being tolerated by the Fengtian Army although Zhang kept on a war of words playing on anti-Japanese sentiments in the Chinese public.

Civil reform

At the beginning of the 1920s Zhang transformed Manchuria from an unimportant frontier region to one of the most prosperous parts of China. He had inherited a financially weak provincial government, e.g. in 1917 Fengtian faced ten outstanding loans from foreign controlled consortia and banks totaling over 12 million yuan. Zhang chose Wang Yongjiang, who had served as head of a regional tax office, for the task of solving Fengtian's financial problems. He was named Director of the Bureau of Finance.

A number of currencies were circulating in the province, as was the custom in China, and the paper notes issued by the provincial government had experienced a steady depreciation in value. Wang decided to switch to a silver standard and set the initial value of the new silver yuan equal to the Japanese gold yen, which was accepted throughout Korea and Manchuria. Much to the surprise of the Chinese the new currency even gained in value against the gold yen, although Japanese businessmen claimed that it was not backed up by sufficient silver reserves. Wang then used the newly gained credibility to introduce another note, the Fengtian dollar, which was not convertible into silver any more. But it was accepted by the government for the payment of taxes, a sign that the government had faith in its own currency.

Next Wang turned to the chaotic tax collecting system. Because of his former job he was well acquainted with the abuses of the system and introduced a number of controls. The provincial government had also invested government funds in various enterprises, many of which were poorly managed. Wang ordered a total review of government sponsored firms. Since 1918 the revenues rose steadily, by 1921 all outstanding loans had been repaid and there was even a budget surplus. Wang was rewarded by being appointed as Civil Governor of Fengtian province while remaining Director of the Bureau of Finance. Zhang retained the title of Military Governor of Fengtian. Still more than two thirds of the budget were allocated to the military.

War in north China

In the summer of 1920 Zhang made a foray into north China on the other side of the Great Wall trying to topple Duan Qirui, the leading warlord of Beijing. He did this by supporting another warlord, Cao Kun, with troops, and they both successfully ousted Duan. As a reward Zhang was granted control over most of inner Mongolia to the west of Manchuria. Zhang had become a figure of national prominence. But he was confronted by a divisional commander of the North China Zhili clique, Wu Peifu (Zhili is the name of the area surrounding Beijing). In spring 1922 Zhang personally took the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Fengtian Army, and on 19 April his forces entered into China proper. Fighting started three days later, and on 4 May they were seriously defeated by the Zhili Army in what came to be known as the First Zhili-Fengtian War. 3,000 troops had been killed and 7,000 wounded, so that Zhang's units had to retreat to Shanhaiguan Pass. Zhili forces were in control of Beijing, Zhang's image as a national leader had been destroyed, and he reacted by declaring Manchuria independent from Beijing in May 1922.

Manchuria's top civil official, Wang, left Shenyang on 22 June for Japanese controlled Dalian allegedly for treatment of an eye infection that troubled him. From there he challenged Zhang by demanding restrictions to military spending and a complete control over civil affairs. Zhang, one of China's most feared warlords, gave in, lifted martial law and agreed to a separation of civil and military administration in all of the three provinces. Wang returned on 6 August thereby guaranteeing Manchuria's continued stability.

Regional development

In the following years Wang realized a far reaching development plant. He tried to bring more workers to the booming Manchurian economy. Most workers had come on a temporary basis, returning to their homes in North China in winter. Now the Manchurian government encouraged them to bring along women and children and settle permanently. They were eligible for reduced fares on all Chinese owned railways in Manchuria, received funds to build a dwelling and were promised total ownership after five years of continuous occupation. Rent for the land was canceled for the first years. Most were sent to the interior of Manchuria, where they reclaimed land for agriculture, or worked in forestry or mines. Between 1924 and 1929 the amount of land under tillage increased from 20 to 35 million acres.

Manchuria's economy boomed while chaos and uncertainty reigned in the rest of China. An especially ambitious project was to break the Japanese monopoly on cotton textiles by creating a large mill, which much to Japan's chagrin succeeded. The government also invested in other enterprises, among them quite a number of Sino-Japanese companies. During this time the Fengtian Army successfully kept a lid on Manchuria's many bandits. Various railway lines were built, among them the Shenyang-Hailong line, which opened in 1925. In 1924 Wang amalgamated three regional banks into the Official Bank of the Three Eastern Provinces and personally became its General Director. By this move he tried to create a development bank and at the same time to keep accurate records of military spending.

The beginning of the end

After the disastrous defeat of 1922 Zhang had reorganized Fengtian Army, started a training program and had bought new equipment like mobile radios and machine guns. In the autumn of 1924 fighting broke out again in Central China and Zhang saw an opportunity to capture North China and Beijing and become head of the Central Government. While most other warlord armies fought along the Yangtze River, Zhang attacked North China. The Second Zhili-Fengtian War had begun. In a surprise move a Zhili commander, Feng Yuxiang, toppled Cao Kun and took control of Beijing. He shared power with Zhang and both appointed the same Duan Qirui he had ousted in 1920. By August 1925 the Fengtian Army controlled four large provinces within the Great Wall (Zhili, where Beijing was located, but not Beijing itself, Shandong, Jiangsu, and Anhui). One unit even marched as far south as the city of Shanghai. But the military situation was so unstable, that Sun Chuanfang, a Zhili clique warlord whose sphere of influence extended along the Yangzi, managed to push back the Fengtian Army again. By November Zhang held only a small corner of North China including a corridor connecting Beijing with Manchuria. Attacks on Beijing continued into the spring of 1926.

Manchuria was placed under martial law again, while its economy disintegrated under the burden of the insatiable war machine. Old taxes were increased and new taxes invented. Zhang demanded that more paper money was being printed out of step with silver reserves. A most serious crisis erupted when in November 1925 Guo Songling revolted and ordered his troops to turn back and march on Shenyang. The Japanese brought in reinforcements to protect their interests in Manchuria, but Zhang managed to put down the revolt in December. Even more seriously, Manchuria's top civil official, Civil Governor Wang Yongjiang, realized that his work of nine years had been in vain. He left Shenyang in February 1926 and handed in his resignation. This time he didn't react, when Zhang asked him to return. Wang died from kidney failure 1 November 1927.

Manchuria's economy collapses

Main article: Huanggutun Incident

File:Zhang zuolin car.jpg

The railroad car Zhang was in.

In March 1926 a new civil governor was appointed. His only job was to supply the Fengtian Army with large amounts of money. He issued new provincial bonds, forcing business and local communities to purchase them. Early in 1927 he even entered into the opium trade by selling expensive licenses for the sale and use of opium. Bank reserves and railway revenues were plundered, while ever more paper notes were issued. The best indicator of Manchuria's economic decline was the value of the Fengtian dollar (yuan), which had started on parity with the Japanese gold yen. In February 1928 a yen cost 40 yuan. In this winter Manchuria's economy collapsed. Workers went on strike, hungry immigrants flooded back into Shenyang because they couldn't find any work.

In June 1926 Zhang had managed to capture Beijing. A year later he proclaimed himself as Grand Marshal of the Republic of China, and thus ruled what was still recognized internationally as China's legal government. But an alliance of regional warlords led by Chiang Kai-shek attacked his forces and in May 1928 the Fengtian Army had to retreat towards Beijing. In addition, Japan applied pressure on Zhang to leave Beijing and return to Manchuria, and underscored this by bringing reinforcements to Tianjin. Zhang left Beijing on 3 June 1928.

The next morning his train reached the outskirts of Shenyang. Here, the line passed underneath the Japanese operated South Manchuria Railroad. An officer of the Japanese Guandong Army, Colonel Kōmoto Daisaku, had planted a bomb, which exploded when Zhang's train passed under the viaduct. For two weeks Zhang's death was kept secret, while the scramble for power was decided. That is why, according to an announcement issued by the Fengtian Army, he officially died on 21 June 1928. Zhang was followed by the eldest son of his official wife, Zhang Xueliang.

See also

• Warlord era
• Zhang Xueliang

References

Suleski, Ronald. (2002). Civil Government in Warlord China: Tradition, Modernization and Manchuria New York: Peter Lang.