3.95 Fall and Rise of China: Feng Yuxiang, Zhang Zongchang: the Angel and Devil
Last time we spoke about the Northern Warlords and their respective factions. We covered the three big names, Duan Qirui and his Anhui clique; Wu Peifu and his Zhili cliques and Zhang Zuolin and his Fengtian clique. We also went into the smaller ones like Yan Xishan’s Shanxi clique, Feng Yuxiang’s Guominjun clique, the Ma clique of the three Ma’s, Ma Bufang, Ma Hongkui and Ma Hongbin known as the Xibei San Ma “thee Ma of the northwest”; the Xinjiang clique of Yang Zengxin and we barely scratched the surface of the Manchu Resotrationist clique of Zhang Xun. There was over 100 warlords, its really difficult to pick and choose who to delve into the most. However, there were two warlords who were bitter rivals, in a comedic fashion might I add. One was hailed as the good Christian warlord, the other a devilish monster. Today we are going to tell the tales of these two figures.
#95 Feng Yuxiang, Zhang Zongchang: the Angel and Devil
Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.
Feng Yuxiang was born in Zhili province, today Hebei in 1882. His parents were poor, his father joined the Qing army to make ends meet. At the age of only 10 he joined the Huai Army alongside his father. He earned a uniform and food but no salary as his rank was “Fu Bing”, deputy soldier. By the age of 16 he proved himself capable and became a regular. Unlike his colleagues who gambled their money away, Feng saved his money and even used portions of it to help out soldiers in need, particularly Fu Bing’s. Because of this he became quite popular amongst his comrades. He did not gamble nor drink alcohol. In 1902 he joined Yuan Shikai’s guard units and rose through the ranks becoming a company commander. From there he was transferred to the 3rd division, a crack one of Yuan Shikai’s soon to be Beiyang Army.
During the Xinhai Revolution Feng Yuxiang joined the Luanzhou uprising against the Qing, supporting the revolutionaries in the South. The uprising was suppressed by the Beiyang army and Feng was imprisoned by Yuan Shikai. Once Yuan Shikai stole the presidency of the Republic, Feng was released and he took back his military position while supporting Yuan Shikai’s regime. By 1914 he became a brigade commander and helped supress uprisings in Henan and Shaanxi. It was also during this year Feng Yuxiang developed a curiosity about Christianity. He converted to Christianity, being baptiszed into the Methodist Episcopal Church. When Yuan Shikai declared himself emperor, this ushered in the Anti-Yuan resistance. Feng Yuxiang helped supress anti-yuan forces of General Cai E in Sichuan, but in the process, began secrely negotiating with Cai E. He formed an agreement to “put on a show” rather than actually fight. After Yuan Shikai’s death, Feng Yuxiang was deprived command of the 16th Mixed Brigade, something he had come to see as his personal property. He managed to stay in touch with its officers who remained loyal to him personally. Now it gives away further episodes to dvevle deep into the following years, but what I will say, Feng Yuxiang played important roles in critical moments of the wars during China’s warlord Era. To be blunt, Feng Yuxiang was a real game of thrones little finger kind of guy if you get the reference. He always looked where the wind was blowing and was quick to switch sides turning the sides of one clique against another. He would found the Guominjun Clique, a sort of little borther to the Kuomintang, but its powerbase was located in the north rather than the south. Feng Yuxiang’s career as a warlord began right after Yuan Shikai’s death, but he certainly set himself apart from other warlords.
Feng Yuxiang would receive a lot of western press for his rather, very different methodology compared to the other warlords. In a lot of ways, he was similar to a public school headmaster in England. He forbade his men from smoking tobacco or opium, from drinking alcohol and he forced them all to study the bible. He forbade prostitution, gambling and selling drugs. He quickly earned the nickname “the Christian General”. He had a reputation of baptizing his troops with fire hoses, though this has been highly contested. Indeed he was a hardcore Christian and actively promoting Christianity while showing no tolerance for other religions in China. For exmaple in 1927 when entering Henan Province he launched a cmapaign to supress Buddhism by expelling over 300,000 monastic members and confisciating hundreds of Buddhist monasteries for military purposes. In 1923 a British Protestant Missionary, Marshall Broomhall said this of him “The contrast between Cromwell's Ironsides and Charles's Cavaliers is not more striking than that which exists in China to-day between the godly and well-disciplined troops of General Feng and the normal type of man who in that land goes by the name of soldier ... While it is too much to say that there are no good soldiers in China outside of General Feng's army, it is none the less true that the people generally are as fearful of the presence of troops as of brigand bands”.
Feng Yuxiang required his troops to take part in sports, gymastics and hardcore marches. Any illiterates were forced to learn to read and write, many were also trained in trades so they would not simply leave the army and become bandits. Feng looked at Christianity as a means of providing morale and disciplin for his army, he often told foreign missionaries 'Remember that your chief work is not to try to convert the rank and file of my army, but to use your strength in trying to get all my officers filled with the Spirit of God, for as soon as that takes place, the lowest private in the army will feel the effects of it”. Feng Yuxiangs was closely intouch with his troops often stopping to chat with them about their living conditions. He reduced corporal punishments, encouraged singing patriotic songs. One of the oddest things that I came across when I was making my Warlord Era content on the Pacific War Channel was video’s of Feng Yuxiang personally checking the fingernails of his troops. He was pretty hardcore about cleanliness, I guess “cleanliness is next to godliness”. Alright that is a lot of information about the good toe shoes Christian General Feng Yuxiang, now let me talk about Zhang Zongchang, the Dogmeat General.
Zhang Zongchang was born in 1881 in Yi county, present day Laizhou in Shandong. He grew up in an impoverished village, his father was a trumpeter, a headshaver and a rampant alcoholic. His mother exorcized evil spirits. . . Yeah she was basically a witch, oh and she left Zhang and his dad chasing another man. The family moved to Manchuria when Zhang was in his teens and he immediately got involved in petty crime around Harbin. Zhang would work as a pickpocket, bouncer, prospector and bandit throughout his life. He ended up doing some work as a laborer in Siberia amongst the Russians, picking up some Russian in the process, something that would really help his career out later. He then became a Honghuzi bandit roaming the Manchurian countryside when the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905 hit. During the war he served as a Imperial Russian Army auxiliary, interestingly enough his future boss who was also a Honghuzi did the same for the Japanese. After the war he went back to his Honghuzi lifestyle, becoming the leader of a local bandit gang.
During the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, Zhang was leading his Honghuzi as a sort of revolutionary desperados gang. He then went to Jiangsu and joined the Green Standard Army where he impressed his commander officer Cheng Dechuan so much so he made Zhang his successor…or Zhang threatened the guy who knows. Thus for a little while Zhang was leading a small cavalry detachment under the Division commander Leng Yuqin, battling Honghuzi groups. During the second revolution of 1913, Zhang became the divisional commander when Leng died. There was an issue with his division, the revolutionary General Feng Guozhang did not like them, probably because they were criminals, so he reduced their role in the revolution to being a symbolic unit. Zhang responded to this by murdering the revolutionary Chen Qimei in Shanghai in 1916, proving his loyalty and reliability to Feng Guozhang. Feng Guozhang later became vice president of the new Republic, appointing Zhang as the commander of his personal guard. As China’s Warlord Era began in 1918, Zhang like every other big guy, looked for the best strongman to follow. In 1922 he turned his attention to a new rising star, the tiger of manchuria, Zhang Zuolin.
There is a famous story, that Zhang Zuolin was celebrating his birthday in 1922, seeing countless people showering him with gifts trying to earn his favor. Zhang Zongchang apparently sent him two empty coolie baskets and did not show up in person. Zhang Zuolin was baffled by this at first, until he realized the empty baskets implied Zhang Zongchang was a man willing to shoulder any heavy responsibilities that Zhang Zuolin would entrust to him. This apparently worked like a charm as Zhang Zongchang was rewarded a position within his army.
Zhang Zongchang’s time in Siberia and work under the Russians during the Russo-Japanese war paid off as he managed to secure White Russian Mercenaries. These were refugee veterans of the Russian Civil War who had been straddling the Manchurian/Soviet borders. Zhang hired thousands of them, organizing them into units, including Cossack bodyguards. He even recruited woman on a large scale, the first Chinese general to do so. The women mostly served as nurses and one regiment was exclusively white Russian women. The white russians trained their Chinese counterparts resulting in excellent medical, a significant boost for morale and combat capability. The white russians were crucial to Zhang Zongchang’s rise as they knew how to build and operate armored trains giving the warlord a huge edge.
Now just like with Feng Yuxiang, I don’t wanna give away future parts of the warlord era story, just know Zhang Zongchang greatly impressed Zhang Zuolin and would be rewarded military governorship over Shandong Province. As the Military governor of Shandong, this is where you hear about him being a monster. For those who don’t know, Shandong has a long spanning history of being where trouble starts in China. Zhang's mismanagement of Shandong was legendary, to call it one of Shandong’s darkest times is an understatement. For example it is said one of his favorite hobbies was “to split melons”, that was bashing in the skulls of people with rifle butts. He also liked to hang people and their severed heads from telephone poles. He would reign over Shandong until 1928 and it was 3 very hard years for the people there. Basically he did what all corrupt officials had done historically in China, he fleeced the population of his province. He implemented excessive taxes and starved public institutions of funds. The provincial education system collapsed in 1927 and the provincial economy was stagnant as all hell, save for the black market. To fight the economic collapse he printed money as fast as it could be printed and became nearly valueless, reminds me a lot of my nation's leader today.
Now any criticism of Zhang Zonghcang or the Fengtian governance would lead to imprisonment and resistance led to more split melons, seeing severed heads hung everywhere. For example if a newspaper criticized his regime, Zhang literally had the editors shot. Things got so bad for the peasants of Shandong, they formed a group called the Red Spear Militia, branding red-tasseled spears, but not too many firearms. These men and women were completely outgunned trying desperately to resist Zhang Zongchangs tyranny, and tyrannical it was.
He imposed an incredible amount of taxes on the people, taxes on rice, tobacco, firewood, dogs, rickshaws, livestock, brothels, military pensions, opium pipe lighters, honestly anything that could be taxed he taxed. He once forcefully collected donations for a shrine; that shrine was a bronze statue of himself. He extorted money from banks, misappropriated his troops wages, because he was paying them in worthless printed money and gave a monopoly to the opium dealers. In fact he was the personal benefactor for drug lords and arms dealers, the black market was his chocolate factory.
Shandong was so bad, a very young Vinegar Joseph Stilwell visited the area when he was serving as a young military attache at the US legation in Peking. He said the dead and dying littered the streets and the only thing the citizens of Shandong had to eat were crushed soya-bean cakes usually fed to pigs. There were abandoned children everywhere, carts of animals seized by warlord troops and houses literally torn down for the troops firewood. Poverty and famine was rampant.
Now the devastation of Shandong was far removed from Zhang Zongchang however as he kept his quarters in the capital of Jinan (Capital in eastern Shandong). His HQ was described to be more like a medieval court full of extravagant entertainment. He had elaborate feasts, secured French champaign, scotch and his favorite Cuban cigars. He entertained artists, writers, entertainers, arms dealers, drug kingpins, western journalists and such. He loved to play poker with other minor warlords and they were high stakes games, sometimes he would walk away losing 30-50 thousands at a sitting. The poker games were always played with silver dollars and not the useless money he printed for his troops and the citizens of Shandong.
One of his more famous recurring guests was Madame Wellington Koo, this was the wife of one of the most famous Chinese politicians of the age, Wellington Koo was the frontrunner at the Paris Peace conference for China. Now Mr. Wellington Koo’s wife had this to say about Zhang “Zhang Zongchang was so delightfully outrageous that he was disarming. There were many stories about him. He was called “old eighty-sin” some said he was the height of a pile of 86 dollars, other said that figure represented the length of a certain portion of his anatomy. When I visited him my Pao Pei and Chow Chow would come with me and Zhang would roar at the servants “never mind what you give Madame Koo to eat. But be sure her dogs get the very best or you’ll suffer for it”.
Now why this guy is so famous today is of course because of his nicknames and infamous lifestyle. His most famous nickname was the “Dogmeat General”, and its said to be based on his fascination with the domino game Pai Jiu. Others say his favorite brand of tonic was known as dogmeat. And of course there was the rumor he ate a meal of black chow chow dog every day, as it was popularly believed at the time that this boosted a man’s vitality. But if you noticed the quote from Madame Wellington Koo, I think he may have been a dog lover. But the part about the man's vitality fits this guy to the core.
He was of course known by the populace of Shandong as “Monster”, but there was also
nicknames like “the lanky general or general with three long legs” were certainly something he publicized heavily. His nickname “old 86” referred to the length of his penis being 86 mexican silver dollars, there was also a nickname “72-cannon Zhang” referring to that length. I mean the man was 6 foot 6, people described him quote “with the physique of an elephant, the brain of a pig and the temperament of a tiger”.
Alongside his penis propaganda, he was a legendary womanizer. Take his other nickname for example “the general of three don’t-knows”: he did not know how many women, how many troops, or how much money he had. I think that nickname fits him better than the nickname he gave himself “the Great General of Justice and Might”.
He had a ton of concubines. The exact number of concubines he had has variously been reported between 30-50, but historians have a hard time trying to fix the numbers as Zhang himself allegedly did not know. Allegedly his concubines were from 26 different nationalities, each with her own washbowl marked with the flag of her nation. He was also said to give his concubines numbers since he could not remember their names nor speak their various languages. Many of these women he married, he was a polygamist after all. There was known to be Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Korean, Mongolians and at least one American amongst Zhang’s women.
Zhang was semi-literate, whenever people asked where he was educated he would say “the college of the green forest” a euphemism for banditry. Despite being semi-literate Zhang Zongchang is famously known for his poetry, most notably his Poem on Bastards:
You tell me to do this,
He tells me to do that.
You're all bastards,
Go fuck your mother.
Untitled
They ask me how many women I have.
To be honest, I don’t know either.
Yesterday, a boy called me dad.
I don’t know who his mother was.
Praying or Rain
The sky god is also named Zhang
Why does he make life hard for me
If it doesn’t rain in three days
I’ll demolish your temple
Then I’ll have cannons bombard your mom
It should be noted a lot of the poetry attributed to Zhang Zongchang may have been fabricated by a political opponent named Han Fuju who took over Shandong Province after him. Zhang Zongchang despite being a brutal tyrant by all means, did reward his inner circle well, he had a lot of very loyal officers around him. Zhang Zongchang traveled with a teakwood coffin planted atop a car during his campaigns. He had this done to signify his willingness to die in combat, the old “I win or come back on a shield” idea. During of his failed campaigns, Zhang Zongchang paraded himself sitting in the coffin while smoking a cuban cigar.
So as you can imagine, Feng Yuxiang and Zhang Zuolin were quite different characters to say the least. Yet both these men were born under very similar conditions. Both were born into poverty, both joined the military and were raised through the ranks with the help of patrons. Both became warlords leading cliques that allied themselves to larger cliques. Both men avoided silver bullets, the term silver bullet was used during this era to refer to being assassinated by a subordinate who was bribed by a rival warlord. To avoid such a fate, one had to make sure to conserve the loyalty of their officers, which both men did by very different means. Feng used Christianity like a glue to bind his soldiers together. He provided missionaries to encourage conversion. If christianity did not work, he employed nationalism. In the mid 1920’s he became very hostile to the unequal treaties that Europe and Japan plagued China with. He began indoctrinating his men with anti-imperialistic literature and ironically began brushing shoulders with the anti-religious Soviet Union. The USSR would become his main benefactor, earning him a second nickname “the red general”. Zhang Zongzhang was much more akin to other warlords at keeping silver bullets at bay. He paid his inner circle in silver, he made sure the pockets of his best men were always full. He allowed every evil corrupt thing imaginable to occur under his subordinates hands. Zhang Zongchang was a ruthless tyrannical monster who focused on his own power above all.
Both warlords had to navigate the extremely complex alliance and rivalry system amongst the warlords. Feng Yuxiang aligned himself with the Yuan Shikai, then against Yuan Shikai, then again for Yuan Shiaki, with the Zhili clique, the Kuomintung, Communists and basically whoever looked to be winning at the time. Chiang Kai-shek said of him “the so-called Christian General was a master in the art of deception”. This was extremely true, Feng Yuxiang was a hell of a backstabber, his career actually was propelled by it. Zhang Zongchang tossed his lot in with Banditz, then Russians, then with the Fengtian Clique out of necessity, brushing shoulders with the Japanese by proxy. Zhang Zongchang really did not have any large ideology, he went with the flow as long as it benefited him. In many ways both men sort of just did what they did to empower their positions.
The people living under their rule could not have had a more different experience. Under Feng Yuxiang, Christian beliefs were enforced, a more progressive outlook was present. He did a lot to improve the living conditions of ordinary people under his control. He promoted education heavily, healthcare, infrastructure development. He was insane about discipline and thwarting corruption. He stopped gambling, smoking, drug trafficking, prostitution, he really was a man of law and order. Zhang Zongchang was the complete opposite, it was as if he was trying to outdo the devil himself. Zhang Zongchang, ruled with an iron fist, extracting resources from the population through taxation, extortion, and forced labor, while enriching himself and his inner circle. Under Zhang the common people starved, they were pillaged, raped, abused in all manners. Zhang took away funds from education, infrastructure (unless it was a statue of himself), from anything that would benefit the people. Zhang loved to smoke cigars, drank excessively, had 50 concubines, and was literally bestfriends with the black market of China.
Inevitably given their spheres of influence both warlords would run into each other in the 1920s. Feng Yuxiang’s powerbase was around Shanxi and Hebei while Zhang Zongchang was firmly in Shandong. These territories border another, producing frequent clashes over strategic resources, trade routes and territorial disputes. While Feng Yuxiang betrayed many cliques, he more or less stuck to the Kuomintang. At one point Feng Yuxiang even joined the Fengtian clique to only betray them. Zhang Zongchang remained loyal to the Fengtian clique, pretty much until his death. By the way his death would be at the hands of an officer who served Feng Yuxiang, so I guess Feng won in the end haha.
Most warlords were ostentatious in their dress and lifestyle, but Feng Yuxiang was quite an exception to this. Numerous photographs show warlords sporting glittering uniforms copied from other nations. For example, Zhang Zuolin wore a large gold braid, numerous decorations, giant gleaming buckles, shoulder pads and white gloves. He had a small peaked cap suggesting he was modeling himself on a Russian Tsar. Chiang Kai-Shek favored an american style officers uniform with a high peaked cap. Many warlords liked French-styled kepis, British ww1 uniforms with sam Brown belts or helmets with enormous plumes. Pull up a picture of Zhang Zongchang and its absolutely ridiculous. He has giant shoulder pads, large medal star decorations, a giant belt, a large ribbon cross over, double golden braids, white gloves, basically he looks like hes trying to out do Zhang Zuolin. But Feng Yuxiang while a warlord wore the same plain dress as his soldiers.
If you read contemporary or older books on the warlords, you immediately notice the authors favor Feng Yuxiang and talk about him positively, while strongly villianizing Zhang Zongchang. Put simply the propaganda wars that were going on during China’s Warlord Era were exactly that, Feng Yuxiang made sure he was presented as a good Christian General, while Zhang Zongchang really seemed to bask in being the bad boy or base General. Hell Zhang Zongchang publicized most of what was said about him himself! In the end they were two cogs in a very large machine and they played their parts. During for however long this warlord era lasts on the podcast, we will come to learn about as many of the warlords as I possibly can cover. They are colorful characters who had a profound effect on the formation of Nationalist China and the People’s republic of China.
I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.
Thus were the tales of the good Christian General Feng Yuxiang and the basest warlord, Zhang Zongchang. We will further tell the tales of their ventures in the battles of China’s Warlord Era, but in the next episode we are going to meet the Southern faction Warlords!
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