Feng Yuxiang
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Template:Chinese name Template:Infobox Person
Feng Yuxiang (Template:Zh-tspw) (1882–1948) was a warlord during Republican China. He was also known as the Christian General, being a convert to Methodism. He is best-known for the Beijing coup of 1924.
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Origins
As the son of an officer in the Qing Imperial Army, Feng spent his youth immersed in the military life. He joined the Huai Army when he was just 14, as a deputy soldier (Fu Bing, 副兵), the lowest rank in the army which only received uniform and food, but not salary, like the regular soldier. By the age of 16, Feng had proved himself and became a regular soldier. Unlike other soldiers who gambled away their pay, Feng saved his salary and used a portion of it to help out other soldiers in need, especially those deputy soldiers (Fu Bing, 副兵), and hence he was popular among his fellow comrades-in-arms. Feng was hard working and motivated, and in 1902, he was reassigned to Yuan Shikai's newly established Beiyang Army.
Beliefs
Feng, like many young officers, was involved in revolutionary activity and was nearly executed for treason. He later joined Yuan Shikai's Beiyang Army and converted to Christianity in 1914, being baptised into the Methodist Episcopal Church. [1]
Feng's career as a warlord began soon after the collapse of the Yuan Shikai government in 1916. Feng, however, distinguished himself from other regional militarists by governing his domains with a mixture of paternalistic Christian socialismTemplate:Fact and military discipline. He forbade prostitution, gambling and the sale of opium and morphia. [1] From 1919, he was known as the 'Christian General'.[1]
In 1923, British Protestant Christian missionary Marshall B. Broomhall said 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.[1]
He was reputed to have liked baptizing his troops with water from a fire hose. But no such incident is mentoned in Sheriden's detailed biography[1], or in Broomhall's account. [1] Both Broomhall and Sheriden say that baptism was taken very seriously and that not all of Feng's troops were baptised.[1]
Rise
In the early 1920s, Feng rose to prominence in the Zhili clique of warlords, named so because their base of power was centred around Zhili. This Zhili Clique defeated the Fengtian clique, headed by Zhang Zuolin, father of Zhang Xueliang, in the First Zhili-Fengtian War in 1922. It was at this time that Feng also began to move closer to the Soviet Union.
In the Second Zhili-Fengtian War of 1924, Feng betrayed Zhili and seized control of the capital on October 23 in the Beijing coup. Upon receiving news of the coup, warlord Zhang Zongchang of Shandong threw his support to Fengtian, resulting in a decisive defeat for Zhili. Fengtian troops entered Beijing in April 1925. Zhili's defeat paved the way for the success of the Northern Expedition (1926–1927) by the Nationalist Party of Chiang Kai-shek. During the Northern Expedition, Feng's loyalties shifted again, this time supporting Chiang to the detriment of Zhang Zuolin, who was forced to withdraw his forces to Manchuria. By 1929, Feng's Guominjun clique controlled most of north-central China, but because he was under increasing pressure from the expanding power of the Nanjing government, he and Yan Xishan launched the Central Plains War against Chiang, but were defeated by forces loyal to Nanjing.
Out of Power
Stripped of his military power, Feng spent the early 1930s criticizing Chiang's failure to resist Japanese aggression. On May 26, 1933, Feng Yuxiang became commander-in-chief of the "Chahar People's Anti-Japanese Army Alliance", with Ji Hongchang as frontline commander.
Campaign of the Anti-Japanese Allied Army
With a strength claimed by Feng to be over 100,000 men, Ji Hongchang's army pushed against Duolun, and by July 1933, drove the Japanese and Manchukuoan troops out of Chahar Province.
By late July, Feng Yuxiang and Ji Hongchang established, at Kalgan, the "Committee for Recovering the four provinces of the Northeast". Chiang Kai-shek, fearing that communists had taken control of the Anti-Japanese Allied Army, launched a concerted siege of the army with 60,000 men. Surrounded by Chiang Kai-shek and the Japanese, Feng Yuxiang resigned his post, while Ji Hongchang fought on for a while before seeking asylum in Tianjin in January 1934.
Last years
Between 1935 and 1945, Feng Yuxiang supported the KMT and held various positions in the Nationalist army and government. From 1936 to 1938 he was the Vice-President of the National Military Council and a member until 1945. During the Xian Incident, when Chaing Kai-Shek was held prisoner by rebellious warlords, he immediately called for Chiang's release. [1] After the Second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937 he was Commander in Chief of the 6th War Area.
After World War II, he traveled to the United States where he was an outspoken critic of the Chiang regime and of Truman administration’s support for it. He was never a Communist but was close to them in his final years.[1] He died in a shipboard fire on the Black Sea while en route to the Soviet Union in 1948, along with one of his daughters. Some people believe he was murdered; others deny it.[1]
The Chinese Communists classified Feng as a 'good warlord, and his remains were buried with honors in China in 1953, at the sacred mountain T'ai Shan.[1] His widow Lu Te-chiuan was Minister of Public Health in the People's Republic of China.
See also
- Warlord era
- Central Plains War
- History of the Republic of China
- National Revolutionary Army
- Second Sino-Japanese War
- Actions in Inner Mongolia (1933-36)
Further reading
- Broomhall, Marshall (Marshall Broomhall); Marshall Feng: A Good Soldier of Jesus Christ; London: China Inland Mission and Religious Tract Society, 1923.
- Goforth, Jonathan; Chinese Christian general: Feng Yu Hsiang
- Sheridan, James E. Chinese Warlord: The Career of Feng Yu-hsiang. Stanford University 1966.
References
External links
- Handbook for the Chinese Civil War - US Naval War College
- RESISTANCE WARS
- Template:Cite news
- Jul 31, 1933 TIME magazine, "Toward Righteousness!"
- Template:Cite news
- Template:Cite news
- Warlord Yan Xishan on Feng Yushang
Template:Warlord erade:Feng Yuxiang fr:Feng Yuxiang ko:펑위샹 id:Feng Yuxiang ja:馮玉祥 no:Feng Yuxiang pl:Feng Yuxiang ru:Фэн Юйсян uk:Фен Юсян zh:冯玉祥
