Key Developments
Most Warlords began as Yuan Shikai’s appointees. These generals ran their own legal and financial systems, collected taxes and terrorised their populations. After 1920 some warlords were replaced by ambitious men with their own ideas. Warlords tended to be cruel masters – like Zhang Zuolin who had soldiers beheaded for entering a theatre without paying, or Zang Zongzhang who liked to split the heads of his opponents. Besides the cruelty they – like the self-strengthening movement – taxed the people harshly and made agreements with foreign rulers in order to protect their own economic interests.
1917
Sun Yat-sen returns to China and sets up a nationalist government in Guangzhou; he created the nationalist party, called the Guomindang (GMD).
1918
Drought in China – leads to dissatisfaction with Warlords WWI comes to an end in November.
1919 – May 4th Movement
The Great Powers at Versailles hand decide to hand over former German territories in China not to China herself, but to Japan. This leads to protest from Beijing University students in Tiananmen Square. May 4th Movement rejected tradition in favour of embracing democracy, freedom, and equal rights. What it shares with the Boxers, however, is the determination to rid China of foreigners.
Chinese Communist Party founded in secret in girls’ school in Shanghai in June. Mao Zedong, a young bookseller from Hunan is invited to become one of its 12 leader
Sun Yat-sen announces the Three Principles of the People: Nationalism, Democracy and People’s Welfare.
Flooding in China leads to growing impatience for the return of central government among the peasantry.
Sun Yat-sen established the GMD military academy at Whampoa to create the New Republican Army (NRA). Sun Yat-sen was assisted by the Soviet Union and particularly by its ambassador Alfred Joffe and military adviser Mikhail Borodin. Borodin approved the appointment of Chiang Kai-shek as leader of the NRA. The Soviets supplied large quantities of arms to the GMD/NRA. The Comintern advice the fledgling CCP to join forces with the GMD against the warlords.
RGS History 