young marshal spring and autumn

Looking at Yuan Zai's later failures, historians have expressed their own opinions.But what is indisputable is that after his death, the leaders of the various armies under him divided China into their respective spheres of influence, thus forming another round of warlord disputes in China.Until 1926, these warlords all but ignored the Republican government that nominally ruled the country in Beijing.They brutally plundered the countryside and dragged China into a state of barbaric anarchy.This made the early years of the Republic of China one of the worst periods in Chinese history.While the western powers were making great strides forward, China stagnated. Since then, it has fallen behind for decades in modern history, and China has been in a slump.

Several factors explain this tragic outcome of the decades of responding to the West.First, China's vast territory has kept mainland China untouched by interactions with the West for many years.The hinterland is a vast cache from which traditionally-focused civil service candidates have been drawn for decades.They constituted a bureaucratic class composed of intellectuals who were devoted to the Confucian classics and thus placed more emphasis on ethical principles than on handicrafts or techniques of warfare.This ruling class was further constrained by the fact that, apart from Chen Buddhism, China had no or very little tradition of borrowing from abroad.It is not surprising, then, that while China did change in the second half of the nineteenth century, it did so at a rate far behind that of other countries responding to the West.

Still, bureaucrats cannot be held solely responsible for China's failures.Young, Western-educated Chinese are also partly to blame.Although some of them played a major role in the early period of the Republic of China, they tried to establish in China exactly the same system as they had observed and learned from foreign countries, especially from the United States.The system they established naturally means nothing to the Chinese people.It quickly fell apart in the face of China's political realities.An authoritative person in the United States gave a vivid description of the failure of these unsophisticated politicians: "In 1911, a replica of the American republic was established in China. It is ridiculous. ... That kind of republic is a big one." Failed because it had no roots in Chinese history, tradition, political experience, institutions, nature, beliefs, ideas or habits. It was foreign, empty, and superimposed on China. Its over time It was quickly removed. It does not represent political thought, but a caricature of political thought, a crude, childish, schoolboy caricature.  … This republic ended miserably, i.e. failed miserably. Yet , it was not the republic that failed... but a generation".

Yes, if we look at the politics of the early Republic of China from a modern perspective, especially the political situation after the political strongman Yuan Shikai, we will find that the entire central government is like a pan of loose sand, and no one has absolute influence and restraint. ".If it is a powerful country, like the modern United States, this kind of separation is a good thing, and it can effectively prevent one family from dominating each other, thereby constraining each other in the handling of daily state affairs.But in a country that is full of internal and external troubles and is divided, this kind of fragmentation is very dangerous.Europe, the United States and Japan are competing to find their agents in China, which will make China continue to slide into the abyss of semi-colonialism and collapse.

After Yuan Shikai completely withdrew from the center stage, his vice president, Li Yuanhong, took over as president, while his general, Duan Qirui, became prime minister.Although both belong to the Beiyang camp, the two belong to different factions: Zhili and Anhui.The two enemies officially turned against each other when President Yuan's body was still cold, and even the governors of various provinces also stood in line one after another, thus forming the two most spectacular factions of Beiyang warlord Zhifeng in modern Chinese history.

At this time, the direct faction was mainly distributed in Jiangsu, Shandong, Beijing, Hebei, and Jiangxi, while the Anhui faction occupied Shaanxi, Anhui, Zhejiang, and the deep connections and influence cultivated by Duan Qirui as chief of the army for seven consecutive terms.In addition, the forces of the "Dharma Protection Movement" headed by Sun Yat-sen will also form a Dharma Protection Government in Guangdong and serve as the Generalissimo, forming a confrontation with the North.The Zhili lineage was supported by Britain and the United States; the Anhui lineage was supported by Japan; and the Guangdong regime echoed both Britain and Japan, but was not recognized by the mainstream of the international community.If time and space do not shift, it will fall to Soviet Russia in the near future, thus forming Sun Yat-sen's policy of "uniting with Russia to accommodate the Communist Party and supporting farmers and workers".At this time, the Feng family had not yet completed the integration of forces, and did not have relatively large energy on the political stage.However, the disputes among the first three marked that modern China had officially entered the most chaotic era of warlords.

Zhang Hanqing also woke up from the time travel, and correctly realized that the current China is not the time to imitate the so-called republic.What a scattered China needs is centralization, and what it needs is a big warlord who can unify the whole country.Just like the change of dynasties in the past, what China needs is a strong government, a voice, and an army that only serves the central government.The direction of his current efforts should be to make his cheap father more powerful, so as to achieve this goal.

In Zhang Hanqing's previous life, he was good at political trends and historical development, and his knowledge of military knowledge was limited to reading magazines such as "Knowledge of Ships" and "Knowledge of Weapons", or on Sina.com with a group of angry youths. , In addition, because of his admiration for Mao Weiren, he has a very unique appreciation of his military thinking.Times have changed, and advanced military literacy may not necessarily be suitable for an army of a backward era.Occasionally having a novel idea may make people feel that they are promoting the empowerment, but if they just talk about it blindly, regardless of the status quo, there is a risk of falling into the trap of talking on paper.

Besides, he himself has only received two months of military training in high school and college, and military knowledge can only be "propagandized" from a high-level place. If he personally teaches the so-called "military thought of the new era", he will think too highly of himself.In a word, it can only be a retreat, not a reality.This self-knowledge is still there.

But he knows that leading troops is not as simple as in the movie where the commander swipes his pistol and shouts "Follow me, brothers", and the whole division and regiment charge into the battle to take down the opponent in one fell swoop.Care should be taken in logistics, supplies, training, communications, equipment, and thinking. There are many things in history where victory or defeat was reversed by a single thought.In the future, if we fight against the Japanese, although we can despise the enemy strategically, we must pay more attention to the enemy tactically.If I don't know a little bit of knowledge, it will be a big mess by then.

From this day on, Zhang Hanqing took up his post as a senior counselor of the Fengtian Tour Mission Office, with the rank of major, to assist in military affairs.