Duan Qirui the Beiyang elder statesman his own allies called the man who made the republic three times Why did
“He Saved the Republic 3 Times — Yet Ruled Just 18 Months | Shenzhou Dadi Episode 26 (Shorts)” is an episode of Shenzhou Dadi (The Divine Land). Below is the full text transcript of this episode — read it word for word, or visit the video page to watch with the footage.
Duan Qirui the Beiyang elder statesman his own allies called the man who made the republic three
times Why did he quietly retreat into a villa in the foreign concessions of Tianjin Why did
a leader everyone had installed in power last only eighteen months And why was it in those
very years that newspapers could still print attacks on the president and universities could shelter every warring
school of thought an age so noisy and so loose that even he could not hold it
Wind the film back to the winter of 1924 At one end Sun Yat-sen sick aging left
Guangzhou sailed around Japan and headed for Beijing to discuss the nation’s future A side note on
names the world calls him Sun Yat-sen but his given name was Sun Wen courtesy name Zaizhi
Sun Yat-sen was itself a mistake in Japan he once used the alias Zhongshan Qiao and a
translator tacked Zhongshan onto his surname by error the name stuck though he himself preferred Sun Wen
At the other end Duan Qirui had already been lifted by a deal among rifles into the
chair of government One man wanted to fulfill his dream of the presidency the other wanted to
run the country They were fated to pass each other in the cold Beijing spring and no
one in the city then knew that this passing would drag behind it a string of endings
no one could foresee and that this loose noisy vitality was about to reach its end
First the man himself Among the warlords Duan was an oddity he did not smoke did not
drink took no concubines kept one wife for life and in old age ate vegetarian and chanted
sutras While his contemporaries kept rows of concubines he would not while others toasted brotherhood over wine
he burned incense in his prayer corner A soldier who had commanded armies and a premier who
had run cabinets lived in reputation like a puritan The Beiyang circle gave him a nickname the
Tiger paired with Wang Shizhen’s Dragon and Feng Guozhang’s Dog the three became the folk saying Dragon
Tiger Dog
The tally of three republics was counted by his supporters First in 1912 he helped force the Qing court
to abdicate and the republic stood Second in 1917 he drove out Zhang Xun who had put the
deposed boy-emperor Puyi back on the throne Puyi’s seat was barely warm before he stepped back down
Third in 1924 Duan took the executive seat and stood once more at the center of power Three
tallies make three times Whether the tally really counts is disputed among historians some nod some shake
their heads But counted or not the word Tiger was welded to his name
The most theatrical stroke came in 1917 That July Zhang Xun marched his queue-wearing troops into Beijing and
hoisted Puyi back onto the dragon throne Duan said nothing he traveled south of Tianjin to a
small town called Machang mustered a column named himself commander of the Punitive Army and swore his
oath north Twelve days later Zhang Xun was out Zhang Xun himself later retired to Tianjin and
died there in 1923 the man who had put Puyi back on the throne ended his days as
a Tianjin gentleman-in-exile same as the rest A small town one column twelve days that is where
the phrase made the republic was shouted from History sometimes hangs on a place name that small
And yet in the very Beiyang years of his greatest glory something strange was happening Newspapers in
Beijing and Shanghai attacked the president openly Cai Yuanpei running Peking University declared he would embrace all
schools of thought and invited left right new and old to teach under one roof vernacular Chinese
and new literature were rewriting the country’s language in full throttle An age of soldiers in charge
somehow made room for the noisiest cultural scene imaginable an age where even the president could be
pointed at and cursed by the press Those were years the newspapers truly dared to scold
On 24 November 1924 Duan became the Provisional Chief Executive his government housed in Iron-Lion Lane today’s No. 3 Zhangzizhong Road
in Beijing The title carried no presidential name yet it gathered military and civil power into one
hand and Duan the old leader driven out two years earlier now commanding no army of his
own was lifted once more to the center On inauguration day he spoke these words I Duan
unworthy have taken up the heavy charge of Provisional Chief Executive of the Republic I swear to
consolidate the republic to advance the people’s will to renew the nation from within and to honor
our standing abroad So declared
The story splits in two Beneath the same sky where Duan sat in the government another man
also set out Sun Yat-sen leaving Guangzhou sailing around Japan bound for Beijing Before he left he
issued a statement laying out his purpose plainly The aim of the national revolution is to build
an independent free nation that defends the interests of state and people Internally to divide the powers
of center and province so that national unity and local self-rule may each flourish without hindrance and
to establish the county as the unit of self-governance laying deep the foundation of the people’s rights
The two men’s visions collided Sun wanted a National Conference provinces and civic groups sending delegates to
decide the country’s path from the bottom up Duan wanted an Aftermath Conference inviting the regional military
bosses and politicians to settle things from the top down One said bottom-up the other said top-down
at root it was two answers to one question who gets to decide this country’s fate In
February 1925 Duan’s conference met first Sun’s never reached the same table Two men heading north one dying
one enthroned neither convinced the other
On 12 March that year Sun Yat-sen died in Beijing aged fifty-nine The wish he had carried north
stopped with his last breath in the Beijing spring Duan sent a funeral couplet but the one
meeting the two never had was now forever missing One era’s standard-bearer fell the other was still
on stage except the stage had already begun to sway
Duan’s chair was empty from the very start When Yuan Shikai died no one could command all
the warlords’ allegiance again every fighter who could fight kept his own army Duan’s rule was plainly
put a temporary truce among several rifles Zhang Zuolin of the Fengtian clique held the most guns
and dominated Feng Yuxiang’s National Army occupied the capital and gripped the government by the throat Duan
himself commanded not one soldier he was the face The rifles lifted him up the rifles turned
and he hung in the air A system where whoever has more guns gets to talk is
unstable by nature three factions none obeying the other each waiting for its chance That second half
of the year two rebellions quickly tarnished his signboard one Sun Chuanfang in the southeast rose against
Fengtian the other Fengtian’s own general Guo Songling turned his coat against Fengtian both of those we
must tell in detail
Guo Songling was the Fengtian general who could actually fight In the Second Zhili Fengtian War it
was his men who broke through Shanhaiguan But once the fighting ended Zhang Zuolin handed the fat
post to Yang Yuting a Japanese-trained officer who knew how to please while Guo of the army-academy
faction was sidelined the more battles he won In 1925 Zhang ordered him to march against Feng Yuxiang’s
National Army Guo would not fight again Fengtian armies had marched south year after year and where
did the fighting land On ordinary people’s doorsteps Privately he said he would rather hang up his
sword than send another generation of northeastern sons into the trenches That November he rose at Luanzhou
and telegraphed a demand Zhang Zuolin step down Zhang Xueliang take charge reform the Three Eastern Provinces
and keep the peace at home A frontline general turned on his own commander He pushed all
the way to the Juliu River southwest of Mukden and Fengtian was nearly broken But this time
the Japanese moved along the South Manchuria Railway Japanese troops took up positions and blocked Guo’s path
for Zhang Zuolin The Japanese did not help for nothing there was a secret pact beforehand Zhang
Zuolin promised Japan railway and mining rights around South Manchuria and the Jidun line in exchange for
its troops Once the fighting ended and Zhang caught his breath he stalled and ultimately defaulted on
the promise They say this old debt planted the seed of the 1928 Huanggutun bombing his special
train blown up by the Kwantung Army him killed on the spot So-called help always comes with
a price Caught front and rear Guo’s army collapsed Guo and his wife Han Shuxiu were captured
and shot on the spot their bodies left exposed A general who wanted no more civil war
died at the tail end of the very war he had not wanted to fight This mutiny
wounded Fengtian itself
Another debt must be charged to Feng Yuxiang Before Guo rose he had a secret pact with
Feng Yuxiang and Li Jinglin the three would join hands and strike Zhang Zuolin from north and
south Guo drove forward on the front line Feng instead of supporting from the flank as agreed
seized the chance to grab Li Jinglin’s territory leaving Guo alone at the Juliu River To say
Guo’s defeat carried a share of Feng Yuxiang’s unkept promise is by the historical record a real
claim A general who wanted no more civil war was in the end strangled together by his
old commander’s guns Japan’s roads and an ally’s broken word
Sun Chuanfang courtesy name Xinyuan was called the Smiling Tiger all smiles to your face no mercy
once he moved After the last northern war Fengtian armies marched south and took Jiangsu and Anhui
even reaching for Shanghai The southeast was the old turf of the Zhili clique the moment Fengtian
arrived the local strongmen smiled politely but seethed inside In October 1925 Sun declared from Hangzhou that he
was Commander of the Five-Province Allied Army and marched north against Fengtian He moved fast in the
crisp autumn one push and Fengtian’s man in Jiangsu Yang Yuting again was caught flat-footed and fled
the Shanghai garrison rolled up its tents In little over a month Fengtian was driven out of
Jiangsu and Anhui and the southeast changed hands This Allied Army paid well and kept discipline so
locals welcomed it as their own drums at the gate But that left Duan’s government even more
a figurehead the southeast no longer answered to him either That Smiling Tiger was himself shot in 1935
in a Tianjin chapel by a woman avenging her father that is later talk but you see
the Beiyang warlords mostly ended this way
A man lifted by others’ rifles left hanging the moment those rifles turned this is not a
metaphor It was Duan’s reality every single day he held office The crack was already climbing quietly
from beneath his feet
18 March 1926 The Beijing spring had not yet warmed through A few days earlier Dagu Fort had seen
trouble the National Army and a Japanese warship exchanged fire there on 16 March eight powers delivered an
ultimatum to the Beiyang government demanding the dismantling of Dagu’s defenses and an apology with indemnity Thousands
of students and citizens marched from Tiananmen to Iron-Lion Lane the gate of Duan’s government to petition
over this reject the ultimatum send the eight powers’ envoys away The crowd reached the government gate
and faced off and jostled with the guards some pushed forward trying to enter The guards opened
fire That day more than forty fell over two hundred were wounded Why did the guards fire
Who gave the order is disputed in the sources one says Duan ordered it on the spot
another says Duan was not there that day and it was the guard colonel or the State
Council who gave the order As for how the scene turned to conflict the two sides’ accounts
never matched the guards’ side said someone charged the gate the petitioning students and citizens said they
were peaceably delivering a petition Both accounts are laid out here The next day the government issued
an order calling for the ringleaders’ arrest The order read In recent years Xu Qian Li Dazhao
Li Yuying Yi Peiji Gu Zhaoxiong and others have under cover of communist doctrine gathered crowds and
repeatedly provoked trouble the troops in legitimate defense inflicted mutual casualties Xu Qian and the rest are
to be seized wherever found and punished to the full extent of the law as a warning
to others So ordered
The government’s order read gathered crowds and repeatedly provoked trouble the troops in legitimate defense inflicted mutual
casualties That is how the order read at the gate the shots came from inside the government
and more than forty fell over two hundred wounded After the incident Duan Qirui knelt to offer
apology and ate vegetarian and chanted sutras for the rest of his life how far apart a
government order’s wording and Duan’s own act stand historians each have their say
The contrast sits right here just a few years earlier the newspapers could still point at the
president and curse him the very next year petitioners fell at the government gate Lu Xun later
wrote an essay marking the date Beijing’s schools held memorials for the fallen In a chorus of
national condemnation Duan’s last shred of founder of the republic reputation shattered completely
That volley took more than reputation After the shots Feng Yuxiang’s National Army and Zhang Zuolin’s Fengtian
army turned on each other in April Duan escorted by National Army officers fled Beijing in haste
and took refuge in the Tianjin concessions From Provisional Chief Executive to exiled gentleman eighteen months not
a day more A man who had made the republic ended up ruined in name by the
March 18th incident and stripped of his chair by mutiny
The Beiyang age that produced such a loose environment why was it so fragile
Duan left but he was not the first disgraced magnate to retreat to Tianjin In those years
Tianjin was like a magnet drawing the Beiyang’s disgraced men in one after another From the chair
of government to a villa in the concessions this step Duan took but this step others had
already taken for him
Li Yuanhong lived there Xu Shichang lived there Cao Kun also lived there former presidents and former
premiers out of office gathered in Tianjin Duan’s old residence on Anshan Road in the Japanese concession kept
company with this group of old neighbors These few all ended their days in their Tianjin residences
as well Li Yuanhong in 1928 Cao Kun in 1938 Xu Shichang in 1939 one after another leaving their remaining
years in this city The gentlemen-in-exile lived another sort of life in their villas they chanted sutras
attended private opera rode in carriages played chess Yesterday still issuing orders from Zhongnanhai today before the
incense burner in their own small building counting prayer beads The stage of power collapsed and the
men one by one here reached their end
But why Tianjin of all places Why did these men who had commanded wind and rain all
their lives once stepped down not return home not go to Shanghai but crowd into this one
city The answer lies in what made Tianjin special this city had a few things no other
place had
The first was the concessions Nine nations’ concessions crowded into Tianjin and became ironically a haven for
a certain class of people the blade of power reaching the edge of the concessions often stopped
The second was the common street The dock laborers shouldering loads the crosstalk performers in teahouses the
Yangliuqing New Year print masters and the exiled gentlemen chanting sutras in villas they shared one city
The flags atop the city changed several times the common street never stopped for anyone A city
where even the defeated could live in peace says something in itself
Speaking of people Tianjin’s human warmth is worth telling on its own The painted clay figures of
Clay Figure Zhang shape the bustle of the street from a handful of mud the Yangliuqing New
Year prints paste the noise of festivals onto a sheet of paper and the crosstalk in teahouses
a snap of the folding fan and the whole room roars with laughter these crafts and cadences
share the same sky and earth as the gentlemen’s villas across a few streets Power came and
went the crafts remained As for food Tianjin’s flavor cannot be separated from one name Goubuli baozi
Dog Ignores buns The name’s origin is a curious tale the founder Gao Guiyou had the childhood
nickname Doggy his buns had thin skins and big fillings fresh and savory without greasiness and business
was so brisk he was too busy to answer people Diners joked that Doggy sells buns and
ignores people and the three characters Goubuli Dog Ignores caught on unchanged for over a hundred years
Visit Tianjin today and mention buns and it is still this one a name is a legend
of the street
By now you may ask are these places still there They are First the Beijing site No. 3
Zhangzizhong Road the old executive government main building still stands the brick building and the two stone lions
before its gate have watched regime change since 1912 on March 18th the petitioners fell beneath those lions Visit
today and you can enter the courtyard see that building and stand before the lions imagining the
noise and the gunfire of that day a hundred years ago
Then Tianjin The Five Avenues the circle of Machang Dao Munan Dao is called an exhibition garden
of international architecture hundreds of small villas English French Italian crowded onto a few roads the residences
of the old gentlemen-in-exile and foreign firms’ compradors Go today no ticket needed walk the loop along
Machang Dao and in two hours you can take in half the residential history of the Republic
Not far from the Five Avenues is the Italian Style Town the gazebo at Marco Polo Square is one
of Asia’s rare Italian-style ensembles and then too it was the turf of gentlemen-in-exile and foreign residents
Duan Qirui’s old Tianjin residence is on Anshan Road today a plaque reads Duan Qirui Former Residence a
small building blending Chinese and Western Step inside and you can see his old prayer hall the
very Tiger who chanted sutras ate vegetarian neither smoked nor drank who after stepping down spent his
later years on incense and chess here Transport is easy Tianjin Metro Line 1, Anshan Road
station a few steps away the Five Avenues are a walk from the Binjiang Road commercial district
Let me lay out the route for you No. 3 Zhangzizhong Road in Beijing is reachable by Metro Lines
5 and 1 get off at Zhangzizhong Road station on the Tianjin side the Five Avenues the Italian
Style Town and Duan’s former residence are all in the city center stringable together within a taxi’s
starting fare Tickets No. 3 Zhangzizhong Road is free to visit the Five Avenues is an open district Duan’s
former residence is currently also free to enter subject to on-site notice One day half a day
in Beijing half a day in Tianjin can take you through this stretch of history
Why could Tianjin afford to keep so many gentlemen-in-exile Because this city was by nature the north’s
moneybag The nine-nation concessions drew in each country’s banks and foreign firms the Haihe River links to
the Bohai Sea and once the port opened goods from north and south gathered and dispersed here
Concessions plus port made Tianjin then the north’s most cosmopolitan and wealthiest place
What earned Tianjin real silver First the Changlu salt Changlu was the bulk of the north’s salt
administration and the salt tax was the government’s moneybag Second the Kaiping coal of Kailuan the merger
of the Kaiping and Luanzhou mines into Kailuan whose coal traveled by rail and water across North
China Third textiles cotton mills large and small spinning cotton into cloth And the Quanyechang opened in 1928
a single building holding department store cinema and theater the Tianjin of that day’s shopping paradise Salt
coal cloth and the emporium four things propped up Tianjin’s modern industry and commerce
What is more striking precisely in the years of warlord fighting and frequent flag changes China’s national
industry enjoyed a rare good spell textile mills and flour mills blooming everywhere The war was fought
the mills opened The flags changed the machines turned A chaotic age unexpectedly grew this solid stretch
of economy Visit Tianjin today and the port logistics the old brands and the Binhai New Area’s
industries are still continuing this vein what this city earned a hundred years ago and today the
answer is oddly somewhat alike
The money the gentlemen brought was not idle either Retired generals and former presidents poured their savings
into Tianjin’s real estate and native banks behind each of those Five Avenues villas was a sum
of money from a retired military magnate Today’s Tianjin the old concessions have become style districts the
old factories creative parks the money flows of that time changed in form still flow If you
want to do business in Tianjin the port the old brands and cultural tourism remain the three
cards you cannot bypass
A hundred years on some things remain No. 3 Zhangzizhong Road remains Tianjin’s Five Avenues remain the small building
of Duan’s former residence remains Three real sites string together this stretch of history if you go
and stand there you can imagine how a strongman who made the republic walked from Iron-Lion Lane
to the prayer hall on Anshan Road
Back to Duan’s end After retiring to Tianjin he moved to Shanghai in 1933 and died there on
2 November 1936 aged seventy-one In his later years he refused overtures from the eastern neighbor that old account
he settled himself with silence The single word Tiger runs from the twelve days of the Machang
oath through the incense of the Tianjin prayer hall all the way to the sickbed in Shanghai
This episode leaves you three things worth taking What to like Duan Qirui this oddity no smoking
no drinking no concubines who among the warlords lived the shape of a puritan What to regret
March 18th petitioners fallen at the government gate And one thing worth your going in person Tianjin’s Five
Avenues go into those villas and see the men who lived through a whole generation stepping off
the stage of history
An age that allowed newspapers to scold allowed universities to stir allowed the failed to dwell in
villas that age turned its page like this That loose noisy vitality will never return Where does
this country go from here We will next time continue the story
▶ Watch this episode (with footage and maps): He Saved the Republic 3 Times — Yet Ruled Just 18 Months | Shenzhou Dadi Episode 26 (Shorts)