Hold onto one place name: Junliangcheng. It was an ordinary little grain depot station on the railway east of
《神州大地》系列 總第 23 集：「Seven Days to Beat the Northeast King | Shenzhou Dadi Episode 23」是本集影片的完整圖文轉錄，可逐字閱讀，也可前往影片頁觀看對應畫面。
Hold onto one place name: Junliangcheng.
It was an ordinary little grain depot station on the railway east of
Tianjin — where trains loaded grain. In late April 1922, this depot''s name began
appearing in newspapers across China, again and again — because Zhang Zuolin,
the "Northeast King," had moved his headquarters for an army of 120,000 here.
A warlord of the Northeast, planting his nerve center inside a grain depot.
And then? Then, in just seven days, he was driven from that depot
all the way back north of the Shanhai Pass.
Seven days. This was the fastest decision in the warlord scramble of the
Republic. But in those seven days, one thing is more worth seeing than
the win or loss itself: right as the cannon-fire was thickest,
the newspapers in Beijing printed as usual.
Shun Pao, Ta Kung Pao — they put every cannon-shot and every telegram from
the front on page one. A country fighting itself, and the press still
cursed it and still printed — what kind of era was this,
really?
First, look closely at this depot.
Junliangcheng sat on the railway line east of Tianjin, once a transfer point
on the Northern Canal grain route — rows of granaries, a name as plain
as dirt. Zhang Zuolin chose it for his headquarters because it straddled the
junction of the Jinpu and Jingfeng railways; it was the smoothest spot to
move troops and pour in grain and ammunition.
We may imagine the day he stepped into that depot-turned-command-post:
he had just renamed his army the "Pacify-the-Mighty Army," a name swelling with
swagger, and he marched in with 120,000 men, probably certain — this time,
he was coming to take Beijing.
He probably did not expect that forty days later he would retreat from
that same junction, in disgrace, toward the Northeast.
Fate loves its little joke: it plants a man''s nerve center exactly where
he least expects to lose it.
So the sharpest image of that year is two things laid side by
side: on one side, the dust kicked up by 120,000 Fengtian troops marching
out of the pass; on the other, the rotary presses in the print
shops running all night, setting "Fengtian defeated" and "Zhang Zuolin in retreat" line
by line. The win or loss was decided on the battlefield;
the right and wrong were argued in the newspapers — both happening at once,
neither stopping the other. This episode uses these seven days of the "First
Zhili–Fengtian War" to press one big question: just what kind of era
was the Beiyang period?
But don''t rush to label this era.
On the surface this war was two warlords grabbing territory — yet what lit
the fuse was a cabinet list, and an old account dug out of
a single telegram. That old account also reaches back to a famous fire
in Beijing two years earlier. Who, with one telegram, turned a student movement
into ammunition for name-calling? To answer that, we begin with why they fought.
To explain the 1922 war, you have to look back two years — at
how another man fell first. His name was Duan Qirui.
After Yuan Shikai died, the Beiyang clique had no head;
by strength and by standing, Duan was for a time the heaviest of
them all: Premier, then Chief Executive, his Anhui clique''s troops spread across North
China, the man who first dreamed of "unification by force."
He was austere to a fault — no opium, no concubines,
no gambling — a clear stream in a muddy pond of warlords.
Yet it was precisely this clear stream that was fixated on molding the
country into one piece with gun barrels.
And yet this man, in the summer of 1920, held out only five
days before he collapsed.
In July 1920 the Zhili–Anhui War broke out.
On one side, Duan''s Anhui clique, its elite the "Frontier Defense Army" trained
by Xu Shuzheng; on the other, Wu Peifu''s Zhili clique plus Zhang Zuolin''s
Fengtian clique, the two joining to hit him alone.
Why did it start? Duan''s Anhui clique held the Beijing government,
the Anfu Parliament, and the newly trained Frontier Defense Army,
and wanted to "unify by force" the Guangdong government in the south;
Cao Kun and Wu Peifu''s Zhili forces, marching north from Hunan,
would not accept that; Zhang Zuolin''s Fengtian clique also wanted in on the
spoils — three sides at the table, July 1920, the Anhui clique opened war
on the Zhili–Fengtian coalition. Wu Peifu is a curious figure — a general
who began as a scholar, equally steady with brush and with rifle,
who came up from Hunan and, around Langfang and Gaobeidian,
shattered Duan''s Frontier Defense Army into pieces.
Fighting began July 14; by July 19 Duan submitted his resignation.
Five days. A strongman who had once "reconstructed the republic" lost,
in five days, his army, his turf, his clique.
We may imagine Duan signing that resignation: he probably could not understand — holding
an elite frontier army, how could he lose to a scholar''s troops?
But he forgot: he did not lose the guns, he lost the hearts.
In these years the Anhui clique had relied on the frontier army''s barrels
and run Beijing politics through the Anfu Parliament, and had long since spent
its goodwill.
Remember that "five days." Two years later, this episode''s hero,
Zhang Zuolin, would use "seven days" to replay almost the same script — the
strongmen of Beiyang all seemed to trip on defeats faster than they imagined.
And the more telling part: the men who helped bring Duan down
in 1920 were exactly Wu Peifu and Zhang Zuolin; two years later,
these former allies turned on each other and fought the 1922 Zhili–Fengtian
War. And Duan? He lost even his army, yet was still pulled in
as a banner for the anti-Zhili triangle alliance — a leader with no troops
was the most desolate prop in this play.
The fire was lit by a cabinet list.
At the end of 1921, Liang Shiyi formed a cabinet and became the
new Premier of the Beiyang government.
Who was he? Leader of the Beiyang "Communications Clique," holding the real money
and networks — railways, banks, telegraphs — a civilian technocrat, not a warlord.
That December, the Jin Yunpeng cabinet fell; President Xu Shichang,
with Zhang Zuolin''s backing, asked this old hand who "ran money and transport"
to clean up the fiscal mess — a non-military man as Premier itself signaled
that Beijing still cared, at least a little, for civilian rule.
Liang Shiyi leaned close to Zhang Zuolin''s Fengtian side; to the outside world
he looked "pro-Fengtian." Days into office he touched a sensitive wire — the Jiaoji
Railway. That line, built by Germany in Shandong, was held by Japan after
the Great War; China had long wanted it back.
Liang''s method was to borrow a sum from Japan to redeem the line.
But the moment that loan was spoken, it exploded: Wu Peifu,
the Zhili general, seized on the three words "borrow from Japan,"
calling it using the nation''s railway to beg Japan''s money.
What followed is a scene in the annals of Republican telegrams:
Wu Peifu began firing "one telegram a day," for months on end,
cursing Liang Shiyi without stop. From January 5, 1922, his telegrams flew to
the major papers like snowflakes — today exposing one crime, tomorrow rebutting one excuse
turning a Premier into a target branded "traitor to the country."
We may imagine Liang Shiyi''s predicament in the Premier''s seat:
he probably thought borrowing to redeem a railway was a technical move,
not treason; but once Wu''s telegrams hit the papers, public opinion''s spit already
convicted him. A civilian government, held over the fire by telegram after telegram
in another era that might not have been allowed to happen at all,
because another era might not have tolerated that kind of cursing.
The gist of the telegrams: they accused Liang Shiyi of "colluding with the
Japanese and handing over railway rights," calling the Jiaoji loan "a redemption in
name but a sellout in truth," and urged him to resign in shame.
The January 11 telegram reached back to the words "Zhao Jia Lou" — turning
the patriotic fury of students who burned that alley three years earlier into
a trope against Liang, claiming his conduct was beneath even those students.
Under the curses, Liang Shiyi lasted less than a month.
In late January 1922 he "fell ill" and left Beijing;
the Premier''s seat was, in fact, empty.
A Premier talked out of office by telegram — note: talked out,
not arrested, not killed, not ousted by coup.
A civilian government still reacted to public opinion.
This stroke is one facet of Beiyang''s redeeming side; this episode states it
plainly, neither prettifying nor glorifying — simply laying it out.
Yet how did a cabinet fight brew into a war between two great
warlords? After the Zhili–Anhui War, Zhili and Fengtian had entered Beijing together,
but soon each grew: Wu Peifu camped at Luoyang, a de facto "government
above the government"; Zhang Zuolin controlled the Northeast plus Rehe and Chahar,
the two wrestling openly over Henan, Hubei, and the Jinghan railway,
while the Washington Conference pressed China to disarm — neither would back down first.
Just then, Liang Shiyi''s "pro-Fengtian" cabinet stepped on Zhili''s bottom line,
the last straw: Wu curses Liang, Zhang must back Liang;
backing Liang means backing Fengtian into the center — Zhili could not swallow it.
Thus a cabinet list pushed the words "Zhili–Fengtian rift" from the shadows
into the open.
One faint line, before the Zhili–Fengtian clash: in the summer of the
year before — July 1921 — in a room in Shanghai, a small group met
and founded a party. They were few, their voices faint;
no one imagined that this thread would, in the decades to come,
slowly wind into the fate of this land.
This episode does not unfold that story, only leaves this one line — because
the main stage of this year was still warlords, newspapers,
and that one written charter.
And even as Wu Peifu cursed Liang for months, another alliance quietly surfaced:
Zhang Zuolin, Duan Qirui, and Sun Yat-sen in the south formed the "anti-Zhili
triangle alliance" — three men of different standings, united by the single common ground
of "opposing Zhili." Duan Qirui — the Anhui elder statesman beaten in the 1920
Zhili–Anhui War, long since without his own army — was now pulled in
as a banner. With the alliance set, Fengtian troops entering the pass was
only a matter of time.
In April 1922 the Fengtian army poured through the pass in force.
But a curious detail: before marching, Zhang Zuolin renamed his army — from "Fengtian
Army" to "Pacify-the-Mighty Army." The two words "pacify the mighty" plainly declared whose
mighty air he meant to crush.
A loud name, a righteous banner — the old habit of old armies:
before lifting a hand, first cast one''s own side as the "just" side.
We may imagine Zhang issuing the rename order: he probably felt,
120,000 against 100,000, the numbers on his side, let the name ring a
little louder and morale gains a little — only with a righteous name can
the cause sound right. He did not expect that whether the name rang
or not would finally be decided by how the fight went,
not by what the banner said.
The Fengtian army claimed 120,000; Zhili about 100,000; Zhang Zuolin commanded in chief,
Yang Yuting as chief of staff.
As said, he set his headquarters at Junliangcheng outside Tianjin.
A grain depot became the nerve center of 120,000 troops — the picture is
a little absurd, a little real: war is fought on grain,
ammunition and movement, and the depot was the lifeblood.
But inside the Fengtian army, it was not one solid block.
One man opposed this war from the start — Wang Yongjiang.
He ran Zhang''s Fengtian household, managed finance and practical affairs,
and knew the Fengtian coffers better than anyone.
He wrote a poem urging Zhang, with two lines: "The hero''s vision differs
from the scholar''s; what can the scholar''s ambition ever achieve?"
We may imagine Wang writing those lines: he was probably both helpless and
anxious — Fengtian had just caught its breath and should be burying itself in
making money and building, why go inside the pass to fight for dear
life? But Zhang would not be dissuaded, and the poem could not move
him. This stroke is one of this episode''s favored notes:
a scholar''s clarity and a warrior''s all-in, laid on the same table.
And a young man, on a battlefield for the first time this year
Zhang Xueliang, then 21. He was Zhang Zuolin''s eldest son,
sent to lead troops. Amusingly, in Ta Kung Pao''s war reports,
his name appeared for the first time: "Zhang Xueliang''s unit yesterday occupied Baxian."
A twenty-something young master, first in the papers because he took a county
seat. That young face would, in the years to come,
play a heavier role on this land than his father — but that is
later, not unfolded here.
Rename, set headquarters, scholar''s counsel, young master''s first fight — all this Fengtian preparation,
by late April, finally became three blades drawn at once:
east against Machang, center against Gu''an and Baxian, west against Changxindian.
A seven-day war thus opened. But the moment the blade left the sheath,
what was tested first was not numbers, but whose army truly meant to
die for this fight.
On April 28 and 29, Zhang Zuolin at Junliangcheng gave the general attack
order; three fronts opened at once: east along the Jinpu line against Machang,
center on Gu''an and Baxian, west along the Jinghan line against Changxindian — Changxindian,
just north of Lugou Bridge, the southwest gate of Beijing.
Within three days, cannon-fire rang all along North China''s railways.
From the very start, this war aimed at Beijing.
The gist of a Shun Pao telegram (April 30): this morning (toward Changxindian)
the great battle began, cannon roaring, audible from the Legation Quarter;
hundreds of supply carts of the front-line forces moved east.
The most telling detail happened in Beijing''s Legation Quarter.
The cannon at Changxindian, riding the wind, reached the Legation Street.
The foreign legations began advising their nationals to move inside the legation compound
and posted extra guards. What were they afraid of?
Not enemy troops entering the city, but defeated soldiers — a rout is more
troublesome than the enemy. We may imagine the mood of those foreigners in
the compound: probably packing their valuables while wondering, how is it that this
country''s army fights itself on the outskirts of its own capital,
while the papers still hawk that day''s battle outside the gate.
This "fight your fight, life goes on" looseness was a Beiyang peculiarity.
On May 2, Ta Kung Pao wrote a vivid line:
"From nine last evening to six this morning the cannon was extremely intense;
residents of the capital were much terrified, and rumors ran wild."
Nine hours of cannon, dense as someone beating an unending drum;
the city''s residents heard it from deep night to dawn,
terrified, rumors everywhere — some said Fengtian troops had already entered the city,
some said the railway station was taken.
This stroke is this episode''s note of regret: in seven days of shelling,
the least heard were the common people, awakened at midnight by cannon,
unable to tell rumor from truth.
They were the only role with no winner.
What war finally turns on is logistics.
In Shun Pao''s Tianjin dispatch there was a number more real than any
manifesto: the Zhili main force, carrying "five hundred carts" of supplies,
moved east. Five hundred carts of grain and ammunition — that is the true
face of war: not the grand words in telegrams, but car after car
of bullets and rations hauled to the front.
Whichever side''s carts ran smoothly, that side fought longer.
By May 3 Wu Peifu made a key move: no longer defending passively,
he led the main force himself, swinging around the Lugou Bridge area to
flank the Fengtian army''s side and rear.
Lugou Bridge, a stone bridge left from the Jin dynasty,
built for carts and to watch the dawn moon, this time became a
piece on the battlefield. This move fought not with numbers but with terrain
and command — Wu''s strength lay exactly in this "don''t clash head-on,
go around the back" style. The Fengtian army''s numerical edge,
once flanked, opened a flaw.
But what truly broke the Fengtian west line was not Wu''s flanking — it
was something else: a unit that was never quite "Fengtian" made a decision
at the front that flipped seven days of win or loss.
That unit was the 16th Division.
Its origin goes back a few years, to when another man still stood.
The 16th Division was originally the old unit of Feng Guozhang.
Who was Feng Guozhang? An early Zhili leader, a Beiyang "old hand."
This unit''s roots were Zhili stock, formed from Feng''s old troops and the
former Qing imperial guard, later transferred to the Fengtian side — by 1922 it
had belonged to Fengtian only a little over a year,
stationed at Xiyuan in Beijing, its men still leaning toward Zhili.
In other words, on the Fengtian west line sat a unit "present in
body but absent in heart" — its commander Zou Fen (courtesy name Yutian) had
been Feng Guozhang''s man from early days, and across the line the Zhili
troops may once have been kin.
Zhang Zuolin pushed this non-loyal unit to the first line at Changxindian as
cannon fodder, hoping to spend it against Zhili''s blade — instead it bit him
back.
On May 4 the buried mine exploded.
That day at Changxindian the fighting was fierce; Zou Fen,
commander of the 16th Division, had long been Wu Peifu''s target — Wu sent
a man with a personal letter secretly to win him over,
promising "safety guaranteed, position kept." Zou finally halted his whole division,
defected at the front, and turned his guns on the Fengtian army.
With that defection the Fengtian west-line defense tore open a great gap at
once; Zhili poured through and drove straight for Fengtai, the whole west line
collapsing; the west-line commander Zhang Jinghui fled back to Beijing with remnants,
and Fengtian morale elsewhere followed. Changxindian, Yongqing, Jinghai fell one after another — strongholds
in Fengtian hands yesterday changed flags overnight.
We may imagine Zhang Zuolin at Junliangcheng receiving the west-line collapse telegram:
he probably froze — 120,000 against 100,000, the numbers on his side,
yet hollowed from within by a unit of old allegiance.
Seven days of win or loss, it turns out, lay not in numbers
but in hearts. And Zou, having defected, got no good end either — after
the war Zhili distrusted turncoat generals and disbanded the 16th Division;
he was sent back to Fengtian, Zhang Zuolin cashiered and investigated him,
and before long he died in Beijing.
The defector pleased neither side.
On May 5 Zhang Zuolin issued the retreat order, leading remnants out of
the pass. From the general attack on April 28 to defeat and retreat
on May 5 — a full count, seven days.
A Northeast King who came in with 120,000, seven days later left with
remnants. That grain depot at Junliangcheng: he entered it as commander-in-chief,
and left it as a man beaten and run off.
In this northern war, the one who truly profited in silence was another
man — Feng Yuxiang. While Zhili and Fengtian tore at each other in North
China, he came east out of Tongguan and took Henan.
The win or loss on the battlefield is one ledger;
the territory off the battlefield is another.
This stroke of Feng''s, this episode states as fact only — but that seed
would later sprout.
The war was over. But the Beiyang rule was: after losing,
what happens? Elsewhere, a defeated general is usually captured, killed,
his property confiscated. But here — Zhang Zuolin retreated to Fengtian;
would the Beijing government kill him?
Wipe out his family? Or would there be a single "dismissal order,"
closing the matter, lightly, by telegram?
The order''s gist (May 10): citing Zhang Zuolin for "destroying unity and brewing
war," he was immediately stripped of his posts as Inspector-General of the Three
Eastern Provinces and Military Governor of Fengtian, and held for investigation.
On May 10 the Beijing government issued an order: stripping Zhang of all
his posts. It looked severe — Inspector-General, Military Governor, all gone.
But the catch: this order could not cross the Shanhai Pass.
Zhang Zuolin retreated to Fengtian, still holding the Northeast''s army,
finances and turf. Beijing could strip his "post," but not his "power."
We may imagine Xu Shichang''s clarity in issuing that order:
he probably knew the paper looked more like a posture — the winner needed
to give itself a line of "the Fengtian rebel is pacified,"
yet actually sending troops to the Northeast to seize Zhang,
the Zhili army might not manage it, nor wish to fight another war.
Thus the dismissal became a step both sides could descend.
Back in Fengtian, Zhang Zuolin did something clean: on June 4 he made
himself "Commander-in-Chief of the Three Eastern Provinces Security" and declared the three provinces
autonomous, no longer obeying Beijing''s set.
A man stripped of his post turned around and, on his own turf,
became "Commander-in-Chief" — Beijing''s dismissal order became waste paper east of the pass.
This scene is the liveliest footnote to Beiyang''s "rules of the game":
lose the central government''s seat, but not your own province.
This is not "tolerance" — it is power politics; yet this episode leans toward
showing its redeeming side — the loser is not physically erased,
and the situation can still be rebalanced by negotiation and turf,
rather than rivers of blood.
And Wang Yongjiang, the scholar who had opposed the war,
became Fengtian''s backbone again. The war lost, Zhang turned back,
and still had to ask this scholar to run Fengtian.
The later numbers stand there: in 1923, Fengtian province''s tax revenue was over
thirty million yuan, with a surplus of 8.2 million.
That early line "the hero''s vision differs from the scholar''s" — in the end,
it was the scholar''s ledger that bore closer looking.
A war lost by a warrior had to be made up by a
scholar.
First, who was President through these days?
During the fighting (April–May 1922) the man in the presidential seat was
Xu Shichang — the one who took office in 1918; it was he who
issued the order stripping Zhang. More telling is post-war Beijing:
the winners also ushered Xu Shichang down, and brought back the early-Republic old
President Li Yuanhong (June 11), reopening the old parliament — an act contemporaries called
"Restoration of the Legal Order." What does it mean?
After the war, the winners still set up again that "Provisional Covenant,"
that "republican" frame. Even though that frame had long been used by warlords
as a prop, the words of the charter were still a rule all
factions acknowledged — no one dared say openly "I don''t want the charter anymore."
This nominal respect for the legal order was a peculiar bottom line of
the Beiyang era.
Beyond the win or loss of seven days, longer things were left:
the Zhang mansion in Shenyang still stands today; the Junliangcheng depot outside Tianjin
still stands; Lugou Bridge — this time it rang with cannon,
and later it would ring once more, a more famous time.
And the four words "Restoration of the Legal Order," like a thin thread,
quietly tie this year''s Beijing to the history still further on.
This episode, I leave you three places: the Zhang mansion in Shenyang,
where Zhang Zuolin lived after retreating in defeat; the Junliangcheng depot outside Tianjin,
once the nerve center of 120,000 troops, now a quiet little railway station;
and Lugou Bridge southwest of Beijing, which rang with cannon for the first
time this year, and would once more, louder.
Whom to like, whom to pity, where to stand a while — that,
I don''t decide for you.
Back to the opening question. In these seven days, what did we see?
We saw the papers still cursing, a Premier talked out of office,
the loser not erased, the charter still treated as the rule — these are
this era''s rare redeeming points; this episode states them plainly,
not glorifying, simply laying them out.
And we saw seven days of shelling, common people awakened at midnight,
a capital of running rumors — these are war''s true face;
this episode states them plainly, without balance.
What kind of era deserves to be called decent, what kind of victory
bears scrutiny — that question, I leave to you.
A seven-day war, done. The winner entered Beijing; the loser returned to Fengtian.
Yet in this very year, the President in the capital changed,
and the parliament reopened its doors — after the cannon fell silent,
which way would this country walk?
Divine Land — to be continued.
▶ 觀看本集影片（含畫面與地圖）：Seven Days to Beat the Northeast King | Shenzhou Dadi Episode 23