Fengtian clique

The Fengtian clique (奉系, Fèngxì) was one of the principal military factions of China's Warlord Era, the period of fragmentation that followed the death of Yuan Shikai in June 1916 and the collapse of effective central authority under the Beiyang government. Named after Fengtian province (present-day Liaoning, with its capital at Mukden/Shenyang), the clique was built and led by Zhang Zuolin (張作霖), a former bandit who had risen through the Qing and early Republican military hierarchy to become the inspector-general of the Three Eastern Provinces of Manchuria. Its power rested on control of the resource-rich north-east, the Mukden Arsenal, and a working accommodation with Imperial Japan, whose Kwantung Army and South Manchurian Railway interests overlapped with Zhang's regional base.

The clique's defining feature was its rivalry with the other Beiyang-derived factions, principally the Zhili clique (led by Feng Guozhang and later Wu Peifu and Cao Kun) and the Anhui clique (led by Duan Qirui). Control of Beijing — and thus the international recognition and customs revenue attached to the nominal central government — was the prize. The Fengtian forces fought two major conflicts for it: the First Zhili–Fengtian War of 1922, in which Zhang was defeated and pushed back to Manchuria, and the Second Zhili–Fengtian War of 1924, in which the defection of Feng Yuxiang (the "Christian General") in the Beijing Coup of October 1924 shattered the Zhili position and allowed the Fengtian clique to dominate the capital. Zhang Zuolin eventually proclaimed himself Grand Marshal (大元帥) of the Republic of China in June 1927, becoming the last leader of the internationally recognised Beiyang government.

The clique's end came with the Northern Expedition (1926–1928) launched by the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek. As the Nationalist armies advanced north, Zhang Zuolin withdrew from Beijing toward Manchuria; on 4 June 1928 he was killed when his train was bombed at Huanggutun outside Mukden by officers of the Japanese Kwantung Army, who hoped to detach Manchuria from China. His son Zhang Xueliang (the "Young Marshal") succeeded him and, in the Northeast Flag Replacement (東北易幟) of 29 December 1928, declared allegiance to the Nationalist government in Nanjing, formally ending the warlord period and the Fengtian clique as an independent power. Zhang Xueliang's later resentment of Japanese aggression and Chiang's non-resistance policy culminated in the Xi'an Incident of December 1936.

For competitive examinations, the Fengtian clique appears in the Modern China / World History components — UPSC General Studies Paper I (history of the world), optional History, and China's Guokao and FSOT area-studies sections. Typical question angles ask candidates to distinguish the three main warlord cliques and their geographic bases, to sequence the Zhili–Fengtian wars, to identify the significance of the Huanggutun assassination and the 1928 Flag Replacement in reunifying China, and to link Zhang Xueliang to the Xi'an Incident and the Second United Front against Japan.