Wu Peifu is a Chinese general, current Imperial Commissioner of the Qing Empire, uncontested leader of the Northern Zhili Clique, one of the most well-known influential figures of the Chinese Warlord Era and potentially one of the most able military commanders in recent Chinese history. As the man who symbolizes the Zhili Clique like no one else, being responsible for the clique's prestigious reemergence after the humiliating Second Zhili–Fengtian War in 1924 along with their outstanding performance during the Northern Expedition as well as the Third and Fourth Zhili-Fengtian War, Wu can be considered one of the most powerful men in China; despite holding no official political offices, his high-ranking position within the Chinese military makes him the de facto puppet master of China's fate from behind the scenes.
Even though Wu owes his current position mostly to the Germans, who have extensively funded and supported the Zhili Clique against Kuomintang insurgents and rivaling warlord factions since at least late 1925, he remains an anti-concessionist at heart and only very reluctantly cooperates with a foreign power. These personal beliefs have brought him often at odds with his nominal subordinate to the south, Sun Chuanfang, Marshal of the League of Eight Provinces and leader of the Southern Zhili Clique, who has proven much more receptive to German economic requests in the past.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Wu Peifu was born in Penglai, Shandong, under the Qing Empire. After initially dabbling in confucian scholarship, he joined the Baoding Military Academy, and made a name for himself in the ranks of the New Army (Beiyang Army). Wu rose through the ranks of the Army quickly.
Rise to Power[]
With the beginning of the Warlord Era in China, Wu Peifu found himself as a minor player in the grand scheme of the Civil War. In 1915, Wu became the commander of the Beiyang Army's 6th Brigade, not long before Yuan Shikai declared himself Emperor of China. With the breakdown of unity in the Beiyang Government, Wu Peifu chose to side with Feng Guozhang's Zhili Clique, rising through the ranks once more and becoming one of the most influential generals in the clique.
Wu Peifu and Cao Kun, agitated against the Anhui Clique led by Duan Qirui, creating the National Salvation Allied Army, an anti-Anhui coalition. In 1920, the coalition attacked the Anhui Clique, and the Zhili and Fengtian cliques formed a shared government in Beijing.
However, this shared government was quick to break down and the First Zhili-Fengtian war broke out, ending in a decisive Zhili victory which forced the retreat of Zhang Zuolin's Fengtian Army to Manchuria. These successive victories caused the emergence of Wu Peifu's new moniker, "Chinese Napoleon". Wu's Northern Zhili Clique seemed destined to unite the country, and only Sun Yat-Sen's Kuomintang government in Guangdong, Anhui Clique remnants in Zhejiang, and Zhang Zuolin's Fengtian Clique in the northeast stood in the way. The three groups formed a tripartite alliance and hoped to pull Wu into a costly three-front war, but most observers believed their capitulation to be inevitable.
The Beijing Coup[]
In late 1924, the Second Zhili-Fengtian war began over a dispute between the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang (Jiangsu-Zhejiang War). Although the fighting in Zhejiang wrapped up relatively quickly and the Kuomintang's advance stalled in Hunnan, the northern front just as rapidly became a stalemate. Wu's creative attempts to break the stalemate, including China's first amphibious operation across the Bohai Sea, failed. The key moment came when Feng Yuxiang, one of Wu's subordinates tasked with a crucial breakthrough near Chengde, reversed course and betrayed the Zhili Clique, seizing Beijing. With his rear suddenly compromised Wu Peifu's forces were forced to retreat to Hubei while Sun Chuanfang fought for control of Eastern China against the rapidly advancing Fengtian Army.
Despite a period of negotiation and compromise between Zhang Zuolin's Fengtian Clique and Feng Yuxiang's newly-formed Guominjun, the two factions soon began fighting one another, giving Wu much needed breathing room. Even after forming a tenuous alliance with Zhang Zuolin against the Guominjun and somewhat effectively fighting Feng's armies in Henan, Wu spent the rest of 1925 locked in an intra-clique leadership struggle with Sun Chuanfang and began rebuilding his forces in Wuhan.
Resurgence[]
Events seemed to turn against Wu once again when the Kuomintang began their Northern Expedition in early 1926. Zhao Hengti of Hunan, expected to hold the KMT at Changsha, failed to defend his province against his former subordinate Tang Shengzhi, and by summer's end Wu found himself desperately defending Wuchang. While pivotal events transpired in the north and east, Wu held his ground until, in early October, starvation began to set in among his remaining garrison. Deliverance came with the Yangtze Incident, where German gunboats SMS "Mucke" and SMS "Marienkafer" challenged the KMT blockade of the Yangtze and began supplying Wu's forces. Although the move was made mainly to re-assert Germany's right to free navigation of the river and to upstage the other indecisive foreign powers, it became the basis for a partnership that would define Wu Peifu's career.
Although Wu had serious qualms about dealing with foreigners, and widely publicized his unwillingness to even set foot within the foreign concessions, the Germans remained his only path to restored national relevance. Following the brief German occupation of Guangzhou, and the presence of German marines at the battle of Jinhua, the remaining besiegers dispersed, concerned that they might face both the garrison and several hundred German marines from the Hankou concession. Thus, the way opened for Wu to make the most daring move of his already exceptional life.
With the Northern Expedition effectively over, and as Zhang Zuolin and Sun Chuanfang resumed hostilities in early 1927, Wu threw his re-consolidated forces into a secretive and unexpected offensive along the North-South Jinpu Railway, running between Wuhan and Beijing. The Fengtian Army, waging an offensive against Sun, and with its nearest forces fighting remnants of Feng Yuxiang's Guominjun in Chahar, found itself caught entirely by surprise. Wu captured Beijing in under a week.
The nation's capital was far from enough to guarantee a victory, however. Wu's forces now found themselves between two significant Fengtian armies, one moving south from Chahar, and the other pushing north from Tianjin.
Personality[]
Wu is first and foremost a traditionalist, believing strongly in Confucianism and Chinese social structures - the importance of seniority and the family unit being paramount. Some of his associated beliefs are more unusual; Wu believes sincerely in fortune-telling and that the airplane was invented in China during the Warring States period.
Zhang Qihuang, a Zhili general and Wu’s personal fortune teller, once told Wu: “Your destiny is dominated by Water and Wood. Fire has little effect on you, while Metal will harm your destiny. When you are 51 and 52, those will be years of metal and I am afraid that will affect your destiny. You must be careful!” Wu’s fifty-first birthday coincided with 1924/25, the fateful year that saw the betrayal of Feng Yuxiang, the Beijing Coup, and the start of the Northern Expedition.
Despite Wu’s eccentric personality, he is a political and military mastermind, and he has deftly juggled the constant possibility of being backstabbed by one of his generals, the threat of Japanese invasion, and the looming specter of German economic domination over the last decade. He had some education in a Qing Imperial administrative school, but considers himself unfit to rule China directly due to his status as a “military man”, and instead he rules the Qing Empire through his two puppets - Puyi and President Cao Kun. While Cao had formerly been Wu’s mentor, his old age, years of house arrest under Feng Yuxiang, and the suicide of his brother left him a shell of his former self. With little to occupy his time Cao turned to baiju (a Chinese liquor), and the man once renowned for bribing the Assembly into voting for him is now a doddering old man, crippled by alcoholism and regret over his failure to stop Feng a decade ago.
One western attache, writing in 1924 observed “Wu was immeasurably superior to any of the Fengtian higher command. It was really almost comic to notice the awe with which Mukden (the Fengtian) regarded his strategic skill, always planning their coups on the sector of the front which was not being visited by Marshal Wu during that particular day, and ceasing their effort and attacking elsewhere as soon as the Generalissimo was known to be on the battlefield in person".
See also[]
