Podcast appearances and mentions of may fourth movement

Beacon designer has show at Mount Saint Mary Angela Lian can barely sit still. She doesn't stand still, either. It only seems like she's fidgety because, at age 12, competitive gymnastics caused a stress fracture in her back that reverberates through her art. An essay accompanying Lian's first solo show, Moving Making Moving: Embodied Ecologies, suggests that some of her work imbues themes like "memory loss, chronic pain and loneliness with tenderness and play." In person, the Beacon artist is cheery and upbeat. Except for the constant motion, there's no indication that she suffered a debilitating injury. The exhibit at CMA Gallery at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh occurred by happenstance. The gallery director, Christopher Neyen, read an article on a design website and contacted her. "She's a commercial graphic designer who creates in many media and lives nearby, so I thought it would be good for the students to interact with her work," he says. Lian, 25, spoke to the students about her artistic journey. She is a store designer and marketing content creator for Baggu, which makes handbags and accessories. The rest of her energy and movement is spent dancing, knitting, crocheting, drawing, creating digital collages, striking yoga poses and exploring the great outdoors. Just inside her front door is a 'zine rack. The gallery show boiled her elaborate Bachelor of Fine Arts thesis, a nearly 500-page, two-volume series, down to a teaspoon. The backgrounds of eight digital design works are lush with what resembles moss, rocks and green foliage. Seven of them feature an image of the artist, sometimes in multiples. In one work, she's surfing on a tabby. In another, she adopts a dance-like pose with arms akimbo as two leaves replace her hands. Movement is captured in several short videos that explore her identity issues as an American with a father born in China and a mother from Taiwan (the couple met in the U.S.). A breakthrough came when she discovered the May Fourth Movement in China, a post-World War I upheaval that embraced modernization while trying to preserve ancient cultural values. Lian is a fan of "scores," or slogans designed to whack the creative process. At the gallery, she hand-painted "Scores for Dreaming" in black on two white walls. Its questions include: "When was the last time you danced?" and "How can you support Mother Nature? How can Mother Nature support you?" Other statements offer a directive: "Sit in front of someone. Without interruption, start with 'I want' and share for three minutes. Switch roles and repeat." Lian has a strategy for time management. "Instead of focusing intently on one thing and getting it done, I engage in more limited but intense creativity episodes with multiple projects," she explains. "That way I can take time away from something to gain perspective. I call it slow-motion multitasking." The CMA Gallery, located on the campus of Mount Saint Mary College, 330 Powell Ave., in Newburgh, is open on weekdays. See msmc.edu/cma-gallery or email cma-gallery@msmc.edu. Moving Making Moving continues through Jan. 10. For more of Lian's work, see embodiedecologies.cargo.site.

Last time we spoke about Manchu Restoration of Zhang Xun. After the death of  Yuan Shikai, Duan Qirui maneuvered to maintain control amidst the political chaos. After being outed from Premiership for trying to drag China into WW1, General Zhang Xun suddenly marched upon Beijing seizing the capital. Zhang Xun then proclaimed the Qing Dynasty restored with Emperor Puyi back on the throne, shocking the entire nation. Li Yuanhong freaked out, ran for his life and begged Duan Qirui to come back and save the republic. Ironically Duan was already in the process of marching upon the capital, so with a smile he went along with everything making it look like he was a hero. After taking back power, Duan resumed his premiership, but made sure to get rid of any threat to his authority. However, Duan's authoritarian rule and neglect of certain officers led to opposition from figures like Feng Guozhang, who formed the Zhili Clique.    #98 The Invasion of Outer Mongolia & First Anhui/Zhili War   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. During the Xinhai Revolution many provinces and regions declared independence, one of them was Outer Mongolia. In 1910, the Qing Dynasty had appointed the Mongol, Sando to be viceroy over Mongolia, with his base being in the capital city of Urga. Just a month after his arrival conflicts emerged, prompting Sando to ask Jebstundamba Khutuktu, the spiritual leader of the Mongolians to help out but he refused and this led to a campaign to have Sando removed. More conflicts followed and by spring of 1911, prominent Mongolian nobles, such as Prince Tögs-Ochiryn Namnansüren persuaded Jebstundamba Khutukhtu to form a meeting of the nobility to discuss declaring independence. The meeting resulted in a deadlock. 18 nobles wishing to declare independence took matters into their own hands pressuring Jebstundamba Khutukhtu to send a secret delegation to Russia for help. Of course at this time Russia sought Outer Mongolia as a buffer state. The Mongols knew this and offered economic concessions if the Russians helped arm them and brought troops over. Russia did not want to add Outer Mongolia to the empire however, so she offered diplomatic support rather than military support. The Russian minister to Beijing informed the Qing the Mongols had sent a delegation and this prompted the Qing to order Sando to investigate. Yet while all of this was going on, the Wuchang Uprising had sprung up and soon rebellion would hit the entire nation. When the Mongols received news of what was happening to China, they simply joined in and declared independence. By December 1st a provisional government of Khalkha was set up under the theocratic rule of Jebtsundamba Khutuktu who became the Bodg Khaan over the new Bogd Khanate. Fast forward to 1915, the new Republic of China and the Bogd Khanate reached an agreement that Outer Mongolia could be autonomous under Chinese suzerainty, a protectorate basically. Then came the Russian Revolution and with it, the Russian Civil War. This resulted in a rather bizarre movement springing up along the Siberian/Mongolian border. Grigory Semyonov a White movement member in Transbaikal with Japanese backing, took quite an interest in Mongolia. Semyonov spoke Mongolian and Buryat fluently, he was also a soldier who fought in WW1 and then during the civil war. He led an anti-soviet rebellion, but lost after a few months and was forced to flee to Harbin. He moved to Manzhouli in Inner Mongolia and from there setup a base to launch raids into siberia to help the white movement. By the summer of 1918 he managed to captured Chita, setting it up as his own capital as he declared a Great Mongol State. Semyonov fancied unifying the Oirat Mongol lands, parts of Xinjiang, Transbaikal, Inner and Outer Mongolia, Tannu Uriankai, Kobdo Hulunbe'er and even Tibet to form a new Mongolian state.  The situation caused a divide amongst the leadership in Outer Mongolia. Some favored their current protectorate relationship with China and wanted to end the Semyonov threat. Others were dissatisfied with the status quo and saw it as a great opportunity. The Chinese high commissioner in Mongolia, Chen Yi was soon delivered word from some of the Mongolian nobles, Soviet forces were preparing to invade Mongolia. The Cossack consular guards at Urga, Khovd and Uliastai had all fled. The Russian communities in Mongolia were beginning to support a Bolshevik regime. It was under said pretext, Semyonov and his white Russian colleagues came to Mongolia. Chen Yi began frantically sending telegrams to Beijing requesting troops while simultaneously persuading the Bogd Khaan government to agree to allow a Chinese battalion to come over. Chen Yi and Mongol noles came up with a document with 64 points titled "On respecting of Outer Mongolia by the government of China and improvement of her position in future after self-abolishing of autonomy", yes they could have summarized it somewhat, though I imagine the english translation is lacking. The stipulations offered to replace the Mongolian government with Chinese officials; introduce Chinese garrisons and the keeping of feudal titles. However by July of 1918, the Soviet threat seemed to have dissipated. Meanwhile Semyonov had assembled a detachment of Buryats and Inner Mongolian nationalists to fight for his pan-Mongolian cause. They made several attempts to try and persuade the Bogd Khaan's government to join, but the Mongol nobles thought it foolish to throw their lot under a new master they knew nothing about. Gradually Semyonov threatened to invade Mongolia to force their compliance. The Bogd Khaanate was in a bad position. They lacked the strength to repel Semyonov, on the other hand they were not interested in Chinese troops entering their lands.  Now taking a step back, there was another player in the region. When the Manchu Restoration of Zhang Xun broke out, Zhang Zuolin, the warlord of Manchuria sat on the fence in Mukden. Yet a subordinate of his, Feng Tielin had just unsuccessfully plotted against him and was implicated in the Manchu Restoration. This gave Zhang a good excuse to imprison and dismiss the man from his command and better yet he stole the man's troops. In August of 1917, Zhang Zuolin took control over Heilongjiang province after a small rebellion had broken out there. Then in October, the warlord in Jilin province turned out to also be a Manchu Restorationist, or at least Zhang accused him as such, so he used diplomacy to get rid of the man. After this Zhang seized Jilin and thus controlled all of Manchuria, excluding parts under Japanese occupation.  In February of 198, Duan Qirui sent a rather unpopular subordinate named Xu Shucheng to try and persuade Zhang Zuolin to join the Anfu club. The reason was because Duan Qirui distrusted Wu Peifu and the emerging Zhili clique and saw Zhang as a beneficial ally. Xu Shucheng was the founder of the Anfu club, the political arm of the Anhui clique. They recently earned 3/4s of the seats in the national assembly. Xu was also a fixer in many ways, at one point he discovered Lu Jianzhang had tried to persuade his nephew, Feng Yuxiang the Christian warlord, to fight the Anhui CLique. Xu leaked this and had Lu executed. Thus he had a pretty rough reputation. Xu came to Zhang with a bribe from Duan Qirui, it was information that a shipment of Japanese arms worth 30,000 yuan, enough to equip roughly 7 mixed brigades and just come to port in Qinhuangdao. Zhang Zuolin performed a random inspection of the port and confiscated the goods, reminds you of the New York mob. In response to this friendly gesture, Zhang sent 50,000 of his troops southwards to aid Duan Qirui's new campaign that he called “unification of China by force”. For this nice gesture, the Beiyang government gave Zhang Zuolin the title of inspector of the 3 Manchurian provinces. At this point Zhang Zuolin truly became known as the tiger of Manchuria, or the “king of the northeast”. Things were not great, but not bad between Duan and Zhang, then Xu Shucheng received a new command, and things changed dramatically.  Because of the situation in Outer Mongolia, Duan Qirui decided to form a new “Northwestern Frontier Army” and he gave command of it to his right hand man, Xu Shuzheng. Now, allegedly this was also coerced by the Japanese who had their own designs on Outer Mongolia. But Duan Qirui certainly had his motives for such an action. The leaked information about the Nishihara loans alongside other bad press had most of the Chinese public against him. His reputation as a republican patriot had been tarnished, even defeating Zhang Xun had not done a ton to reverse it. Duan Qirui had cultivated a large and strong army during WW1, but now the war was over and all of his political enemies questioned why he kept the army. Of course everyone knew the real reason why, he wanted to defeat his rivals in the south to reunify China. When the Russian began to encroach in Mongolia, it was a perfect excuse to use said army, legitimizing it somewhat. Publicly Duan Qiruir stated the Northwestern Frontier army would go to Outer Mongolia to defend them against Bolshevik encroachment. Their expedition was supposed to commence in July 1919, but their train broke down on them. In October, Xu was forced to lead a spearhead of just 4000 men to storm the capital of Urga. There was no actual battle, the Chinese entered peacefully and began occupying the capital. They were soon followed up with 10,000 additional forces who began to occupy Mongolia. Xu Shuzheng met with Chen Yi and the Mongol nobles and stated the 64 point document needed to be renegotiated. He then submitted a much tougher set of conditions calling for the express declaration of Chinese sovereignty over Mongolia; to increase Mongolia's population via Chinese colonization; to promote commerce, industry and agriculture. If the Mongols resisted these conditions, Xu threatened to deport the Bogd Khaan to China. To make a point Xu then placed troops directly in front of Bogd Khaan's palace. It seems Xu may have also been pressured by Japan to install some pro-Japanese chinese officials in Mongolia to thwart any future Russian encroachment. These demands, titled “the eight articles” were given to the Mongolian Parliament on November 15th and the upper house accepted them, but the lower house did not. Many members publicly called for armed resistance. The most tenacious were the buddhist monks to fight off the Chinese, but the upper house ultimately prevailed. Then a petition to end autonomy signed by the ministers and deputy ministers of the Bogd Khaans government was presented to Xu. Body Khaan refused to give his seal still. Then a new Prime Minister was installed by the orders of Xu Shuzheng, his name and do forgive me was Gonchigjalzangiin Badamdorj. Alongside the conservatives within the Mongolian political scene they forced the acceptance of the Chinese demands. Xu Shuzheng was hailed as a hero in China. Dr Sun Yat-sen even sent a letter of congratulations from the rival Guangzhou government, it was clearly satirical, but those like Duan Qirui paraded it as propaganda. Now Xu Shuzheng then humiliated the Mongolian Council of Khans in a speech and would return in February of 1920 to preside over an extremely humiliating ceremony. During the ceremony the Bogd Khan and other Mongol nobles were forced to kowtow before Xu Shuzheng and the new Five races under one union flag. This ceremony was so insulting, it would mark the beginning of active Mongolian resistance against China. The occupation of Mongolia had aroused frustration from Zhang Zuolin because he regarded Mongolia to be within his sphere of influence. Xu Shuzheng after occupying Mongolia began to set up banks in the northwest, raised public loans and all of this was of course done to increase his own personal power. At this time, since he was the 2nd strongest Anhui Clique leader, he had so many forces under his thumb he was seen to be greater than Zhang Zuolin the “inspector of the three provinces of Manchuria”. Xu Shuzheng's Northwestern Army had troops in Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Xinjiang and Shaanxi. Now while Zhang Zuolin's Fengtian Clique could not hope to defeat the Anhui Clique alone, they were not in fact alone. Zhang Zuolin with his ear to the political ongoings in northern China would find a new ally to thwart Duan and Xu's encroachment into his realm. We need to rewind just a little bit to explain the rather chaotic political situation in north China. After Zhang Xun's Manchu Restoration was defeated, Duan Qirui found himself in a bit of an awkward position. He was now the defender of the republic, he took back his premiership, but his puppet Li Yuanghong had fled his position as president, it was now Feng Guozhang who was president. Now Feng Guozhang was not elected or anything, he was merely filling out the term of Li Yuanghong. Before leaving Nanjing to come over to Beijing, Feng compelled Duan to accept his appointees to offices in the Yangtze area, where his power base was located. Now there was a division of military power, a sort of split within the Beiyang army between the Premier and President. This led to the “Anfu Club” being created of Duan followers and in turn the Zhili Clique of Feng followers. The Anfu Club was far better organized, better funded and was dominated by Duan and Xu. Xu by the way was nicknamed Little Xu, because he was seen as simply Duan lackey as they say. The Anfu Club also had high ranking politicians like Wang Yitang, Zeng Yujun and Liu Enge. Yet the Anfu Club was not really an alliance of military guys, it was more a political force that exerted influence over Parliament and other parts of the civil bureaucracy. There was no war at this point despite the conflict between Duan and Feng growing. Thus the fighting was all within the political realm for awhile, they simply fought to control government institutions and such. Duan and Feng's main objective at this time was simply to dominate Parliament, and Duan was winning. Duan mae Wang Yitang the speaker of the house who made sure Feng could not dissolve parliament. If Feng dissolved parliament it would call for an election that could see Duan lose premiership again. Now a little bit about the Zhili Clique, from 1917-1920 the clique was not really united politically or militarily. They were really a riff raff of pissed off Beiyang officers and politicians whom Duan Qirui had overlooked. Their most influential military commanders in the beginning were Wang Zhanyuan  the warlord of Hubei, Li Chun and Chen Guangyuan the warlords of Jiangsu. The Zhili clique lacked strong leadership and a real source of funding. They did not have much influence over Parliament, thus they were quite hopeless against the Anhui clique who were only getting stronger each day. In October of 1918, the Anfu Club managed to secure a new president, Xu Shichang. Xu Shichang was the former viceroy of Manchuria, considered a safe pick by the Anfu members. Xu lacked a following, he was quite old, a school type, someone they all assumed could be easily manipulated, basically a new Li Yuanghong. By the end of 1918 the Anfu club appeared to be in a position to unify China for the first time since the death of Yuan Shikai. However they depended heavily on Japanese loans and as a result easily fell victim to those who would label them to be in league with Japan. Members of the Zhili clique capitalized on this, spreading accusations left right and center, making public statements accusing the Anfu members of selling China out to Japan. By 1919 the Anfu group still looked sturdy, but then the Treaty of Versailles situation hit. The public outrage to the peace talks led many Anhui clique members of Duan's cabinet to flee to Japan. Then the May Fourth Movement began, prompting the Zhili clique to latch themselves onto the cause of the student protestors.  Duan Qirui realized his stronghold on Beijing was becoming fragile. Any direct attack against another warlord would be dangerous, thus he tried to do things covertly. He began by trying to economically strangle areas of his enemies, he reduced government funds to their provinces. He also tried to set up new appointments in the central provinces to dominate them. He appointed General Zhang Jingyao to be the military governor over Hunan province. Wu Peifu whose powerbase was in Sichuan and western Hunan saw this as a direct threat. Now when this was occuring, Japan was facing economic problems and thus could no longer loan money to the Anhui clique. This led the Anfu club to seek a new source of revenue. Meanwhile, Wu Peifu reacted to the threat to his territory by seeking out support from the Zhili clique, in particular he went to his old mentor Cao Kun. Cao Kun had been an officer in the Beiyang Army, initially he did not side with Feng or Duan. When the Anhui clique began to move into central China, this drove Cao to the Zhili clique. Wu Peifu approached his old mentor with a plan, it was to be a campaign against the Anhui. Cao agreed to the idea, only if Wu could prove they would have enough forces capable of attacking Anhui's powerbase around Beijing. Wu then went to work calling upon the warlords of Sichuan, Shanxi and Hubei who were all not receiving much funding from the central government. Thus they all banded together. In November of 1919 Wu Peifu met with Tang Jiyao and Lu Rongting at Hengyang, where they signed a treaty entitled "Rough Draft of the National Salvation Allied Army" This effectively formed the basis of a true anti-Anhui clique alliance. After this in April of 1920, while visiting a memorial service at Baoding for soldiers who died in Hunan, Cao Kun added more warlords to the new anti-Anhui clique alliance, including the rulers of Hubei, Henan, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Jiangxi and Zhili. The conflict became public as both sides began deploying for the coming war. By May of 1920, Wu Peifu was prepared to launch a campaign to strike into northern China and he began to mobilize his armies up the Tientsin-Pukow railway. Yet before this he also did something else, Wu extended a hand out to an unlikely figure, Zhang Zuolin. He explained his campaign plan to Zhang Zuolin, and advised him, a campaign from the northeast above the Great Wall might be very beneficial to them both, wink wink. Thus in March of 1920, Zhang Zuolin had arranged a feast in Mukden for the warlords of Zhili, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. It was a secret conference to set up a solid 8 province alliance against the Anhui clique. This intense period of scheming saw President Xu Shichang invite Zhang Zuolin over for a meeting in Beijing. American writer Nathaniel Peffer was there and had this to say of Zhang. “Until his triumphal entry into Peking in 1920, Zhang Zuolin had not come down out of his Mukden fastness for years. In those years a legend had grown up round him — a legend of a fierce, uncouth, primitive creature of the wilds. It was with some zest, therefore, that I accepted an invitation of his nearly English-speaking secretary to attend an audience for foreign correspondents. It was with even greater amazement that I found myself bowing to a slender, delicate little person in subdued silks, soft-spoken and with hands as lovely and graceful as I have ever seen on a man. The terror of the north country looked like a precious aesthete. There was nothing of the aesthete in his speech or his demeanour, however. The interview was marked by none of the usual subtle evasion, the nice circumlocution. There was blunt talk on both sides; and it was eloquent that, when our questions verged on the brutally frank, the secretary who interpreted did not translate them as they were put, but softened them until the meaning was transformed. The quailing of the servitors when the tea was a second late also was eloquent. When he recommended the execution of a whole regiment as a proper punishment for mutiny; one was glad the regiment was not in his command”. During the meeting, Zhang told Xu he had no idea what a “zhili group was or what an Anfu group was”. Everyone should just cooperate in general for a northern cause. Then Zhang Zuolin traveled from Beijing to Baoding to meet with the Zhili's defacto leader Cao Kun. As Zhang was on his way, the anti-anfu coalition managed to force President Xu Shichang to dismiss Xu Shuzheng from all of his posts. Allegedly, after this President Xu Shichang sent an invitation to Zhang Zuolin to come back to his residence after his trip to Baoding was done and he planned to kill him. Premier Duan heard of the plan and told the president to not go through with it, because Zhang Zuolin had supported him in the past. Nonetheless Zhang Zuolin high tailed it back to Manchuria under a disguise. Once back in Mukden, Zhang Zuolin sent a telegram to Xu and Duan stating “in the future instead of mediating politically, I will do so militarily”.  In July various Zhili and Fengtian generals such as Cao Kun, Zhang Zuolin, Wang Zhanyuan, Li Shun, Chen Guangyuan, Zhao Ti and Ma Fuxiang all signed a denunciation of the Anhui clique and its political arm, the Anfu Club. This denunciation was circulated through a telegram called Paoting-fu on July 12th. Duan Qirui was outraged by the situation and demanded President Xu Shichang dismiss Cao Kun and Zhang Zuolin from all of their positions. In response to the very obvious threat, Duan formed the National Stabilization army, using 5 divisions and 4 combined brigades with himself as commander in chief and General Xu Shuzheng as his general chief of staff. Duan deployed his forces in 2 fronts, the west covering the regions of Zhouzhou, Gu'an and Laishui and the east covering Hamlet, Beijimiao, Yang and Liang.  Cao Kun gathered their 3rd division and 9 combined brigades to form a Traitor Suppression army, with Wu Peifu as the front line commander-in-chief. The Zhili clique deployed their forces in the region of the Yang hamlet and due west of Gaobei. In the northeast, Zhang Zuolin deployed 3 divisions, roughly 70,00 men at the Machang and Junliangcheng. The battle plan was for the Zhili to strike from the south, converging on Baoding and then Beijing while the Fengtian would advance through the Shanhai pass of the Great Wall to attack the northern territories. Now the Anhui clique basically held dominance over the Beijing area, Anhui and along most of China's coast, however the Zhili clique now was dominating Jiangsu province, thus severing the vital railway that the Anhui depended on to move troops from north to south. While Duan could see the Zhili were mobilizing, the appearance of 3 Fengtian divisions advancing through Shanghaiguan caught his men by complete surprise. Duan in a rather panicked fashion ordered his troops in the capital to converge around Tientsin where he was forced to meet both enemies on a southern and northern front. On July 14th of 1920, the Anhui army made the first move by simultaneously attacking both fronts.  Zhili troops were forced to abandon Gaobei and 2 days later with Japanese assistance the Anhui forces were able to capture the Yang Hamlet, forcing the Zhili to form a second line of defense in the Beicang region. It was at Beicang where the Anhui forces finally lost momentum and were halted. On July 17th, Wu Peifu personally took command of the Zhili western front, where he unleashed a daring maneuver. He outflanked the Anhui forces at Zhouzhou and proceeded to storm the western Anhui army HQ. There Wu Peifu captured the Anhui front line commander-in-chief Qu Tongfeng and many of his officers, including the 1st division commander. After the capture of Zhuozhou, Wu Peifu pursued the retreating Anhui forces towards Beijing.  With the exception of the Anhui 15th division, their western front was all but annihilated.Also on the same day, the Fengtian army crashed into the Anhui eastern front.General Xu Shuzheng received word of the collapse of the western front and promptly fled to Langfang and then Beijing, leaving his forces to surrender to the combined forces of Wu Peifu and Zhang Zuolin. While the majority of the Anhui forces would be taken prisoners, many also managed to escape to Zhejiang and Shanghai, but they were a fraction of what they once were. By July 19th, Duan realized he had lost the war and publicly announced he was resigning from all of his posts. On the 23rd the combined Zhili and Fengtian forces entered Nanyuan and gradually pacified Beijing accepting the surrender of the Anhui clique. In less than a week of battle, the strongest clique was unexpectedly defeated. Zhang Zuolin's military capabilities received a enormous boom from the short battle. His men had captured vast quantities of arms, armaments, ammunition and military vehicles from the Japanese financed frontier defense army of the Anhui clique. It apparently took 100 railway wagons to send all the looted goods back to Mukden, alongside 12 captured aircraft. Zhang Zuolin also suffered pretty much nothing during the battle. The fengtian had merely put a heavy force on the field, they actually sat back quite idly most of the time allowing Wu Peifu to take the lionshare of the actual action against the enemy.  At this junction Zhang Zuolin faced two large decisions. First he could return to his powerbase in the northeast with assurances Beijing would not interfere with the development of his provinces. The Japanese were likewise constantly hassling Zhang to refrain from getting involved in the national political scene, to just develop his own region. Obviously Japan was arguing this while dangling financial aid because they were heavily invested in Manchuria and did not want any threats aimed at it, especially from Beijing. Wang Yongjiang, who would become a brilliant economic administrator to the Fengtian Clique, aiding in a lot of reforms, he believed the northeast provinces could continue to develop while keeping out of anything going on south of the Great Wall. He also added his voice, arguing Zhang should just stay the hell away from Beijing and its chaos. The second choice was of course, diving right into the chaos. After the fall of the Anhui Clique, Zhang Zuolin for the first time had tasted a real victory, especially one over a superior adversary. For the first time he had the opportunity to influence the politics of China, he could stop being just a mere bandit leader. Could someone like Zhang Zuolin be the man to reunify China? This he wondered. Thus his choices were to go back to being the tiger of Manchuria or become the man who would lead all of China. What do you think he would choose?  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The occupation of Mongolia looked like a good idea at the time to Duan Qirui, perhaps its could save his reputation so he could focus on defeating the pesky southern warlords. What a shock it was to find out all of the north rallied together to knock him off his tower. Now the Zhili and Fengtian cliques controlled Beijing, but would they work together, or simply fall into conflict, furthering China's misery.

Last time we spoke about Feng Yuxiang and Zhang Zongchang. Both men were born into poverty, rose through the ranks of the military, earning popularity. Feng became known for his integrity and generosity. He played a pivotal role during the Xinhai Revolution and the subsequent warlord era, often switching allegiances opportunistically. Feng embraced Christianity and enforced discipline among his troops, earning the nickname "the Christian General." On the other side of the shoulder, Zhang Zongchang became infamous for his brutality and excesses as the "Dogmeat General." His rule over Shandong was marked by tyranny, corruption, and lavish indulgence. While Feng focused on discipline, education, and infrastructure, Zhang oppressed his subjects, enriching himself and his inner circle. Feng was often portrayed favorably, while Zhang reveled in his notorious reputation. Ultimately, they were emblematic figures of the tumultuous warlord era, shaping the course of Chinese history.   #96 Meet the Southern Warlords   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. So two episodes back I introduced you all to the Northern Warlords. The father of warlords, Yuan Shikai basically created them all. When Yuan Shikai built his Beiyang Army, many of his best officers became the Northern Warlords after his death. Thus the Northern Faction as its sometimes referred to, really was an elite club of Beiyang Generals who simply were vying for power. They were all scrambling to fund their private armies and whoever at any given time had the strongest force was able to exert control over the Beiyang government located in Beijing. Within this dynamic there was a quasi balance of power going on. For the most part it was dominated by the three largest cliques in the north, the Anhui Clique, Zhili Clique and Fengtian Clique. Yet this really only applied to Northern China. Going back in time somewhat you will remember, when Yuan Shikai stole the presidency, this led to multiple rebellions, notably sprouting in the southern provinces. Dr Sun Yat-Sen stepped down from the provisional presidency, but he had not given up on his dream of a real republic for China. After the assassination of Song Jiaoren in March 1913, many believed Yuan Shikai had ordered the hit. Yuan Shikai proceeded to abuse his power and this led to southern provinces declaring independence. First was Jiangxi, followed by Jiangsu, Anhui, Shanghai, Guangdong, Fujian and so forth. This all culminated with the Second Revolution of 1913. Unfortunately for the rebels, Yuan Shikai's Beiyang Army yet again proved their might, achieving a complete victory over their revolutionary uprisings. KMT loyalist politicians still refused to submit to Yuan Shikai, so he simply dissolved parliament and began reorganizing China using loyal military governors in the provinces. The KMT may have been dissolved, but they were not down for the count.  After Yuan Shikai proclaimed himself emperor, Dr. Sun Yat Sun established the Chinese Revolutionary Party on July 8th of 1914, but this time his old friends and colleagues refused to join him such as Huang Xing, Hu Hanmin, Chen Jiongming and Wang Jingwei. They had seen it all before. Everytime they created a movement against Yuan Shikai, he simply crushed them, they wanted no part of it. As a result, Dr Sun Yat-Sen lost the limelight, he went back into exile, biding his time. After Yuan Shikai's death, Dr Sun Yat-Sen returned to China where he formed a military Junta at Guangzhou to oppose the Beiyang government. The military Junta held a vote, electing Dr Sun Yat-Sen as Generalissimo. Wu Tingfang was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tang Shaoyi as Chief Finance Officer, although he did not accept the position, Cheng Biguang became the Chief Navy Officer and Hu Hanmin became the Chief Transportation officer. One of the first actions the Junta took was to denounce Duan Qirui and his colleagues as rebels and vowed they would reunify China in a grand “Northern Expedition”. With this proclamation, the Constitutional Protection War had officially begun. The war or better called a movement for now was basically the KMT's third revolution. It was put simply to defeat the Beiyang Government. However, not everyone saw eye to eye. In late 1917, many officials such as Tang Jiyao, Mo Rongxin, Lu Rongting and Tang Shaoyi convened a meeting with southwestern warlords. The purpose of the meeting was to see if they could recognize the Beiyang government and form a coalition with them, basically they were seeking a compromise with the Northern Warlords. Dr Sun Yat-Sen was outraged when he found out and placed blame on the southwestern warlords who he believed had sabotaged the Junta. He resigned angrily in May of 1918, going yet again into exile in Shanghai.While in Shanghai he found supporters and on October 10th of 1919 resurrected the KMT. After this point Dr Sun Yat-Sen would be in conflict with Southern Warlords, basically vying to control southern provincial bases of power. Initially this would be around Guangzhou and Guangdong. Now as most of you probably already know, while Dr Sun Yat-Sen founded the KMT, it ultimately was inherited by a man named Chiang Kai-Shek. Chiang Kai-Shek was born October 31st in Xikou, Zhejiang. He descended from a family of salt merchants. Early in life he became interested in the military. Now he lived during a rough time, China suffered military defeats, natural disasters, famine, rebellion en masse, unequal treaties and such. In 1906 after  his first visit to Japan he began pursuing a military career. He enlisted in the Baoding Military academy that year and then went to the Tokyo Shinbu Gakko, a preparatory school for the IJA Academy for Chinese students. While there he became a revolutionary seeking to end the Qing Dynasty so a Han led Chinese republic could emerge. In 1908 he befriended Chen Qimei and it was Chen who introduced him into the Tongmenghui. After graduating from the Tokyo Shinbu Gakko, Chiang served in the IJA from 1909-1911.  When Chiang heard of the Wuchang uprising he rushed back to China, intending to serve as an artillery officer. He led a regiment in Shanghai under Chen Qimei. Then in 1912 there was a conflict between Chen Qimei and Tao Chengzhang, a revolutionary alliance leader who opposed Dr Sun Yat-Sen. Historians differ on what exactly happened, but its possible Chiang had a hand to play in the assassination of Tao. Regardless Chiang rose up through the ranks and continued to serve under Chen Qimei. Now Chen Qimei had friends in the underworld, such as the Green Gang led by Du Yuesheng. The Green Gang was a criminal syndicate in Shanghai and again historians differ on the extent, but it seems Chiang brushed shoulders with them often. Chiang Kai-Shek became a founding member of the KMT but found himself on the losing end of the Second Revolution in 1913. He fled to Japan in exile, but also secretly traveled to the Shanghai international settlement. Its said there he began working with underworld groups, like the Green Gang. On May 18th, 1916 Yuan Shikai had Chen Qimei assassinated, prompting Chiang to succeed him as leader of the KMT in Shanghai. In 1917 when Dr Sun Yat-Sen came back, Chiang quickly joined up with him, cultivating a spot as his number 2. Now I don't want to give away future episode content just yet, so I will stop it there for the KMT Clique.  The next clique as you may have guessed is of course the Chinese Communist Party. Now we talked quite a bit about its foundation, but for a refresher. After the May Fourth Movement of 1919, numerous foreign ideologies flooded into China, one was Marxism. The Russian Revolution had a profound impact on China. Hundreds of thousands of laborers during WW1 went over to Russia and found themselves stuck in the civil war. They came back and brought with them what they learnt. Two men in particular were greatly inspired by Marxism, Chen Duxiu and Li Dazaho, they were also the first two prominent Chinese figures to endorse Leninism and for a worldwide revolution to take place. They ushered in the New Culture Movement, then aided the May Fourth Movement, but by 1920 they both became very skeptical about reforming the current political situation of China. In 1921 the CCP was founded with help from the USSR. The founding national congress of the CCP was helped between July 23-30th 1921 with only 50 members, amongst whom were Li Dazho, Chen Duxiu and Mao Zedong. The CCP grew quickly, originally being held in a house in the Shanghai French Concession until they were caught by police. They moved to Jiaxing, Zhejiang, electing Chen Duxiu as their 1st General Secretary. Chen became “China's Lenin” and certainly the CCP continued to ally themselves to the USSR for both had a common enemy, Japan. Again just like with the KMT, while Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao were the initial leaders, Mao Zedong would inherit the leadership.  Mao Zedong was born December 26th of 1893 near Shaoshan in Hunan. His father was an impoverished peasant who grew to be one of the wealthiest farmers in Shaoshan. Mao grew up in rural Hunan and stated in memoirs he was regularly beaten by his father who was a very strict man. His mother, Wen Qimei was a devout buddhist and Mao would follow in her footests trying to become a Buddhist, but ultimately abandoning the path as a teenager. He received a confucian based education and his family arranged a marriage when he was 17 to Luo Yixiu, ultimately to unit their land-owning families. Mao refused to acknowledge the marriage and quickly moved away. The poor Luo was shamed by this and would die in 1910. Mao was a voracious reader, he loved the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margins from a young age and continued to read whatever he could get his hands on. Eventually his reading led him to a political awakening. He began reading Adam Smith, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, Montequieu and other western works. He was also interested in history, he took a particularly interest to Napoleon Bonaparte and George Washington.  Mao moved to Changsha for middle school education in 1911 where he came into contact with the revolutionary fervor of the time. He was inspired by Dr Sun Yat-Sen, even wrote about how he thought he should become president in a school essay. Mao like many others cut off their queues during the Xinhai Revolution. Mao found himself joining a real army as a private soldier, but never saw any real combat. In 1912 he resigned from being a soldier and discovered socialism from a newspaper. Mao then enrolled in a police academy but dropped out. He then tried a soap-production school, law school, an economics school and a government run middle school, dropping out of all of them. He spent his time in Changsha's library, reading classical liberal works. Once his father figured out he was basically not doing anything but reading, he cut his allowance, forcing Mao to move into a hostel. Mao then tried to become a teacher and enrolled in the 1st normal school of Changsha. While there he befriend professor Yang Changjia who introduced him to the newspaper “the New Youth” by Chen Duxiu. Mao became inspired, and organized a Association for Student Self-Government that formed protests against school rules. He published articles in the New Youth beginning in 1917 and joined the Society of the Study of Wang Fuzhi, a revolutionary group in Changsha. He began reading about WW1, finding solidarity with the stories of soldiers, but also with workers. After graduating in 1919 he immediately moved to Beijing where his mentor Yang Changji had a job at Peking University. Yang got him a job as an assistant librarian to Li Dazhao. From here Mao became more and more influenced by Marxism, reading about the Russian revolution from the New Youth and books written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Mao joined Li Dazhao's study group becoming more and more enthralled with Marxism. He returned to Changsha working at a primary school while also organizing protests and promoting the New Culture movement there. Mao helped organize a general strike in Hunan, before he returned to Beijing to visit the terminally ill Yang Yangji. After this Mao moved to Shanghai where he met with Chen Duxiu and some prominent KMT members. Mao would brush shoulders with these KMT members often and became one of the founding members of the CCP. Again like with the KMT I don't wont to give away too much future events, so I will stop it there for the CCP. The next group was the Yunnan Clique who were born out of the Xinhai Revolution when Cai E declared Yunnan independent. Cai E had been the commander of the 37th Brigade of the New Army. After the Xinhai Revolution, Cai E tossed his lot in with Yuan Shikai, leaving behind Tang Jiyao to govern Yunnan. When Yuan Shikai initiated operation Walrus Emperor, Cai E covertly departed Beijing and returned to Yunnan to get the old gang back together. He was nearly assassinated on November 11th, but managed to flee to Japan and then Yunnan. Once back in Yunnan he established the local National Protection Army to fight Yuan Shikai. Cai E declared Yunnan independent again and quickly invaded southern Sichuan. Yuan Shikai sent his Beiyang Army south, but found this time his army was less than willing to fight. After Yuan Shikai's death, Cai E retained the position of governor-general over Yunnan and governor over Sichuan. The National Protection War bolstered Cai E as a national hero, however disaster struck in 1916 when he died suddenly of tuberculosis. His chief Lt Tang Jiyao inherited the mantle. Tang Jiyao brushed shoulders with Dr Sun Yat-Sen helping him set up his new KMT in Shanghai and would remain a KMT loyalist. Tang Jiyao also brushed shoulders with the Green Gang who helped him set up an opium trade in Yunnan. Opium grew exceptionally well in Yunnan, its climate was perfect for the plant. Like most of the cliques I will soon be talking about, events unfolded in Northern China that led southern provinces to feel another government was required. A few rival governments would come and go, but the first significant one would be established in Guangzhou and Tang Jiyao joined its committee. Within this government a political war was fought amongst numerous cliques, including Dr Sun Yat-Sen's KMT. As for those other Cliques that would do political battle, one would be the Guizhou Clique. The Guizhou Clique was founded by Liu Xianshi who was born in Xingyi Guizhou. Liu was born into a landlord family who were heavily involved in leading local militias during the late 19th century. He alongside his cousin Liu Xianqian were military men, like their father before them Liu Guanli, who was a regimental commander who helped suppress a Hui uprising. Liu Guanli bolstered his family name to the point the family became heavily dominant within the military forces of Guizhou. During the Wuchang Uprising, Guizhou was tossed into a panic. Li Xianshi went to the capital to help suppress the revolution. Meanwhile, Zhang Bailin, a Tongmenghui leader in Guizhou alongside others stormed the capital and forced the governor, Shen Yuqing to step down. On November 4th, they declared Guizhou independent. However the wannabe revolutionaries failed to take measures to protect their gains and soon Shen Yuqing was fighting back. Liu Xianshi found himself appointed as the Chief of Staff of the Privy Council of a provisional government. Thus emerged a battle between the revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries. The counter revolutionaries sought assistance and turned to the recently emerged strongman, Cai E of Yunnan. They asked him to invade Guizhou to stop the crisis. Cai E dispatched Tang Jiyao with some troops who entered Guizhou rather peacefully and began to organize proper governance. Then Cai E received panic messages from Tongmenghui Guizhou members asking him to not meddle in Guizhou affairs, and with Sichuan looking more appetizing he backed off. Cai E ordered Tang Jiyao to divert his forces and march into Sichuan. However Tang Jiyao complained that in order to comply he had to take a route through Guizhou and this resulted in his army being chased by revolutionary forces. Well that's one way of stating the story, the other is Tang Jiyao simply sought to conquer Guizhou. Regardless, Liu Xianshi helped Tang Jiyao launch a successful coup against the current Guizhou Junta. Thus Tang Jiyao became the military governor of Guizhou on March 4th of 1912 and Yuan Shikai recognized this a few months later. For his role, Liu Xianshi was appointed Minister of War. Tang Jiyao did what all decent dictators do, he massacred all revolutionary forces he could catch in the province. While Tang Jiyao was at the head, Liu Xianshi used his new political power to begin placing family members in prominent positions. In the meantime Tang Jiyao treated Guizhou like a fiefdom, forbidding modernization efforts and prevented any development of the KMT. It goes without saying Tang Jiyao was not beloved in Guizhou. In November of 1913, Cai E was placed under house arrest and stripped of his rank, so Tang Jiyao ran back to Yunnan to grab his position as governor. This left the mantle of Guizhou to fall into the hands of Liu Xianshi. When Yuan Shikai declared himself Emperor, Liu Xianshi initially kept Guizhou neutral, but as the situation looked more and more dire for Yuan Shikai, he bandwagoned and declared independence on January 27th, 1916. Liu Xianshi sent forces to fight in the National Protection War, then after Yuan Shikai's death, the Beiyang government appointed Liu Xianshi as the military governor over Guizhou. From there Liu Xianshi had pretty much dictatorial power and he soon went to work forming his own Guizhou clique. To make matters even more complicated, within the Guizhou clique were the Xingyi clique, of the Liu family because they came from Xingyi and the Tongzi clique led by Zhou Xicheng. Basically two families and others fought for dominance, leading to a cycle of assassinations followed by seizure of power. Now we come to the Old and New Guangxi Cliques. The Old Guangxi Clique came about after Governor Chen Bingkun declared Guangxi independ during the Wuchang uprising. After the rebellion, Yuan Shikai installed Lu Rongting as the military governor of Guangxi and during the second revolution Lu remained loyal. Yet when Yuan Shikai went Walrus emperor mode, Lu bandwagoned with Cai E and Tang Jiyao. Meanwhile Long Jiguang proclaimed Guangdong independent and after Yuan Shikai's death, Guangxi and Guangdong found themselves at war. The war largely came about when Dr Sun Yat-Sen split from the Guangzhou government, he dispatched a subordinate, Chen Jiongming to seize Guangzhou and effectively get rid of the Guangxi warlords. Both Long Jiguang and Chen Jiongming were KMT loyalists, thus this led Lu Rongting into a bitter war with Guangdong and even Yunnan got involved, and the whole mess saw the Old Guangxi clique beaten severely. Again I don't want to tell to much as it will be covered in future podcasts, but a hell of a mess, lot of backstabbing.  After the Guangxi-Guangdong wars, yes plural, Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi and Huang Shaohong formed the New Guangxi clique alongside a brand new Guangxi Army. Li Zongren was its commander in chief, Huang Shaohong deputy commander and Bai Chongxi chief of staff. They all worked together to kick Guangdong forces out of Guangxi and Li Zongren emerged the military governor over Guangxi. The New Guangxi clique came about during the formation of a new coalition I can't get into here. While both the old and new Guangxi cliques were on the smaller side, they would take part in the reunification of China. Next, although we spoke already a bit about them was the Guangdong Clique. Long Jiguang would die in 1918 leaving the mantle to fall onto Chen Jiongming. Cheng Jiongming had joined the Tongmenghui in 1906 and participated in a coup attempt in 1910 in Guangzhou. During the Xinhai revolution Chen Jiongming was part of another uprising in Guangzhou. After this Chen Jiongming received the post as commander in chief of the Guangdong Army and fought for the KMT. He did however butt heads with Dr Sun Yat-Sen, particularly over the direction of reform the KMT should take. Dr Sun Yat-Sen sought to unify China by force and institute change through a centralized government based on a one party system. Chen Jiongming sought a multiparty federalist system with Guangdong being the model province and hoped for a peaceful reunification of China. There would be a split between the two men and it would be quite violent. The Guangdong clique like the old and new Guangxi clique was again a small part of something bigger cooking in the south. The next is the Sichuan Clique which consisted of a loose group of smaller warlords each with their own regions within Sichuan. Each had their own defensive zone, with their own police, political and economic bases. There were not many large conflicts, it mostly came down to coalitions dismantling a disgruntled warlord. As I already mentioned, Yunnan invaded Sichuan during the Yuan Shikai days, and the local Sichuan warlords initially welcomed the Yunnanese, siding with them to declare independence. But as you can imagine, the Yunnanese soon were seen as overbearing and a lot of soured feelings erupted. This was only further soured when troops from Guizhou came into Sichuan. In 1916, the Sichuan troops were led by General Liu Cunhou who quickly established a ceasefire with the Guizhou and Yunnanese forces. Because of her geography, Sichuan was always relatively isolated from the rest of China, thus she turned inwards instead of outwards. For the majority of the warlord period Sichuan was split into half a dozen districts under military rule. During the late 1920s even into the 1930's 5 Sichuan warlords dominated the scene, Yang Sen, Liu Wenhui, Deng Xihou, Tian Songyao and Liu Xiang. Neither had enough power to take all the others on, thus there was a real balance of power at play. In a true game of thrones like fashion, the Sichuan scene was that of warlords forming secret alliance, pitting one against another, but no one ever truly dominated the province. Of the 5 Sichuan warlords, Liu Xiang would be the most influential. Liu Xiang dominated Chongqing and its surrounding areas. His territory straddled the Yangtze River, thus rich in maritime trade, in essence he wielded significant control over Sichuan's economy. By the 1930's Sichuan was ruled by Liu Xiang in the east; Liu Cunhou in the northeast adjoining Shaanxi; Tian Songyao in the north adjoining Gansu; Deng Xihou in the northwest adjoining Qinghai and Liu Wenhui in the southwest adjoining Xikang and Yunnan. Within a small central enclave was also Yang Sen.  After Yuan Shikai's death the province fell into quite a lot of disorder. All the district governors fought each other and quite often at that, but they rarely ever crossed the Sichuan border. The common people of Sichuan lived in despair and fear nicknamed their warlords as Rotten Melons or Crystal Monkey's. Liu Xiang was born in 1889 to a modest family, received a decent education and joined the military. He rose quickly and saw a lot of warfare. By 1926 he had established a strong base in Chongqing and he held onto it until his death. Now the standard troops of Sichuan were lesser than other parts of China. The Sichuan armies were funded largely by taxes levied on grain, salt and opium. Holding Chongqing along the Yangtze, Liu Xiang had an enormous economic base and thus managed to enrich himself and funded a large army. He enforced strict military discipline, though he was known to turn a blind eye to his officers' rackets. Despite this Liu Xiang's army had a lot of problems facing bandits in the rural areas. One of the other Sichuan Warlords, Yang Sen was quite flamboyant. His nickname was rat face because he had a small mouth. Yang Sen had a small enclave, but it consisted of Chengdu which he tried to clean up. He paved streets with flagstone to help increase rickshaw traffic, a rather new concept for many there. Chengdu happened to have a commodity all warlords wanted, an arsenal, so Yang Sen was by no means a poor warlord. While Sichuan seemed to always be in a state of decline, Chengdu in comparison was quite opulent and luxurious. Now again, and I keep saying it, I don't want to give up too much of the later stories, but Sichuan like many other southern provinces would join the Northern Expedition and help reunify China. Now despite the warlord era being technically ended in 1928 when China was reunified, in reality the warlords were around well into WW2. The Sichuan Clique would brush shoulders a lot with Chiang Kai Shek. During the Second Sino-Japanese War Liu Xiang led the Sichuan 15th Army during the battle of Shanghai and the 23rd Army Group during the battle of Nanjing. Later in 1938 he took 100,000 soldiers out of Sichuan to fight the Japanese, showcasing how far he had come as a commander as well as a warlord. Last there was the Hunan Warlords, a similar situation to that of Sichuan, just a lot more autonomous warlords. The first prominent Hunan Clique member was Tan Yankai, a member of the KMT who became the military governor of Hunan. Tan Yankai had connections amongst Guanxi warlords allowing him loose control over his province. He tried to arouse the people of Hunan to take active opposition to the Northern Warlords, but this prompted Duan Qirui to toss a Hunan born commander, Fu Liangzuo to come take his job. Tan Yankai was forced to take the job as civil governor while Fu became the warlord. Tan Yankai appealed to his Guangxi buddies for help. Even Tang Jiyao of Yunnan asked if he could invade Hunan to help, air quotes on help, but it never came about. Unfortunately for Tan Yankai, Hunan was right beside the Zhili Clique and thus got engulfed in the Northern wars. Hunan basically as a result of geography was stuck in the middle of bigger players and would be tossed around like a ragdoll. Tan Yankai would be backstabbed by a subordinate who favored the Zhili, then later another KMT member would simply grab up Hunan during the Northern expedition. Honestly to call Hunan a Clique is a bit of a stretch as it was more of just an area that had overlaps with other cliques all fighting for territory. Now that basically covers the southern cliques, theres actually more, but if I talk about them we would get lost in the weeds as they say. What is important to know going forward, the North-South divide would see two distinct theaters at play. In the North the Anhu, Zhili and Fengtian Cliques would fight for dominance over Beijing. In the South, many KMT oriented, Communist Orient and independent warlords would fight for dominance over Guangzhou, and later in history other rival southern governments. Typically the Warlord Era is taught North to South and I think that will be the case with us because its simply more cohesive. As Samuel Jackson playing Ray Arnold in Jurassic Park once said, “hold onto your butts” because the warlord Era about to begin.  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. So we talked about the Northern Warlords and now the Southern Warlords. Time to put the Game of Thrones intro music on, as we are soon going to jump into a world of cutthroat backstabbing, secret alliance, little fingers and megalomaniac figures who will all fight to reunify China under their own image. As for the Chinese common people, as usual they will suffer tremendously, continuing the Century of Humiliation. 

Last time we spoke about the May fourth movement of 1919 . The Xinhai Revolution of 1911 sparked the May Fourth Movement marked by nationalism, anti-imperialism, and a quest for modernization. Disillusioned with traditional values and foreign encroachments, Chinese intellectuals, students, and workers embraced Western ideals, particularly Marxism, to reform Chinese society. The movement led to the emergence of the Chinese Communist Party and a broader alliance against warlordism and Japanese imperialism. Tensions arose between reformist liberalism and revolutionary Marxism, reflecting debates over China's path to progress. Despite setbacks, the May Fourth Movement's legacy persisted, shaping China's political landscape and laying the groundwork for future revolutionary action. Its an understatement to say it was a watershed moment in modern Chinese history. But underneath it lurked a new Era, one that was to be fought and ruled by warlords.   #94 Meet the Northern Warlords   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. How to even begin. I am staring at roughly 10 tabs of books alongside numerous scripts I had written nearly a year ago about China's Warlord Era. I have already written an extensive series, that I also molded into a long form documentary about the Warlord Era, you can find it at the Pacific War Channel on Youtube or in audio form on all podcast platforms. However, I realize now, I really did not dig deep enough, specifically on….who exactly were the warlords? Its true, I covered their numerous battles, made jokes about them, but I did not really go deep into their backgrounds.To be honest their backgrounds are quite fascinating, they were all kooky characters. Thus I thought what better than to start off the Warlord Era by introducing some of the warlords and their cliques. But because there is literally so many warlords, I literally halfway through writing this one had to change it to just the Northern Warlords, next episode we cover the southern ones. After the death of Yuan Shikai China underwent a major shift from being a state-dominated civil bureaucracy overseen by a central authority to military dominated regions. These regions were dominated by the Warlords whom in the words of American political scientist Lucian Pye “were instinctively suspicious, quick to suspect that their interests might be threatened, hard-headed, devoted to the short run and impervious to idealistic abstractions". Most of the Warlords, came from military backgrounds, having gone through the new-style military colleges of the late 19th and early 20th century with foreign instructors. Most of the warlords were extremely brutal to not just their enemies, but civilians and their own troops. They killed without a second thought their own men if they suspected insubordination. They used horrible torture tactics like suspending a victim by the neck in bamboo or wooden cages, breaking knees, slicing limbs, branding and so forth. If railway workers tried to go on strike, a Warlord would often execute a few of them to get them back to work. A British diplomat in Sichuan province witnessed two mutineers being publicly hacked to death with their hearts and livers cut out; another two were burned to death; and others had slits cut into their bodies into which were inserted burning candles before they were hacked to pieces Warlords had to depend on subordinate officers, thus personal loyalty was of vital importance. Many Warlords would be betrayed by their officers who were often bribed by other Warlords. During the Warlord period, there was a balance of power. For those who don't know, the Balance of Power theory suggests states or in this case warlord regions, may secure their own survival by preventing any other state from gaining enough military power to dominate all others. So basically in Europe historically you see this with Britain, France and Spain. Two of the states would always join forces against the largest state to keep everyone in check. During the Warlord Era where there are numerous cliques with their own regional bases, the balance of power becomes quite complicated, but most books or even Youtube videos for that matter focus on 3 big ones, that we will get into soon.  Now the Warlords entire power scheme relied on their military, thus it was a precious thing to conserve. Going to war with another Clique might increase ones sphere of influence, but it might also weaken ones military so much they become vulnerable to attacks from other Cliques. This is further complicated by all the intricacies of the 20th century, this is an age of industry, economic power, trade and so forth. Not all the Warlords held regions with the economic capacity or logistical strength to wage longterm wars, some needed decisive knockout blows. As you can imagine, theres thousands of variables at play, making it nearly impossible for any given Clique to dominate all of China. The Warlord Era played out during a time when railroads were the fastest and cheapest means of transporting troops, thus capturing railroads was of vital importance. This was also an age directly after WW1 where the armored train was king. An armored train full of artillery and machine guns could land troops and perform fire support for them in battle.  Warlord armies consisted of common soldiers and more often than naught bandits. These grunt types had no loyalty to anyone, many joined Warlord armies as a means to an end, everyone has to eat as they say. Often a bandit became a soldier during times of war, then during times of peace they went back to banditry, it was a vicious cycle. Warlord armies were a plague upon the populations they came into contact with. They plundered, raped, took hostages for money, took women into sexual slavery, murder was rampant. Warlords often looted the countryside as a means to pay their troops. Peasants often joined a Warlord army, fought a battle, became captured by the enemy who simply enlisted them. Yes, Warlords often incorporated POW's into their armies, a system that would bite them in the ass often. Since I am the Pacific War Channel, I have to mention, a famous figure of the Pacific War, Vinegar Joseph Stilwell went to China as an attache in the 1920's and got to see Warlordism first hand. In 1926 he inspected a warlord unit and estimated 20% of the men were 4 foot 6, the average age was roughly 14 and many walked barefoot. Warlord armies were composed of infantry, cavalry, artillery, sometimes armor and even airforces for the lucky big guys. They were organized like any modern military with commanding officers over various units. They were composed of regular units, typically the core of a Warlords army. These were professionally trained soldiers, often equipped with modern firearms and artillery, the backbone of the army so to say. Then there were irregular militias, these were the local recruit types. They were less trained, less equipped, but like in any good army they provided numbers and numbers are a strength of its own. They could be used for garrison duties, patrolling, support roles, freeing up the regular army units. They were more prevalent in rural areas where manpower was always needed to keep control. Next there were foreign advisors and foreign mercenaries. Some Warlords hired foreign military advisors and mercenaries to bolster their strength. The advisors came from any of the great powers, but most especially Japan, Britain, France and Germany. The Russian civil war also added a ton of White Russians to the mix, some Warlords took advantage of this hiring full White Russian regiments like Zhang Zongchang. In 1916 China had roughly half a million soldiers, by 1922 this tripled, then it tripled again in 1924. Such manpower cost money, thus Warlords enacted large taxes to keep their armies going. One way of raising funds were specific taxes called lijin, it was a form of internal tariff, placed on the transit of goods being traded between provinces. One example of lijin was seen in Sichuan province were 27 different taxes were placed upon salt and paper going down the Yangtze river to Shanghai. It was taxes 11 different times by various warlords to the sum of 160% of its total value. Warlords also took enormous loans further complicated the economic order. Many Warlords got into the black market, stealing, cultivating and selling opium. Countless Warlords faced insane inflation situations seeing them continuously printing more and more money. As a Canadian under Justin Trudeau I have no idea what that is like, cough cough. Warlords were not all well educated, thus the illiterate Warlord of Manchuria, Zhang Zuolin when facing increasing prices obviously caused by inflation, he assumed it was the result of greedy merchants and began executing them. All of these money problems occurred because men and equipment were needed. Warlords bought their military arms typically from foreign nations. They purchased weapons from all sorts of nations like Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, thus there was a plethora of different weapons. For rifles, many used the domestic manufactured Hanyang 88 and Mauser, while also importing rifles like the German Mauser Gewehr 98, British Lee-Enfield, the French Chauchat rifle and Italian Carcano M1891. For handguns the most popular was the Mauser C96. For Submachine guns apparently the Bergman MP28 was a favorite, but of course the Thompson submachine gun and MP18 also were purchased. For machine guns its was the Maxim, Chauchat, Browning, Vickers, MG08, Lewis gun, Hotchkiss m1909, honestly there are too many to list. Bayonets were bought and forged en masse alongside a variety of swords and sabers, the Chinese preferred the Dao and Jian for cavalry and ceremonies. Armored cars and trucks were bought en masse, armored trains were employed by a few warlords like Zhang Zongchang. Zhang Zuolin managed to buy some Renault FT tanks in the later 1920s. All the big warlords scrambled to get their hands on WW1 tanks and aircraft, though few used these effectively in battle. In the case of aircraft they really served primarily as reconnaissance.  Now lets talk about the Warlords and their Cliques. There were hundreds of warlords, I can't go through them all, but what I will do is name the larger guys, and throughout the series I am sure we will keep adding more. First, the origin of the warlords is of course the father of warlords, Yuan Shikai. Yuan Shikai built up the strongest army in China, the Beiyang Army that outlasted him. Many of Yuan Shikai's officers would become Warlords and their loyal followers made up cliques. Two officers very close to Yuan Shikai were Duan Qirui and Feng Guozhang. Both men began their military careers in the Tientsin Military academy a school established by Li Hongzhang ack in 1885. Duan Qirui's grandfather had served in Li Hongzhangs army, thus he was very much a military son. Feng Guozhang came from a family of landowners who had fallen on hard times, he failed to obtain his second civil service degree dashing his hopes to gain a post in the civilian bureaucracy, so he turned to the military. Both Duan and Feng gained good reputations, prompting Yuan Shikai to bring them into his inner circle. Both served him faithfully during the Xinhai Revolution and were rewarded with high office positions in his new government. Duan received military governorship over Hunan and Hubei and Feng received military governorship over Jiangsu. When Yuan Shikai died, Li Yuanghong took the presidency, actually forced by Duan Qirui who became Premier and Feng Guozhang became Vice-President. The Beiyang government henceforth, basically served at the whim to whichever warlord held the strongest army and largest presence within Beijing at any given time. Now leaderless, the Beiyang Army broke apart, its regiments and divisions fell under the control of various warlords in northern China who claimed them for their private armies. The Warlords sought to increase their power by increasing the size of their armies. This also resulted in the creation of major factions, better known as “cliques”. Duan Qirui became the founder of the Anhui clique, it was called this because the majority of its most influential members came from Anhui, including Duan. This clique had close ties to Japan, in previous episodes I mentioned Duan Qirui's secret Nishihara loans, this was done to bolster the cliques army. The Anhui clique organized themselves very early on and were more politically sophisticated than their rivals. The clique had a political wing known as the Anfu Club meaning “peace and happiness club”. Basically this was a group of Beijing politicians who favored Duan and tried to mold the political order his way. There was also a financial wing known as “the new communications clique” led by Cao Rulin who was a rival to Liang Shiyi's “Old Communications clique” part of the Cantonese clique, yes this gets really confusing. The Anhui clique basically became the biggest clique at the offset and would be led by multiple figures over the years.  There were many Beiyang officers who were not allowed into the Anhui clique. In the Beiyang Army as in any army, countless men had been overlooked for promotions by those like Duan Qirui and became bitter. These disgruntled officers who felt Duan Qirui had snubbed them gradually rallied behind Feng Guozhang forming the Zhili Clique. The Zhili Clique had its power base in Jiangsu, Jiangxi and Hubei. The Zhili clique was western oriented relying on western nations for funding and arms. Unlike the Anhui, early on the Zhili lacked strong bonds, thus they were more likely to abandon or betray another. They would be led by multiple figures, but no one would be as popular as Wu Peifu. Now as I very much know after creating my Warlord series on the Pacific War channel, I got a ton of comments about Wu Peifu, he is a fan favorite. Wu Peifu was born in Shandong and he received a traditional confucian education. Most would argue Wu Peifu was a Confucian scholar turned soldier in fact. It seems the Japanese victory over China in 1895 persuaded Wu to join the military. He enrolled in one of the new military academies at the time, the Baoding Military academy in Beijing and graduated in 1903 as a 2nd Lt in the beiyang army. Three years later he was assigned to Cao Kun's 3rd division and this sprang a 20 year relationship between the two men. Cao Kun took Wu under his wing and would become the leader of the Zhili clique after Feng Guozhang. However, Cao Kun was heavily invested in political matters. Because of this he relied heavily on Wu Peifu to manage military affairs and this paid off big time as Wu Peifu became one of modern China's greatest military strategists. Think Lelouche from Code Geass, if you get that reference you are a person of culture haha. Wu Peifu earned the epithet “the Jade Marshal” because of his military and intellectual prowess. He would won many battles and campaigns over rival warlords, often outmaneuvering or outwitting them. He also was very committed to maintaining integrity and order within his military. He emphasized professionalism and adhered to codes of conduct, earning a lot of respect amongst his men and China in general. To many he looked elegant and composed, resembling the qualities of Jade. He would brush shoulders with other famous Zhili clique warlords like Sun Chuanfang and Qi Xieyuan, but honestly the list is very large. Now if you read about the warlord Era, typically they display three large cliques in the north who influence most of the era, the Anhui clique, Zhili clique and of course the Fengtian clique.  They basically form a balance of power in North China. I should also probably note, China is facing a North/South divide during the Warlord Era so you often hear the cliques called Northern faction cliques or SOuthern faction cliques. The Fengtian clique's sphere of influence was Manchuria and thus was heavily backed by Japan. Like Wu Peifu, the founder of the Fengtian clique is also a fan favorite, his name was Zhang Zuolin, the Tiger of Manchuria. Zhang Zuolin was born in Haicheng in southern Fengtian province, modern Liaoning to a poor family. He received very little formal education, but when old enough he ran a stable at an Inn. He was a slender, kind of frail man with a droopy mustache and a soft voice. He enlisted in the military during the first sino-Japanese war learning how to be a soldier and returned to Fengtian were some say he became a Honghuzi. There is a story, most likely made up by Zhang Zuolin mind you that he was on a hunting trip when he came across a wounded Honghuzi on horseback. He killed the man, stole his horse and took his Honghuzi identity for himself. He gradually organized a small militia force to defend the locality and this became the nucleus of his personal army. Scholars are unsure whether Zhang Zuolin was ever a Honghuzi. Some claim he led a honghuzi gang, others state he was accused of being honghuzi because his local militia was not a regular military unit. During the Boxer Rebellion his gang joined the imperial army and afterwards they worked as security escorts for traveling merchants. During the Russo-Japanese war his men worked as mercenaries for the IJA. After the war he reached an arrangement with the military governor of Fengtien to have his forces become a regiment in the regular Qing army. During the Xinhai revolution as many declared independence movements in Manchuria, the pro-Manchu governor used Zhang Zuolins regiment to set up a “Manchurian People's peacekeeping council”. This was simply done to intimidate and threaten the revolutionaries, but for Zhang Zuolin's role he was awarded the Vice Ministry of Military affairs. When Yuan Shikai was trying to seize the presidency from Dr Sun Yat-Sen, Zhang Zuolin supported him and received military provisions for doing so. Zhang Zuolin murdered a number of leading figures in Mukden and was promoted multiple times by the Ailing Qing dynasty. When it became obvious Yuan Shikai was going to takeover, Zhang Zuolin threw his lot in with him. After 1911 Zhang Zuolin helped quell the rebellion earning a rank of Lt-General. Then when Yuan Shikai declared himself emperor, Zhang Zuolin was one of the very few who supported him. For this Yuan Shikai promoted him to Military governor of Fengtian. In 1916 when Yuan Shikai had to put down rebellions in the southern provinces, Zhang Zuolin supported the effort, however when Duan Qirui sent a new military governor to replace him, Zhang Zuolin went to the Kwantung Army for help. With the Japanese help Zhang Zuolin got rid of the many and would retain his authority over Fengtian. When Yuan Shikai died, Zhang Zuolin was in the perfect position to become a warlord in his region. By 1919 he managed to gain the position of inspector general over all 3 provinces of Manchuria and appointed loyal subordinates all over Manchuria to make sure his control was absolute. By 1920 he was the de facto supreme leader of Manchuria and controlled the Fengtian Army. Zhang Zuolin would dominate the Fengtian Clique nearly its entire existence, only to be replaced by his son Zhang Xueliang after his death. The Fengtian clique produced many warlords, the most notorious being of course, the Dogmeat General Zhang Zongchang. I wont get into it here, but I honestly plan on doing an entire episode to cover Zhang Zongchang's life story, its too hilarious and horrifying not to.  The next northern warlord clique was the Shanxi clique of Yan Xishan. Yan Xishan was born in the late 19th century in Wutai county of Xinzhou, Shanxi. His family were mostly bankers and merchants, he himself worked in his fathers bank and pursued a traditional Confucian education. However economic depression in his region, prompting Yan to join a military school in Taiyuan. There he was introduced to western sciences and in 1904 he went to Japan to study at the Tokyo Shimbu Gakko, a military preparatory academy. He enlisted in the Japanese army academy and graduated in 1909. Yan studied in Japan for 5 years and was impressed by Japan's modernization efforts. He observed much of what he could and would later use it to modernize Shanxi. Yan concluded Japan had successfully modernized largely because of its governments abilities to mobilize its populace in support of its policies and the close respectful relationship that existed in its military and civilian populations. In 1910 Yan wrote a pamphlet warning China that it was endanger of being overtaken by Japan unless it developed a form of Bushido. Before going to Japan, Yan had been disgusted with the wide scale corruption of Shanxi officials and believed the Qing dynasty's hostility towards modernization and industrialization led to its downfall. While in Japan Yan met with Dr Sun Yat-Sen and joined his Tongmenghui. When Yan came back to China he was assigned divisional command of the New Army in Shanxi. Despite his post, Yan actually covertly worked to overthrow the Qing. During the Xinhai revolution Yan led a local revolutionary force to drive out the Qing loyalist troops in the province and proclaimed its independence. Yan hoped to join forces with another prominent Shanxi revolutionary named Wu Luzhen, to resist Yuan Shikai's dominance over Northern China. However Wu Luzhen was assassinated just before Yan was elected military governor. Yan tried to resist, but Yuan Shikai's Beiyang Army overwhelmed Shanxi. Yan only survived by withdrawing further north forming alliances with the neighboring Shaanxi province. Yan managed to avoid a military confrontation with Yuan Shikai, thus preserving his own base of power. Although Yan was friends with Dr Sun Yat-Sen he did not support his 1913 Second Revolution and instead got closer to Yuan Shikai. Because of this Yuan Shikai allowed him to retake his post as military governor of Shanxi. Yan used this post to build a personal army and by the time of Yuan Shikai's death solidified his control over Shanxi. Now a little bit about Shanxi, it was one of the poorest provinces in China. Yan believed unless he modernized and revived its economy, Shanxi would simply succumb to rival warlords. As Yan watched from the sidelines in 1919, he saw his province simply could not compete with the bigger boys, thus he took up a policy of neutrality. While the warlord Era wars raged on he instead exclusively worked to modernize Shanxi, particularly developing its resource sector. Yan's governance of Shanxi led to him being dubbed the “model governor” by foreigners. In 1918 there was a bubonic plague outbreak in northern Shanxi taking the lives of nearly 3000 people in two months. Yan dealt with this by issuing instructions on modern germ theory and plague management to his provincial officials. He told his populace the plague was caused by germs that were breathed through lungs, that the disease was incurable and the only way to thwart it was social distancing. He ordered his officials to keep infected family and friends, even entire infected communities quarantined, by threat of police if necessary. Yan also sought foreign doctors to help suppress the epidemic. When Yan was in Japan he spent time in a hospital for 3 months where he saw X-rays, microscopes and other medical equipment for the first time and it seems this greatly impressed him. The epidemic prompted Yan to modernize Shanxi's medicine industry, funding the Research Society for advancement of Chinese Medicine in Taiyuan in 1921. The school promoted both western and chinese medicine, teaching courses in German, Japanese and English. While Yan would a isolationist for most of the warlord era, he had a large role in the end of it. The next northern clique is one I don't want to talk too much about because they only come into the scene later on. There is also the fact the leader of this faction happens to be the rival to Zhang Zongchang, and I think I might make the next or in a future episode a comparison of the two because it would be funny. What you should know is the Guominjun were basically a spin off of the Kuomintang. They were more or less a branch of the Kuomintang, but located in the north. The clique was formed by Feng Yuxiang, known as the “christian general”. Again I don't want to say too much, but this guy was funny, he used to check the fingernails of his troops before battle, no joke I've seen footage of it. Feng Yuxiang's Guominjun would end up being based in northwestern Hebei province. The next northern clique was known as the Ma Clique or the “Three Ma's of the northwest”. This clique goes back to our episode on the Dungan revolt. The Ma cliques traces back to the Qing General Dong Fuxiang, the same man who fought during the Dungan revolt and saved Empress Dowager Cixi during the Boxer Rebellion. He commanded Hui armies whose commanders went on to found the Ma Clique such as Ma Anliang and Ma Fuxiang. During the Xinhai revolution, Ma Anliang led 20 Hui battalions to defend the Qing dynasty by attacking Shaanxi where revolutionaries led by Zhang Fenghui sprang up. Ma Anliang failed to capture Shaanxi and when Puyi abdicated Ma agreed to join the new republic. Unlike Ma Anliang, Ma Fuxiang did not fight for the Qing, but rather the revolutionaries. Ma Fuxiang refused to join the invasion of Shaanxi and instead declared independence of Kansu from Qing control. Because of this Ma Fuxiang was rewarded military governor of Ningxia by Yuan Shikai. Ma Anliang was the founder of the Ma CLique, but died in 1918 leaving the mantle of de fact leader of Muslims in northwest China to fall to Ma Fuxiang. The Ma clique controlled Qinghai, Gangsu and Ningxia. Its three most prominent memers were Ma Bufang, Ma Hongkui and Ma Hongbin known as the Xibei San Ma “thee Ma of the northwest”. The clique would fight the Guominjun and later Xinjiang cliques during the warlord era wars. The next northern clique was the Xinjiang clique with their power base in Xinjiang. One thing that is unique to this clique was that some of their leaders were from outside the province. In 1907 Yunnanese Yang Zengxin was assigned governor over Xinjiang. He received support from Ma Yuanzhang, a Sufi Jahriyya Shaykh who enabled him to raise a massive Hui muslim army primarily from Jahriyya communities. Like Ma Anliang, Yang Zengxin was a manchu loyalist, neither trusted the revolutionaries. When the Xinhai revolution broke out, like Ma Anliang, Yang Zengxin fought for the Qing. After Puyi's abdication, Yang Zengxin supported Yuan Shikai becoming emperor, simply because he believed monarchy was the best system for China. Thus Yang Zengxin invited a bunch of anti-yuan leading officials to a banquet and decapitating them. Yuan Shikai rewarded him with a first rank of count during his brief tenure as emperor. After Yuan Shikai's death, Li Yuanhong assigned Fan Yaonan to observe Yang Zengxin to see if he could be replaced. Yang Zengxin was not a idiot, he made sure to recognize which ever faction at any given time controlled the Beiyang government to avoid any troubles. He kept his rule over Xinjiang relatively peaceful, at least in terms of Warlord Era China. When the Russian Civil War broke out he remained luke warm to the new Soviet Union, because the reality was, Xinjiang had always been economically dependent on Russia. Under his leadership Xinjiang formed a lot of deals with the Soviets independent of the Beiyang government. To complicate things, certain Ma's like Ma Fuxiang were also members of the Xinjiang clique and held military positions under Yang Zengxin. Yang Zengxin controlled his province with an iron first, relying heavily on Hui muslims forces to keep conflict at bay. He had absolute power and had a funny habit of keeping the radio station keys on him at all times and read every message that aired on it prior, making sure to get rid of any parts he did not approve of. Because of the geographical location of Xinjiang, the clique did not have as much influence on warlord era china vs others.  The last northern clique, is honestly not one I really consider a real clique, but then again you could say the same thing about many others. This clique would be called the “Manchu Restorationists” kind of like a Qing white lotus in some ways. They were prominent figures who simply wanted to bring back the Qing dynasty after the Xinhai Revolution. I really don't want to tell the story just yet, because its a wild and rather comical one, but if anyone was the so-called leader of this clique it was Zhang Xun, the Pigtailed General. But I guess I have to leave you with a bit of a teaser, Zhang Xun technically overthrew the republic and ushered in a Manchu Restoration….for a few days.  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. I think I covered roughly 60% of the Northern Warlords and their respective cliques. In the next episode I literally decided just now I will tell the tale of two northern warlords, one a angel and one a devil. I hope you are ready for some comedy and a bit of horror, for it will be the rivals Feng Yuxiang and Zhang Zongchang. 

Last time we spoke about the New Culture Movement. China had seen humiliation after humiliation and her population was fed up. The leaking of secret dealings by foreign powers, Japan and members of the Chinese government alongside a weak stance at the Paris Peace Conference broke the camels back. The New Culture Movement that was brewing under these circumstances saw the Chinese public begin to question their traditions, confucianism and this feeling of always looking into the past, rather than the future. Things simply could not keep going on the way that they were. Numerous intellectuals began demanding major reforms to really modernize China. From vernacular writing systems, to the emancipation of women and egalitarian rights, the Chinese people were angry and they were soon going to demonstrate their anger towards their government. It would all start with youthful students who would change China forever.    #93 The May Fourth Movement of 1919   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. The Xinhai Revolution of 1911 had given rise to the spirit of Chinese nationalism, demanding resistance to foreign encroachment and the elimination of domestic autocracy. While the Manchu's were overthrown, Yuan Shikai was quick to seize the movement hostage. He silenced opposition when the Beiyang Republic was formed. Then WW1 came crashing in like a wrecking ball upon China. The Empire of Japan defeated the Germans and now occupied the Shandong Peninsula. Yuan Shikai protested this of course, but from the publics point of view not too strongly. Taking full advantage of the international situation the Japanese then imposed the twenty-one demands upon China. This was leaked to the world, enraging the Chinese populace. Though Yuan Shikai did negotiate them down into the Thirteen Demands, it was yet again another humiliation and a sign of how weak the Chinese government was. When this occurred Chinese intellectuals, students and workers were beginning to form groups and argue about what should be done. There was a sense of national survival at stake.  In response to the Twenty-One Demands situation a boycott of Japanese goods was organized in Shanghai, and this rapidly began to spread to other cities. Yuan Shikai ordered the boycotts to seize as they spread to Yangtze port cities. Regardless the people of China still had high hopes by joining the Entente during the war, this would see China reverse her misfortunes and regain things like the Shandong Peninsula. When WW1 ended on November 11 of 1918, there was such widespread hope the national disgrace would come to an end. Chinese intellectual leaders, and leading businessmen believed the defeat of Germany had finally brought an end to the disgusting practice of secret diplomacy, foreign encroachment on their nation, militarism and the dictatorship that was pretending to be a republic. It was assumed the Shandong Peninsula lease that originally was given to the Germans, currently held by the Japanese illegally, would simply be handed back over to China. China had done a lot for the Entente war effort, she had provided hundreds of thousands of laborers at critical moments of the war, many believed, and I would say rightfully so, China earned certain demands. Well those hopes were torn to shreds at the Paris Peace Conference. News of the conference reached China, particularly that of Japan being awarded the Shandong Peninsula. The Chinese public found out about the secret Sino-Japanese Treaty deal that Duan Qirui had signed and that of Britain's secret double promising deal to Japan to award her the Shandong Peninsula. There were also the secret Nishihara loans that had first been signed by Yuan Shikai and were then inherited by Duan Qirui. Because of all of this on April 30th, 1919 China lost her entire case at the conference, Japan was awarded the Shandong Peninsula and on top of that, there was zero mention of when the lease would return to China. All of these developments had been followed closely by Chinese intellectuals, political leaders and businessmen who were genuinely concerned about their nation's survival. When the Chinese public found out, the first instinct was to demand those responsible for the terrible outcomes be brought to justice. Because of all the secret dealing and other exchanges between leading Beiyang officials in Beijing and Japan, they were the first culprits cited for the failure of China to regain her lost territories and there was a large suspicion there were Chinese individuals basically selling out their country to Japan. It had now become the general feeling of the people, foreign powers had hurt China, but also traitors within her government. Intellectual leaders and students who had been exposed to foreign ideologies were extremely disappointed.  By the turn of the century, countless Chinese students had gone abroad studying in Japan, the United States and Europe. They encountered new ideas, and they reflected upon them, before proposing how such ideas could be used to solve China's problems. In the last episode I spoke a lot about the intellectuals who brought these ideas to China. Hu Shih studied in the United States, Chen Duxiu studied in Japan, both men would become leaders of what will become known as the May Fourth Movement and other events later on. Both men would go very different paths, but at this point in time they both understood the dangers facing their nation and wanted to save it. It was within this time period the New Culture Movement sprang up. The leaders of the movement believed China's traditional confucian based culture was holding her back from actually modernizing into a modern state. Many of them advocated for western ideas to modernize China. Chen Duxiu returned from Japan in 1915 where he had established the New Youth magazine, basically creating the vehicle for intellectuals to bring new ideas to the Chinese public. He was soon joined by Li Dazhao who also returned from Japan in 1916.  When these intellectuals returned to China, they found her in a highly repressive state. Under Yuan Shikai, there were severe laws governing the press and these laws would survive him until the early 1920s. Yuan Shikai's dictatorship charade of a republic became even worse when he proclaimed himself Emperor. 83 days of that disaster simply proved to the people of China, the same old tyrants that they had apparently overthrown in 1911 were still large and in charge. Laws restricted speech, association and the press, forcing publishers like the New Youth to constantly reiterate they were not creating political criticisms, just simply talking to the youth of the nation. Both Hu Shih and Chen Duxiu knew the most egregious problems facing China was her inability to toss the yoke of 2000 years of Confucianism. Both men believed it was necessary to destroy some of the old traditions to awaken their countrymen, particularly the Chinese youth so they could build a new modern state. Chen Duxiu was perhaps more inclined to want to destroy the confucian ideological bases that held up the monarchy. In 1917 his New Youth began to carry out a program calling for dramatic reforms. At first the New Youth evaluated the pro's and con's of vernacular writing over classical; of western science vs chinese traditional beliefs; the virtues of confucianism and so forth. The New Culture leaders began calling for a rejection of the old traditional values and adoptions of western ideals, something they colloquially called “Sai xiansheng /Mr. Science” and “De Xiansheng / Mr. Democracy” who would replace “Mr. Confucius”. Doing such things they argued would strengthen the new Chinese state. Lu Xun wrote famous essays like the Diary of a Madman and the True Story of Ah Q criticizing classical Chinese writing and confucianism. Lu Xun would soon be regarded as one of modern China's first great writers. The effectiveness of his stories drew from a sort of anger towards Confucianism. For example with the Diary of a Madman, the narrator slowly goes insane, convinced the Chinese people around him are all cannibals. Here is a sort of translated exurb ‘It has only just dawned on me, that all these years I have been living in a place where for four thousand years human flesh has been eaten. They eat human beings, so they may eat me. I look up the history of cannibalism in a book of Chinese history, but all he finds in the book are the two phrases Confucian virtue and morality and eat people. Finally convinced that I may have eaten several pieces of my sister's flesh unwittingly….Perhaps there are still children who haven't eaten men? Save the Children”. Within Chinese history, cannibalism has been a powerful image of when a society has lost all of its values and morality and for Lu Xun he was basically assaulting the entire basis of the Beiyang government and their society using this metaphor. Others like Li Dazhao by 1918 began expressing support of the October Revolution in Russia and in september of 1918, a young Mao Zedong became his assistant at the Peking University Library where they organized the Marxist Research Society.  The Twenty-One Demands had ushered anti-japanese campaigns and the New Cultural movement. Western ideas of science, democracy, criticisms of traditional chinese customs, literature, history, philosophy, religion, social and political issues were all argued over. Political and social ideas like liberalism, pragmatism, utilitarianism, anarchism, socialism, communism all the “isms” were being measured against China's traditional culture like one of them held the answer to solve her problems. The youthful students were caught up in all of this, and they decided to hold mass demonstrations on May 7th of 1919, the fourth anniversary of Japan's ultimatum for the Twenty-One Demands. Events however forced these students to initiate their plans 3 days earlier on the morning of May 4th. Student leaders met at Peking college of Law and Political Science. They came from 13 colleges and universities, including the University of Peking, the heart of them all. During their meetings they came up with 5 resolutions to press upon their government: Number 1) To oppose the granting of Shandong to the Japanese under former German concessions. Number 2) To draw and increase awareness of China's precarious position to the masses in China. Number 3) To recommend a large-scale gathering in Beijing. Number 4) To promote the creation of a Beijing student union. And Number 5) To hold a demonstration that afternoon in protest to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Of the five resolutions, two had special importance: to awaken the Chinese people to the facts of foreign oppression and domestic treachery, and to create a permanent organization of Peking students. At 1:30pm on the 4th, over 3000 students gathered at Tiananmen square. They represented 13 colleges and universities in Beijing. The Beiyang Government tried to prevent their mass meeting by dispatching the Ministry of Education to Peking University at 11am, but he was unsuccessful at stopping the students. By 2pm, the students began to march while distributing leaflets along their way. They carried large placards with slogans written in French, English and Chinese. Slogans read “struggle for the sovereignty externally, get rid of the national traitors at home” “do away with the twenty-one demands” “don't sign the treaty of versailles”. They also demanded the Japanese collaborationists Cao Rulin, Lu Zongyu and Zhang Zongxiang be brought to justice. They made their way to Beijing foreign Legation quarter, but they were blocked at the gates and refused entry. They waited over 2 hours, demanding entry into the quarter until they were told it was never going to happen. The students then headed north towards the residence of Cao Rulin, the Minister of Finance at the time. They considered him the worst of the treacherous bunch. They rushed into his residence hunting him down and the police intervened. Students were beaten up and 32 were arrested. After the arrests, martial law was enacted around the area surrounding the Legation Quarter.  Immediately after everything had gone down, the students began to organize the intellectual leaders to support their cause. They tried to win over the public through more demonstrations, mass meetings,  public lectures and so forth. The established contacts amongst the masses of less educated, illiterate peoples to try and secure support from the business sector to boycott Japanese products. Their ideals began to spread throughout all of China. Chow Tse-tung a harvard graduate had this to say about the feeling of the time. country. "The Movement's aims, soon won sympathy from the new merchants, industrialists, and urban workers, and the Peking Government was forced to compromise in its foreign and domestic policies. This victory of the new coalition facilitated the expansion of the cultural and intellectual reforms it advocated”. Within two months of the incident, a series of student demonstrations and strikes managed to form an alliance between students, businessmen, industrialists and workers. Though on the surface it looked like a purely student movement, the May Fourth Movement was the logical result of the efforts of the intellectual leaders of the New Culture Movement. It was the professors, teachers and writers who had inspired the youthful students to form the mass movement. They were supported wholeheartedly by the intellectual leaders and this formed a de facto alliance between reformists and revolutionaries. The New Culture Movement swelled from this alliance, drawing in people who would have been indifferent to it. Everyone began questioning the old traditional culture, it was like an ideological virus.  Political organizations, such as the Communist Party of China developed during this time. Among the masses caught up in the movement was a young Mao Zedong who became an active member of the New People's Study Society. At the time he was the editor of the Student Union Publication of Hunan province which promoted students cause and was critical of the Beiyang government. The weekly publication was quickly suppressed by the military governor of Hunan. This only further intensified Mao Zedong's anti government activities and drove him further and further towards Marxism. Later in 1939, as the CCP senior leader Mao Zedong would claim the May Fourth Movement was a stage leading toward the fulfillment of the Chinese Communist Revolution “The May Fourth Movement twenty years ago marked a new stage in China's bourgeois-democratic revolution against imperialism and feudalism. The cultural reform movement which grew out of the May Fourth Movement was only one of the manifestations of this revolution. With the growth and development of new social forces in that period, a powerful camp made its appearance in the bourgeois-democratic revolution, a camp consisting of the working class, the student masses and the new national bourgeoisie. Around the time of the May Fourth Movement, hundreds of thousands of students courageously took their place in the van. In these respects the May Fourth Movement went a step beyond the Revolution of 1911”.Other prominent CCP figures would be born from the movement. In fall of 1919 at Wuchang, Lin Biao became an organizer for the Social Welfare Society and the Social Benefit Book Store. In September of 1919 a young Zhou Enlai returned from studying in France and joined the Awakening Society in Tientsin. Yet while I just emphasized the communist leaders that emerged, the May Fourth Movement was dominated primarily by western ideas. Liberalism, anarchism, utopian socialism and marxism gradually saw a wedge drive between them forming two competing factions. Mr. Chow Tse-Tung said of this ''The Movement, gradually became involved in politics, and the united front of new intellectuals collapsed. The liberals (reformists) lost their zeal or turned away from political activity, whereas the left wing (the revolutionary intellectuals) of the Movement took the expedient political step of allying itself with the nationalists to overthrow the warlord Peking regime . " Prior to the May Fourth Movement, marxism was not really picking up much speed amongst the intellectuals in China. Li Dazhao just a few months prior to the May fourth movement was the only real Bolshevik in China. Excluding his students, Li Dazhao's views of the Bolshevik revolution that had recently occurred in Russia was not really taken seriously as a tool to reconstruct China, let alone the world. In January of 1919, Li Dazhao called upon the people of Asia “to rise against the European imperialist robbers, only by overthrowing the capitalist classes of the whole world”. With this he argued the oppressed peoples would do away with the injustice of the international order that allowed the great powers to continue humiliating China. In February of 1919, while everyone was anticipating the outcome of the Paris Peace Conference, Li Dazhao called it “the european division of the spoils conference”. Many intellectuals in China still pinned their hopes on Versailles, when the outcome came many were driven to radicalism. Many were driven to socialism and there are many reasons why it was so attractive. Many of the intellectuals saw within socialism many of the same ideals of western democracy. However many of them rejected the existing political and social order of the west…and why wouldn't they, the west was exploiting their nation and others. In many ways they viewed socialism as a sort of marriage between their nationalistic ideals and anti-imperialism. China had suffered greatly due to imperialism from the west and Japan. When they heard about the Bolshevik revolution against their tyrannical Tsarist government it was seen very much as a anti-imperialist movement. In so many ways, the May Fourth Movement of 1919 was akin to a Chinese Renaissance, certainly with its focus upon science and democracy.  Following the May Fourth Movement came the creation of the CCP in 1921, but also the revitalization of the Kuomintang. Now this is also right smack dab in the middle of the Warlord Era. I am choosing to keep these things separated because the podcasts would just go all over the place, but beginning roughly in 1919 major Warlords would commence in this episode Game of Thrones scenario. Wars, propaganda, diplomacy, alliances, its a crazy history with numerous big figures and it will rage all the way until the Japanese invasion of 1931. We will be stuck in this period for…well I have no idea haha. On my personal channel I tried to tackle the warlord Era, it ended up being 7 episodes long, with one long format to encompass it around an hour and 47 minutes long. Even with that, I barely scratched the Warlord Era, I only tackled the most well known battles and figures, I missed countless ones, thus I am hoping in this podcast series to do a much more full job. I will admit its difficult to get good sources as a non Mandarin speaker, but during my experience researching for my youtube channel I luckily came across a lot. Not to toot my own horn, but other than literally CCTV run channels, I think I am the only person on Youtube who even tried to cover the warlord period effectively. I will give credit to a fellow Quebecois Jesse Alexander from the Great War Channel, they did do a large summarization of the Warlord Era. Anyways getting off track, I now want to finish this episode up just explaining the greater influence the May Fourth Movement would have. The emergence of the CCP on the political stage as a form of anti-imperialism was foreshadowed by Li Dazhao. Li Dazhao had been one of the main advocates emphasizing anti-imperialism and political action. His students were pressed to go out and influence the common people of China, from the urban cities to the rural villages. After the May Fourth Movement, Li Dazhao became a major leader and many flocked to him. Li Dazhao's library at the Peking University where Mao Zedong was working as an assistant became the regular meeting place for student leaders. There they came under his influence. The Marxist Research Society organized by Li Dazhao sent its members across China to spread their ideals. I am no fan at all of communism, but like it or not, this is a hell of a grassroots movement that obviously would become successful in the end. Its important to learn how such mechanism came to be, how they operated and so forth. Li Dazhao did not have the firmest understanding of Marxism when he began championing it to China, but he ignited the flame that would turn China ultimately in the Peoples Republic of China. He offered Marxism as a sort of revolutionary ideology that would save China. He did this in a very anti-imperialistic environment, thus it was highly palatable. Chen Duxiu was also drawn to Marxism, a lot so because of the Shandong Problem. He was disgusted with what he saw as treachery on the part of the imperialistic nations and leaders within the Beiyang government. Now Chen Duxiu took up a stance of not getting political involved, that was until the May Fourth Movement. After this he quite literally jumped into the heck of it.  Chen Duxiu was so politically active, he was arrested on June 11th of 1919 after being caught distributing leaflets across Beijing. He spent 83 days in prison, once he got out he resigned from his position as a professor at Peking University and moved to Shanghai which was becoming a Marxist hub. Numerous Chinese intellectuals became radicalized and this gradually broke the unity of the movement apart. Hu Shih for example had studied in the United States and was deeply influenced by John Dewey and thus came to represent the reformist intellectual side. Hu Shih would go on to write countless articles arguing against the adoption of “isms” and doctrines and instead to suggest it be better to study the practical social problems. Doctrines that advocated fundamental solutions to social problems, were not entirely irrelevant, but probably hindrances to their solutions according to Hu Shih. Li Dazhao once wrote a letter to Hu Shih arguing that specific social problems could not be solved without the participation of the masses, thus there was a need to instill a consciousness of society's problems as a whole, so they could relate this to their own individual problems. Li Dazhao asserted “intellectuals need to go out and work in the practical movement, which to him meant the propagation of socialist theory and its advocacy as a tool to eliminate the non-laboring bureaucratic robbers." Li Dazhao furthered this by arguing to his followers like Mao Zedong the necessity for those studying revolutionary ideals to really study the conditions of the world, so they could adapt the theory to said conditions.  So there was kind of a battle between Hu Shih and Li Dazhao. Hu Shih advocated for solving China's problems gradually through social reforms, while Li Dazhao wanted revolution. Now again Hu Shih was deeply influenced at the time by John Dewey, and as American Sinologist Maurice Meisner said about the debates between Hu Shih and Li Dazhao  “"Hu Shih had formulated his ideas in terms of the American philosophical and sociological tradition . . . The philosophy and sociology of John Dewey did not need to be concerned with the structure of society as a whole because in the American social context it could be optimistically assumed that the whole world would take care of itself. Dewey's program was essentially conservative, assuming that reform would take place within the framework of existing institutions; but it was a product of a society that could afford conservatism, a society that could solve particular social problems because there already existed a viable social structure and a general consensus on the direction of social progress . . .As applied to China, Dewey's program was neither conservative nor radical but largely irrelevant. After the Revolution of 1911 China was confronted with a crisis of social, cultural and political disintegration of massive proportions. The extreme poverty and widespread illite:racy of the masses of the Chinese people and the lack of even the rudiments of responsible political authority negated the possibility of the general social consensus that Dewey's program presupposed. Because of the overwhelming social crisis within and the threat of foreign aggression from without, the very existence of the Chinese nation was in doubt at the time . . . To advocate the study of particular social problems and to call for social reform (piecemeal) was to assume that there existed or would soon arise a viable social and political structure within which problems could be and reforms implemented. This assumption was unwarranted either by the existing situation or by any realistic hopes for the immediate future. In view of the total crisis of Chinese society, Dewey's program was doomed to failure."  The debate between the two revealed a crucial issue, the necessity of changing words into action. You can criticize Marxism on multiple grounds and rightfully so, but I don't think anyone would disagree its not effective action wise. By its very nature Marxism enforces real action to take place. By the mid 1920's Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu easily looked like they would assume leadership positions in the CCP, and of course in the background was Li Dazhao's assistant Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong was greatly influenced by the May Fourth Movement and he saw it as a great dividing line between the earlier stage of a bourgeois-democratic revolution in China and for him a later stage, the awakening of the working class in alliance with progressive bourgeoisie. As said by Mao Zedong in his essay on New Democracy:   " China's cultural or ideological front, the period preceding the May fourth Movement and the period following it form two distinct historical periods. Before the Movement, the struggle on China's cultural front was a struggle between the new culture of the bourgeoisie and the old culture of the feudal class ... the ideology of the new learning played the revolutionary role of fighting the Chinese feudal ideology and was in the service of the bourgeois democratic revolution of the old period ... But since the May fourth Movement, things have gone differently. Since then a brand new cultural force of fresh strength has appeared in China, namely, the ideas of Communist culture guided by the Chinese Communists: · the Communist world outlook and the Communist theory of social revolution. The May fourth Movement occurred in 1919, and in 1921 the Chinese Communist Party was founded and China's labor movement actually began . . . Before the May fourth Movement, the new culture of China was a culture of the old-democratic character and a part of the capitalist cultural revolution of the world bourgeoisie. Since the May fourth Movement, it has become a culture of new-democratic character and a part of the socialist cultural revolution of the world proletariat . . . What is called new democratic culture is the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal culture of the broad masses of the people . ·· . New democratic culture is, in a word, the and anti-feudal culture of the broad masses of the people under the leadership of the world proletariat”. Overall the May Fourth Movement had a profound effect on the development of modern China. It convinced many Chinese intellectuals, correctly or incorrectly, the only adequate response to imperialism was revolutionary action seen in form of Communism. Yet something stood in the way of turning China into a communist nation. Warlords. Then after the Warlords were defeated, Chiang Kai-Shek emerged as the leader of the fractured nation, forced to lead the fight for China's survival against the Empire of Japan. Yet the CCP put its head down, they worked, worked very hard and waited for the right moment. When it came, they struck, and they won.  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The May fourth movement was a watershed moment for modern Chinese history. In many ways it was the great moment where two dividing forces emerged that would be embodied later in Chiang Kai-Shek's nationalists and Mao Zedong's CCP. The fight for the future of China had begun, though it remains in the background as the age of the Warlords has come. 

Last time we spoke about the end of WW1 and China's bitter experience at the Paris Peace conference. Yes it WW1 brought a lot of drama to China. Yuan Shikai and later prominent figures like Duan Qirui took the poor habit of making secret deals with the Japanese that would very much bite them in the ass later in Paris. The Chinese delegation came to Paris hoping to secure major demands, most notably to solve the ongoing Shandong Problem. Instead they quite literally found out there were secret deals between China and Japan that completely hindered their war aims. To add insult to injury the western powers, notably Britain had also made secret double dealings with Japan. In the end Japan got her way, China did not, it was so embarrassing the Chinese delegation did not bother signing the Treaty of Versailles. Things could not possible get any worse eh?   #92 The New Culture Movement   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. To say this is a big event in Modern Chinese history is certainly an understatement. I have to acknowledge over on my personal channel the Pacific War channel I made an episode on this topic. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I am very glad I tackled it. It was the first time a large portion of Chinese audience members came forward and thanked me for covering the subject. I was honestly a bit baffled, the episode picked up steam, I thought, hmmm why is this getting views, its a rather boring, non battle more political episode. Well case and point, this story is really the birth of modern China. If you go searching for books on this subject you will find so many of its impact on just about every facet of China today and even on other nations. Now there is two major subjects at play here, the May fourth movement and the New Cultural movement. I am going to do my best to try and cohesively tell this, but its a rather difficult one to be honest. For the sake of cohesion and to be blunt while writing this I just don't think I will manage to fit both subjects into one episode, I first am going to tackle what exactly the “New Cultural Movement” was and I am guessing I will have to leave the May Fourth Movement for next episode.  The New Cultural Movement is intertwined with the May Fourth Movement, or you could call it the progenitor. In essence it was a progressivist movement that sprang up in the 1910's and would continue through the 1920's criticizing traditional Chinese ideology and promoting a new culture. This new culture was influenced by new age science and modern ideals. It's during this period you find many of China's big scholars start speaking out and making names for themselves. Now we have been talking in length about numerous issues that hit China during the 1910's such as WW1, Yuan Shikai's craziness, secret deals getting leaked to the public, the Shandong Problem, the Treaty of Versailles and all of these summed up were just more and more humiliation for China. The people of China were fed up. The people of China wanted change. Now its hard to encompass all that was sought out, but there are 6 large themes of this New Cultural movement that I shall list.  The first change the public wanted was because of their outdated writing system, they wanted a more vernacular one. Second the confucian based tradition patriarchal family model was very outdated and it was a hindrance against individual freedom and women's rights. Third the people wanted China to be a real nation, one amongst the other nations of the world, not stuck in its Confucian model. Fourth the people wanted China to adopt a more scientific approach to things rather than the traditional confucian belief system. Fifth, the Chinese people wanted democracy human rights, all of the enlightened values other nations had. Lastly China had always been a nation who looked at the past rather than towards the future, this had to end.  Now before we hit each of these lets summarize a bit of this time period, the environment and feeling of the day. The Qing Dynasty had fallen during the Xinhai revolution seeing the rise of Yuan Shikai. Yuan Shikai stamped down on all opposition, this included intellectuals also, many were exiled. There of course was a lot of animosity to Yuan Shikai, he was after all the guy who for a lack of better words, stole the leadership from Dr Sun Yat-Sen and he crushed the second revolution. One of these intellectual exiles found himself in Tokyo, Zhang Shizhao, there he founded a political magazine called The Tiger. The Tiger ran for about a year in 1915 and would have a significant impact on other political journals in China. The Tiger was known for probing political questions of the day, its writers often grappled with how underlying cultural values and beliefs shape politics. It inspired others to write similar magazines, notably, Chen Duxiu Now also in 1915 as we know, the Twenty-One Demands were issued, Yuan Shikai was forced to sign the Thirteen demands and all of this got leaked to the public. In 1915, Chen Duxiu founded the magazine “Jinggao qingnian” “New Youth”and he would have future intellectuals as editors of it such as Li Dazhao, Hu Shih and Lu Xun. In its first issue titled Jinggao qingnian literally translate as “letter to Youth”, it encouraged young people to “be independent and not enslaved, be progressive and not conservative, be in the forefront and not lagging behind, be internationalist and not isolationist, be practical and not rhetorical, and be scientific and not superstitious.” Chen Duxiu advocated for science and democracy, these would become rallying cries often in the form of “Mr. Democracy and Mr. Science”. This would spring forth more literature like “Xinchao” “the Renaissance” founded by the Renaissance Society in 1918 whose members included Beijing students directly inspired by Chen Duxiu, Hu Shih and Li Dazhao. The Renaissance promoted western political and social ideology, encouraging the youth of China to embrace progressive politics. The New Youth was by far the most influential magazine. In 1917 Chen Duxiu and Zhang Shizhao moved to Beijing University where they became acquaintances and alongside others built up a community that would usher in the New Culture Movement. At this time the intellectual powerhouses were Peking University and Tsinghua University in Beijing and Shanghai which had a booming publishing industry. Many scholars who would contribute to the New Culture movement would be found at Peking University such as Cai Yuanpei, who served as president of the University in 1916. Cai Yuanpei was a colleague of our old friend Li Shizeng whom both founded the Diligent Work-Frugal Study movement, sending worker-students to France. It was Cai Yuanpei who recruited those like Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao and Hu Shih. Chen Duxiu served as the dead of the School of Arts and Letters at the university; Li Dazhao became its librarian and Hu Shih helped translate and perform numerous lectures.  These men would lead the fight for “baihua wenxue” or the Vernacular Literature Movement. Yes there's a lot of movements in this episode. Now Baihua is a form of written Chinese based on the numerous varieties of Chinese spoken in the country vs, “classical Chinese”. This probably sounds a bit confusing, but think of it this way. Going all the way back to the Shang dynasty a process of creating Chinese characters was gradually standardized by the time of the Qin dynasty, so thats 1200 BC to 206 BC. Over the following dynasties the Chinese calligraphy is created, however what also occurs is the evolution of language. The Chinese language branched off into numerous dialects, thus all over China people are speaking different but related forms of Chinese, yet the way they write is using this “classical Chinese writing”. As you might imagine, by the time of the 20th century, the classical chinese writing is so vastly different from what people are speaking, by this time its Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, and many many more. Classical Chinese had become extremely outdated.  Chinese intellectuals in the early 20th century were looking to reform the literary system. Two of the big proposals that came about were to simplify Chinese characters and create a Chinese writing system using the latin alphabet. Professor at Peking University, Qian Xuantong was a leading figure on the Latinization movement. Chen Dixiu on the topic of Chinese characters had said  “backward, difficult to recognize, and inconvenient to write”. He blamed them for China being stuck in conservatism and having lacked modernization. There was a movement to switch to pinyin to spell out Chinese characters, for those who don't know Pinyin is alphabetically written Chinese, aka the only way Craig is able to read most of his sources haha. The plan to formalize this never occurred, but there was a real fight for it. Many scholars began writing in Baihua, one of the most famous works was Lu Xun's “A Madman's Diary”. In essence it was a short story criticizing early 20th century Chinese society, trying to challenge its audience into conventional thinking vs traditional understanding. The story has Lu Xun's madman seeing family and village members around him performing cannibalism which he has attributed to some confucian classics. Basically he implies China's traditional culture was mentally cannibalistic. Building somewhat on this theme, Chen Duxiu wrote in the New Youth how Mr. Confucius needed to be replaced by Mr. Science and Mr. Democracy. Meanwhile Hu Shih argued “a dead language cannot produce a living literature”. He further argued a new written format would allow the Chinese people with less education to read texts, articles, books and so forth. It was classical Chinese that was holding the less educated back. Basically he was criticizing how scholars basically held a monopoly on information. Hu Shih was highly praised for his efforts, one man named Mao Zedong would have a lot to say about how grateful China should be to him. Mao Zedong of course was a assistant at Peking University's library at the time. Now alongside the battle to change the written language of China, there was a feminist movement as well. Women suffered greatly under the traditional system. Prior to the 20th century Women in China were considered essentially different from Men as you can imagine. Confucius argued that an ordered and morally correct society would refrain from the use of force. Violence and coercion were deviant and unwelcomed. Instead a correct person would aim to become “junzi” meaning gentleman or a person of integrity. For society to remain stable, it was crucial correct hierarchies were established. Servants obey masters, subjects obey rulers, children obey parents and women obey men.The association of Women with Yin and Men with Yang, two qualities considered important by Daoism, still had women occupying a lower position than men in the hierarchical order. The I Ching stated “Great Righteousness is shown in that man and woman occupy their correct places; the relative positions of Heaven and Earth”. Women of course were supposed to be submissive and obedient to men, normally forbidden to participate in politics, military and or communal aspects. The traditional Confucian led Chinese society simply valued men over women. To get into the most hardcore aspect of this, did you know China had a near 2000 year history of female infanticide? It was written by many Christian missionaries arriving in the late 16th century to China that they witnessed newborns being thrown into rivers or in the rubbish. The primary cause of this practice was poverty, shortages of food. Confucianism influenced this practice quite a bit. Male children were to work, provide and care for their elders, while females were to be married off as quickly as possible. During the 19th century “ni nu” to drown girls was widespread, because of the mass famines. Exposure to the elements, strangulation, tossing a child into a basket and casting it off were normalized. Buddhists would build these things called “baby towers” for people to dump children at. Later on in 1930, Rou Shi a famous member of the May Fourth movement would write a short story titled “A Slave-Mother” portraying how extreme poverty in rural communities led to female infanticide. Hell turn the clock even more to the 1970's and we got the One-Child Policy where females were often aborted or abandoned. Alongside this infant girls at the age of 5 or 6 would often have the feet bound, a centuries old practice that would increase their marriageability. This hobbled them for life. When women married, their families pretty much abandoned them. Often this marriages were arranged and the new wife could expect to be at the autocratic mercy of her mother in law henceforth. If her husband died there was great social pressure for her to remain unmarried and chaste for the rest of her life. It goes without saying, suicide rates in China were the highest among young women. During the late 19th century the ideal woman was “xiangqi liangmu /a good wife and loving mother”. During the early 20th century the new ideal was becoming “modeng funu / modern woman”. Women wanted to pursue education and careers outside the home. Whether it was by choice or a financial necessity, Chinese women increasingly left the domestic sphere. They entered the workforce in all available forms, typically but not limited to factories, offices, and the entertainment industry. Yet the traditional social norms limited their opportunities in work, education and politics. Women according to the traditional system were not supposed to make speeches in the streets. But those like Liang Qichao began calling for the liberation of women, to let them be educated, allow them to participate in Chinese society.  The confucian social order held the hierarchy of husband over wife, but within the New Culture Movement that criticized Confucianism and traditions, now there was a deep want for women to be seen as human beings, as independent people who should become actors in the public sphere. When those like Chen Duxiu began writing and lecturing about tossing aside the old and looking at the new, this also included women. Thus the New Culture Movement had a large aspect of gender equality and female emancipation. There was also the aspect of dress. By the 1920's women would abandon traditional garments of embroidered hip or knee length jackets and trousers. They began wearing short jackets, skirts and the qipao, a one piece dress. Unlike the traditional women's clothing that hung loosely around the body, the Qipoa was form fitting. A women's suffrage movement began, though it would take some time. So you might be seeing the theme here, the old, traditional, confucian past, was needing a new replacement. The written language needed to be updated, women needed to be more equal to men. How about the nation of China itself? The New Culture leaders wanted to see China as a nation amongst nations, not one culturally unique. They began doing what many nations did around the turn of the century, they looked outwards. They looked at foreign doctrines, particularly those that emphasized cultural criticism and were nation building. Many of these intellectuals were the lucky few who went abroad, received foreign educations. They took western and Japanese ideas, seeing what could be used to create a new model for China and her vast population. Many were enthralled by President Woodrow Wilson's 14 points and ideals of self-determination. The Xinhai revolution had ushered in a Chinese nationalist spirit which demanded resistance to foreign impositions and the elimination of domestic autocracy. They had overthrown the Manchu, now they wanted to overthrow the global powers who had been encroaching upon their nation since the mid 19th century. So many of these intellectuals had hoped with the end of the war would come an end to their national disgrace.  The intellectuals argued China's failure to modernize was caused by both external and internal factors. Externally, foreign powers had been encroaching upon China for decades. Foreign powers had gone to war and defeated China, forcing her to sign unequal treaties. Internally China's economy, social system and cultural values were holding her back. This brought forward the need for a “new culture” to kick start the development of a new state. They argued China needed educational and social progress to remedy the states diplomatic weakness and endemic poverty. China's economy, social fabric and international standing needed to be improved, and the answer was programs of public education. Yet to do so, the less educated needed to be able to read and participate, ie: vernacular writing.  Liang Qichao was a huge influence on ideas to build China as a modern state. He created the “Xinmin Congbao / new citizen”, a biweekly journal first publishing in Yokohama Japan back in 1902. The journal covered numerous topics like politics, religion, law, economics, geography, current affairs and such. Basically Li Qichao was showing the Chinese public never before heard theories. Liang Qichao got Chinese people to think about the future of China. What did it even mean to identify as Chinese? He allowed more Chinese to look out into the world, so they could see many different paths and ideas. There were countless, Darwinism, liberalism, pragmatism, socialism all these new “isms” could be the tools to a realization of a strong and unified China. And of course there was Marxism, many Chinese laborers who went to Russia saw first hand what the Bolsheviks had accomplished. The principal of Peking University, Cai Yuanpei would resign on May 9th, 1919 causing a huge uproar. What once united all these intellectual New Culture movement types, gradually changed after the May fourth movement. Hu Shih, Cai Yuanpei and liberal minded intellectuals urged for protesting students to return to their classrooms, but those like Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao urged for more radical political action. Marxist study groups would form and with them the first meetings of the Chinese Communist Party. This is of course a story for future podcasts, but it should be noted there would be a divide amongst these intellectuals as to how China should be “modern”. Li Dazhao for example advocated for fundamental solutions, while Hu Shih criticized such thinking “calling for the study of questions, less study of isms”. Those like Chen Dixiu and Li Dazhao would quickly find followers like Mao Zedong.  Now the overall theme here has been “toss out Confucius!” but it was not all like that. Part of the movement much like the Meiji restoration, was to usher in some new, but to incorporate the old so to not lose ones entire culture. For those of you who don't know I began my time on youtube specifically talking about the history of Tokugawa to Showa era Japan. The Meiji restoration was an incredible all encompassing hyper modernization, that for the life of me I can't find a comparison to. But an interesting aspect of it was the “fukko / restore antiquity”. It often goes unmentioned, but the Japanese made these enormous efforts to crop out the outside influences such as Confucianism, Buddhism and such, to find the ancient cultures of their people. This eventually led to an evolution of Shintoism, thus Japan not only wanted to adopt new ideas from the rest of the world, they wanted to find the important aspects of their own cultural history and retain it, make sure they did not lose what made them Japanese. The same can be said of China here.  Yigupai or the “doubting antiquity school” was a group of scholars who applied a critical historiographical approach to Chinese historical sources. They took their ancient texts and really analyzed them to see what was truly authentic, what should be kept. Hu Shih initiated the movement. He had studied abroad and was deeply influenced by western thinking and argued at Peking University that all Chinese written history prior to the Eastern Zhou, that is the second half of the Zhou dynasty needed to be carefully dissected. Many were concerned with the authenticity of pre-Qin texts and began questioning the writers of past dynasties. There was also Gu Jiegang who formed the “Gushibian / Debates on Ancient history” movement and published magazines of the same name. Later in 1922 there was the Critical Review Journal, involving numerous historians. Their work dismantled many beliefs or at minimum cast some doubt on ancient textual writings that had been around for millennia. For example there was the belief Yu the Great or Yu the Engineer who was the first to make real flood control efforts during the Xia Dynasty was an animal or deity figure. There was the notion of peaceful transition of power seen from the Yao to Shun dynasties, but the group found evidence this was all concocted by philosophers of the Zhou dynasty simply to support their political philosophy. They were basically detectives finding the bullshit in their ancient history and this had a profound effect on the current day thinking. The doubting antiquity group's proved the history of China had been created iteratively. Ancient texts had been repeatedly edited, reorganized, hell many had fabricated things to make ends meet for themselves, you could not take their word at face value. They argued all of the supernatural attributes of historical figures had to be questioned, a lot of it was not possible and thus not authentic versions of their history. But the group also were victims of their own criticisms. Many of them would criticize parts of antiquity history simply to get rid of things they didn't like or that got in the way of current day issues. There was also another element to the doubting antiquity movement. Students were pushed to look over things in ancient Chinese history, chinese folklore that Confucian schools dismissed or ignored.  Within the background of the Twenty-One Demands, the Sino-Japanese Treaty, the double promising of Britain and other secret deals made over the future of China had angered her people greatly. The common people of China did not feel represented nor heard at all. Japan was encroaching upon them in Manchuria and now Shandong. Their leadership were either making secret deals to secure their own objectives, or they were completely powerless to other nations and crumbling, such as the case at Versailles. With so many students and laborers going abroad witnessing the civilizations of other nations in the west and Japan, they yearned for the things those people had. Democratic and egalitarian values were at the very forefront of the New Culture Movement. Western science, democracy, bills of rights, racial equality, equality of opportunity, opportunity to venture into politics, the list can go on, these were things alien to China. The people began to enchant the masses with such ideas, while simultaneously criticizing traditional Chinese ethics, her customs, literature, history, philosophy, religion, social and political institutions and such. Liberalism, pragmatism, utilitarianism, anarchism, socialism, communism were thrown around like yardsticks so the people could measure China's traditional culture against them. How did such “isms” match up? Within the current crisis in China which one of these isms might benefit them the most? Overall the movement kept up the greatest theme of needing to look forward. China had always looked to the past. They had suffered so immensely, they were after all enduring the century of humiliation as it would famously become known. It was humiliation after humiliation. How could they change so the past would stop haunting them? Things like the Boxer Protocol, how could China rid itself of these humiliating indemnity payments? Britain's Opium had ushered in a poison that still plagued them, how could they finally rid China of it? The war and encroachment of nations like Britain, Russia and Japan, how could they stop them from continuing these actions? China could not stay the way she was anymore, she had to change. Thus overall within every facet of the movement's ideology, they kept emphasizing to stop looking in the past for answers for today. Today would require looking abroad and within and it would not be easy.  This episode and I do apologize it must be all over the place for you, encompasses a lot of the thoughts and feelings, but its part of a great event known as the May Fourth movement of 1919. China is basically for the first time really going to try and adopt fundamental changes, to become a real modern state. If it were not for lets say, the descent into warlordism, perhaps the Chinese Republican dream could have been started in 1919. Regardless, China will see an incredible amount of change in a short amount of time.  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The New Culture Movement saw numerous intellectuals rise up and challenge the prevailing social and political order of their nation. They tried to give the public new answers to old questions, and above all else hope. Hope for a better tomorrow. It was to be a arduous journey, but students would be the vanguard into a new age for China.

A southern Chinese government is set up in Guangzhou. Sun Yat-sen is named Generalissimo. The First Fleet joins with 9 warships.The Anfu Clique wants to attack the south and fails to defeat rebels in Hunan. Then Wu Peifu is sent south and makes progress, but stops his advance and criticizes Duan Qirui for siding with Japan against his fellow Chinese.Wu then supports the May Fourth Movement and gains southern friends and northern enemies.War breaks out between the Anfu and Zhili Cliques. After initial losses, Wu Peifu helps to defeat the Anfu Clique in battle. Duan Qirui resigns and a new administration is set up by the Zhili and Fengtian Cliques.Meanwhile, the people are suffering from warlords, taxes, duties and destruction. Banditry is often the last resort of the unemployed. But the difference between soldiers and bandits is less than first appears.Please share your advice and make the podcast even better here .Image: "Wu Peifu with sword" by Unknown authorUnknown author is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chinese had high hopes for the negotiations in Versailles after the end of the First World War. Wellington Koo argued the Chinese case ably. China wanted to retake control of its Shandong Province, but instead Japan continued to control it because of agreements signed during the war. Then it became clear that Duan Qirui and his Anhui Clique had benefited from Japanese funds in exchange for signing away Shandong to Japan.The May Fourth Movement saw an eruption of student anger, supported by intellectuals, businesses and workers. There was even a general strike in Shanghai. The seeds of Chinese Communism were being planted two years before the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.Behind the scenes, provincial warlords and officials supported the May Fourth Movement as a way of undermining Duan Qirui and his Anhui Clique. They could genuinely use patriotism to criticize Duan's betrayal of China to Japan.These tensions among warlords would soon reach a boil.Please fill out the listener survey here .Image: "File:Vi Kyuin Wellington Koo Chinees-Taiwanees politicus, diplomaat en rechter. Mede, Bestanddeelnr 900-8984.jpg" by Anefo is marked with CC0 1.0. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For host Wilson Shirley's final episode, he talks with Miles Yu about former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger turning 100 years old and evaluates Kissinger's legacy on US-China relations, from 1972 until the present. They then discuss Taiwan's growing importance to the free world, describing how the defense of the island democracy is now a global endeavor. Finally, they conclude with a conversation on the historic and enduring pro-freedom movements in China, from the May Fourth Movement in 1919, to Tiananmen Square, Hong Kong, and the White Paper Protests.Follow the China Center's work at: https://www.hudson.org/china-center

最近，在我居住的法国巴黎，经常有抗议运动。原因是法国总统宣布要把退休年龄从62推迟到64岁。在中国历史上，也发生过不少大规模的抗议运动。今天，我选择三个事件和你分享。它们是：黄巾起义，辛亥革命，五四运动。 Recently, in Paris, France where I live, large protests happen on a regular basis. The reason is that the French president Emmanuel Macron announced the new law of changing the pension age from 62 to 64. In the course of Chinese history, there were also protests of huge scale. Today, I have chosen three events to share with you. They are the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the 1911 Revolution and the May Fourth Movement. ◉ Read transcript of this episode ◉ Become a member on Patreon ◉ Quizlet flashcards ◉  Find us on YouTube ◉ We are on LinkedIn ◉ Find a Chinese teacher on italki and receive $10

Laszlo welcomes Dr. Naoko Kato onto the CHP to talk about her new book: "Kaleidoscope: The Uchiyama Bookstore and its Sino-Japanese Visionaries." During one of the most fertile periods in modern Chinese literature following the May Fourth Movement, Uchiyama Kanzō operated a bookstore and cultural salon on Sichuan Road that attracted many big names among leftist writers and intellectuals. Most notable among the regular visitors was Lu Xun. Uchiyama and Lu Xun enjoyed a very special friendship that embodied Uchiyama's aspirations for friendship and understanding between the people of China and Japan. You can get the book here: https://earnshawbooks.com/product/kaleidoscope/ here: https://a.co/d/8TMjqKS or here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/kaleidoscope-naoko-kato/1142725298 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Laszlo welcomes Dr. Naoko Kato onto the CHP to talk about her new book: "Kaleidoscope: The Uchiyama Bookstore and its Sino-Japanese Visionaries." During one of the most fertile periods in modern Chinese literature following the May Fourth Movement, Uchiyama Kanzō operated a bookstore and cultural salon on Sichuan Road that attracted many big names among leftist writers and intellectuals. Most notable among the regular visitors was Lu Xun. Uchiyama and Lu Xun enjoyed a very special friendship that embodied Uchiyama's aspirations for friendship and understanding between the people of China and Japan. You can get the book here: https://earnshawbooks.com/product/kaleidoscope/ here: https://a.co/d/8TMjqKS or here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/kaleidoscope-naoko-kato/1142725298 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Laszlo welcomes Dr. Naoko Kato onto the CHP to talk about her new book: "Kaleidoscope: The Uchiyama Bookstore and its Sino-Japanese Visionaries." During one of the most fertile periods in modern Chinese literature following the May Fourth Movement, Uchiyama Kanzō operated a bookstore and cultural salon on Sichuan Road that attracted many big names among leftist writers and intellectuals. Most notable among the regular visitors was Lu Xun. Uchiyama and Lu Xun enjoyed a very special friendship that embodied Uchiyama's aspirations for friendship and understanding between the people of China and Japan. You can get the book here: https://earnshawbooks.com/product/kaleidoscope/ here: https://a.co/d/8TMjqKS or here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/kaleidoscope-naoko-kato/1142725298 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Laszlo welcomes Dr. Naoko Kato onto the CHP to talk about her new book: "Kaleidoscope: The Uchiyama Bookstore and its Sino-Japanese Visionaries." During one of the most fertile periods in modern Chinese literature following the May Fourth Movement, Uchiyama Kanzō operated a bookstore and cultural salon on Sichuan Road that attracted many big names among leftist writers and intellectuals. Most notable among the regular visitors was Lu Xun. Uchiyama and Lu Xun enjoyed a very special friendship that embodied Uchiyama's aspirations for friendship and understanding between the people of China and Japan. You can get the book here: https://earnshawbooks.com/product/kaleidoscope/ here: https://a.co/d/8TMjqKS or here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/kaleidoscope-naoko-kato/1142725298 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This Pacific War Podcast is about the May Fourth Movement of 1919, one of the most significant events in modern Chinese history ➡️ This Pacific War Podcast will discuss the May Fourth Movement of 1919. The May Fourth Movement was the Chinese public's response to their governments weak response to the Treaty of Versailles and Shandong problem. ➡️ This Pacific War Podcast will discuss how China was undergoing the century of humiliation at the hands of the western powers and Empire of Japan. Students began to protest the government demanding reforms. This led to the "new cultural movement" and "may fourth movement". ➡️ This Pacific War Podcast will discuss how the May Fourth Movement marked a turning point in Chinese History. The public sought to replace traditional Confucian values and modernize China. The idea's put forward by the movement shaped China into what it is today. ➡️ This Pacific War Podcast will discuss how the May Fourth Movement led to the birth of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the resurrection of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Warlord Era. ➡️ The Pacific War Podcast features Craig & Justin

Every May 4th, China celebrates its Youth Day, which commemorates the May Fourth Movement of 1919. The event was led by thousands of university students in a mass demonstration to oppose imperialism and feudalism. It marked the start of a national awakening that paved the way for the birth of new China 30 years later. How alive is the spirit of the movement today or has it evolved through time? Let's hear from four young Chinese who are making an impact on society.

This episode of Chinese Whispers is slightly different – instead of taking a look at a theme within China, Cindy and her guest see China through the eyes of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Professor Craig Clunas, chair of art history at Oxford University, has curated a new exhibition at London's Freud Museum, which displays Freud's collection of Chinese antiquities. On this episode, Cindy talks to Craig about what these pieces – jades and figurines – meant to Freud, especially in the context of 20th century Europe, where there was appreciation of Chinese art but, as they discuss, not quite the matching level of knowledge. They also chat about the reception of Freud's theories in China, especially given the country's turbulent intellectual history since the May Fourth Movement a hundred years ago. Craig sums up the love affair between Freud and China nicely: ‘Just like Freud is using his Chinese things to think with, Chinese thinkers are using Freud to think with.' The exhibition itself is small but fascinating, and runs until 26 June. As mentioned in the episode, here is the link to a previous edition of Chinese Whispers with Rana Mitter, for those who want to hear more about China since the May Fourth Movement: https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/china-s-long-history-of-student-protests.

This episode of Chinese Whispers is slightly different – instead of taking a look at a theme within China, my guest and I will be seeing China through the eyes of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Professor Craig Clunas, chair of art history at Oxford University, has curated a new exhibition at London's Freud Museum, which displays Freud's collection of Chinese antiquities. On this episode, I talk to Craig about what these pieces – jades and figurines – meant to Freud, especially in the context of 20th century Europe, where there was appreciation of Chinese art but, as we discuss, not quite the matching level of knowledge. We'll also chat about the reception of Freud's theories in China, especially given the country's turbulent intellectual history since the May Fourth Movement a hundred years ago. Craig sums up the love affair between Freud and China nicely: ‘Just like Freud is using his Chinese things to think with, Chinese thinkers are using Freud to think with.' The exhibition itself is small but fascinating, and runs until 26 June. As mentioned in the episode, here is the link to a previous edition of Chinese Whispers with Rana Mitter, for those who want to hear more about China since the May Fourth Movement: https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/china-s-long-history-of-student-protests.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the violent protests in China on 4th May 1919 over the nation's humiliation in the Versailles Treaty after World War One. China had supported the Allies, sending workers to dig trenches, and expected to regain the German colonies on its territory, but the Allies and China's leaders chose to give that land to Japan instead. To protestors, this was a travesty and reflected much that was wrong with China, with its corrupt leaders, division by warlords, weakness before Imperial Europe and outdated ideas and values. The movement around 4th May has since been seen as a watershed in China's development in the 20th century, not least as some of those connected with the movement went on to found the Communist Party of China a few years later. The image above is of students from Peking University marching with banners during the May Fourth demonstrations in 1919. With Rana Mitter Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China and Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford Elisabeth Forster Lecturer in Chinese History at the University of Southampton And Song-Chuan Chen Associate Professor in History at the University of Warwick Producer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the violent protests in China on 4th May 1919 over the nation's humiliation in the Versailles Treaty after World War One. China had supported the Allies, sending workers to dig trenches, and expected to regain the German colonies on its territory, but the Allies and China's leaders chose to give that land to Japan instead. To protestors, this was a travesty and reflected much that was wrong with China, with its corrupt leaders, division by warlords, weakness before Imperial Europe and outdated ideas and values. The movement around 4th May has since been seen as a watershed in China's development in the 20th century, not least as some of those connected with the movement went on to found the Communist Party of China a few years later. The image above is of students from Peking University marching with banners during the May Fourth demonstrations in 1919. With Rana Mitter Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China and Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford Elisabeth Forster Lecturer in Chinese History at the University of Southampton And Song-Chuan Chen Associate Professor in History at the University of Warwick Producer: Simon Tillotson

A state-produced TV series chronicling the May Fourth Movement and the founding of the Chinese Communist Party is an unexpected critical success.Read the article by Brian Wu: https://supchina.com/2021/09/14/age-of-awakening-chinese-revolutionary-drama/ Narrated by Sarah Kutulakos. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to my podcast! In this episode, I will be speaking about the May Fourth Movement. If you want some more revision material, you can use the link below to access much more revision information on my website: https://sites.google.com/view/igcse-history-revision/home If you have any suggestions or questions, please fill in this Google Form: https://forms.gle/caEki6L8SzS6wwui7 THANKS FOR YOUR INTEREST IN MY PODCAST! Please subscribe to be notified about any future releases. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/from1student2another-hist/message

When thinking about Chinese student protests, you'll inevitably think about Hong Kong or Tiananmen. But there's one that kicked it all off in modern Chinese history, and its reverberations are still felt throughout the century, not least because of its role in the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. It's the May Fourth Movement of 1919, which is the topic of this episode. Professor Rana Mitter, former head of the China Centre at the University of Oxford and author of numerous books on Chinese history, joins the podcast on why China is no stranger to student protests. Presented by Cindy Yu.

When thinking about Chinese student protests, you'll inevitably think about Hong Kong or Tiananmen. But there's one that kicked it all off in modern Chinese history, and its reverberations are still felt throughout the century, not least because of its role in the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. It's the May Fourth Movement of 1919, which is the topic of this episode. Professor Rana Mitter, former head of the China Centre at the University of Oxford and author of numerous books on Chinese history, joins the podcast on why China is no stranger to student protests. Presented by Cindy Yu.

This episode focuses on China's post-1949 literary world up until around 1960. We discuss how writers were organised by the party-state, what kind of works they produced, and what was considered acceptable and unacceptable. How good were Chinese writers at producing socialist realist works? Turns out the answer changed on a daily basis.

We reflect on China's past 100 years, paying particular attention to the May Fourth Movement of 1919, the Communist Revolution of 1949, and the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre of 1989. How do these moments in history resonate with contemporary Chinese intellectuals, writers, and the young generation? Speakers: Xi Chuan, Rebecca E. Karl, Karoline Kan Moderator: Tee Kim Tong

Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points promised self-determination to colonies around the globe, raising hopes of independence and freedom for millions. But Wilson and the Allies had no intention of letting occupied peoples throw off imperialism. What would be the long-term consequences of raising the hopes and then dashing the dreams of so many people? Nguyễn Ái Quốc, aka Nguyễn Tất Thành, was born in French Indochina and fled to find better opportunities. He was living in Paris in 1919 and working as a busboy at the Ritz. His declaration on the rights of the people of Annam, a land better known today as Vietnam, was ignored by the Western delegates. Rudyard Kipling wrote his poem "The White Man's Burden." (https://www.bartleby.com/364/169.html) His purpose was to exhort the United States to join the colonial system by taking over and "civilizing" the Philipplines, which had recently come under American control. It is a deeply racist text, as is the cartoon above from Judge magazine, which shows John Bull (aka England) and Uncle Sam carrying "barbarians" over the rocks of oppression, ignorance and superstition toward the gleaming beacon of civilization. Mandates in the Pacific were all former German colonies. They included: 1. The South Pacific Mandate 2. Territory of New Guinea 3. Nauru 4. Western Samoa Mandates in Western Asia and Africa included: 1. Syria 2. Lebanon 3. Palestine 4. Transjordan 5. Mesopotamia (Iraq) 6. British Togoland 7. French Togoland 8. British Cameroon 9. French Cameroon 10. Ruanda-Urundi 11. Taganyika 12. South West Africa The Japanese delegates to the Paris Peace Conference wanted two things from the Allies: a racial equality clause in the League of Nations covenant and Shandong in China. Australia was one of the most vocal opponents to the racial equality clause. The country was dominated by the White Australia movement, which called to limit immigration to the continent to whites only. This is the cover of a popular song about this topic. When news reached China that the Allies had granted Shandong to Japan, protests erupted across the country. This photo shows a demonstration in Beijing. The May the Fourth movement led directly to the creation of the Chinese Communist Party. Protests also broke out across Korea, then under Japanese rule, in what became known as the March First Movement. The date is still celebrated in Korea as National Liberation Day. All of these photos of protests begin to look alike, but this one stands out because it shows women. It depicts a demonstration in Cairo in 1919 against British. What really alarmed the British about these demonstrations was that so many people, both Christian and Muslim, male and female, participated. Gabriele D'Annunzio was short and balding but incredibly charismatic. After years of fame as a poet, novelist, and playwright, he became a geuine war hero. In 1919, he adopted the cause of the Italian claim on Fiume. D'Annunzio's invasion of Fiume more closely resembled a picnic outing, except for all of the weapons. The new leader of city became known as "Il Duce" and surrounded himself with Italian special forces troops. Benito Mussolini closely followed D'Annunzio's conquest of Fiume and adoped many of his strategies in his March on Rome in 1922, right down to the black shirts and palm-down salute. D'Annunzio was dismissive of Fascism--he had done it all himself first--but Mussolini made a point of paying D'Annunzio's bills, giving him gifts, and appearing in photographs with the poet. Here they are in 1925, with Mussolini on the left and D'Annunzio, showing his age, on the right. Please note that the links below to Amazon are affiliate links. That means that, at no extra cost to you, I can earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. (Here's what, legally, I'm supposed to tell you: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.) However, I only recommend books that I have used and genuinely highly recommend.

This week, while Kaiser is vacationing on the Carolina coast, we are running a March 2014 interview with Orville Schell and David Moser. Orville is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society in New York and formerly served as dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. The discussion in this episode centers on the book co-authored by Schell and John Delury, Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-First Century, and the role of select members of the Chinese intelligentsia in the formation of modern China. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 7:56: Orville opens the discussion describing how he and John Delury arrived at Wealth and Power as the title for their book: “For us, to try to sense what was the main current flowing through Chinese history — it was in fact, we concluded, this desire to see China great again. To become a country of consequence, and ‘wealth’ and ‘power’ really described it. And it was something that almost everybody in some form or [another] — whether nationalist, communist, dynastic, anarchist, Christian — they all understood that aspect, and I think that was a tremendously important, animating impulse that got us to the present.” 25:21: Orville recalls sitting in the front row at a summit held between Jiang Zemin and Bill Clinton, the dialogue of which is included in Wealth and Power: “I was sitting right there during [the summit], in the front row, watching Jiang Zemin with ‘Bubba,’ the master of repartee, and trying to imitate him. It was quite touching, he did quite well. And looking back on it, there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Hu Jintao or Xi Jinping would risk such a wager.” 41:56: Jeremy asks Orville about his placement of Liu Xiaobo at the end of his book, and what Liu’s question is for China and China’s future. He responds candidly: “I think the question that he poses for China, and indeed all of us, is: What’s the real goal? For him, the real goal is not to simply be wealthy and powerful…and I think also what’s lurking in the back of his critique is something that the leaders now sort of see but are quite surprised by. Namely that getting wealthy and getting powerful doesn’t, as everybody thought for these 170 years, create ipso facto respect. And that is what is really wanted. That’s why there’s such an incredible fixation on soft power.” Recommendations: Orville: Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: Voices From the Internet Underground, by Emily Parker, and Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, by Evan Osnos. David: Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China, by Anne-Marie Brady. Jeremy: The blog East by Southeast.    Kaiser: The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919, by Vera Schwarcz.

Hoover Institution fellows Misha Auslin and John Yoo welcome one of Britain’s leading experts on China to the podcast: Rana Mitter, Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China, St. Cross College, Oxford University, and the Director of Oxford’s China Centre. Professor Mitter is the author of Forgotten Ally: China’s War with Japan, 1937-45, and A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World. Professor Mitter discusses the student-led demonstrations of the Tiananmen Square Massacre thirty years later and the 100th Anniversary of the May Fourth Movement. We then turn to the changes in China since Tiananmen and the future of Chinese pluralism after the coming to power of Xi Jinping. Did you like the show? You can rate, review, subscribe, and download the podcast on the following platforms: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Spotify | RSS

"I was so angry I wanted to weep, but I laughed aloud." In the seventh episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at: The Diary of Miss Sophie (莎菲女士的日记/Shāfēi Nǚshì de Rìjì) This is a very personal journey of 'Miss Sophie', an outspoken woman navigating all the questions modern life in early 20th century, May Fourth Movement era China is throwing at her. It's frigging fascinating. - // Discussed in this Episode // The translation I read is from the Beacon Press edition of I Myself am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling. In Quest of the Writer Ding Ling by Yi-Tsi Mei Feuerwerker - // Handy TrChFic Links // Buy Me a Coffee Bonus Shows on Patreon  The TrChFic Map INSTAGRAM // TWITTER // DISCORD // MY SITE

Lu Xun has been often been called the father of modern Chinese literature. His short stories about the misery and cruelty of ordinary life in China have been interpreted both as revolutionary political statements inspired by the May Fourth Movement of 1919 which wanted to sweep-away outdated social mores, and as a brilliant new take on ancient Chinese literary traditions. Some of his works, both fiction and non-fiction, have been required reading for Chinese schoolchildren since the communists took charge of education in the country. But - like his life - Lu Xun's work doesn't easily fit under any simple banner and reflects the turbulent, confusing and contradictory history of China in the first three decades of the 20th century. Quentin Cooper talks to Professor Eileen Cheng, the author of acclaimed new translations of Lu Xun into English, Ohio State University Professor Kirk Denton, one of today's leading Lu Xun scholars, Professor Hu Ying from University of California who studies the culture of early 20th century China, and writer Yiyun Li. The reader is Paul Courtenay Hyu. Photo:The Chinese writer Lu Xun around 1910 (Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

On May 4th 1919 around 3,000 students from Beijing University and some 12 other universities in the capital gathered in Tiananmen square to voice their opposition to the events taking place at the Paris Peace Conference. What started as a peaceful march erupted into a violent protest, and then into a nationwide cultural and intellectual movement that was to last for three years. This movement is now known as the May 4th Movement, and is commonly cited as a decisive moment in China’s intellectual history, a short burst of vigor that is still examined, praised, and held up as a guiding example in China till this day.On the surface, it seems as if this movement emerged primarily as a response to current events, particularly the injustice China suffered at the hands of the Japanese and West in the aftermath of the First World War. However, most historians see the May 4th movement less as a new, standalone campaign, and more as a continuation of the New Culture Movement that we began discussing in the previous episode. In fact, the May fourth movement has been described by many as simply a continuation of the reformist movement of 1898, which we talked about in episode 2. It’s sometimes called China’s ‘enlightenment’, though there are many that disagree with this statement. Whether the movement was able to usher in a new era or not will be explored in the rest of this episode, but what you should know is that May 4th is significant enough to warrant an episode entirely of its own. If it wasn’t the breaking point with China’s past, then it was certainly the ‘awakening’ point, the critical juncture at which a new intellectual class emerged to wake the Chinese people up and demand that they move with the times or risk remaining a backward global pariah.

North Korea is a mystery to nearly everyone — even those who have dedicated their lives to studying the country — including Korean experts based in Seoul, national security experts in Washington or Beijing, and a variety of foreigners who have spent extended periods studying in or reporting from the North. There is great uncertainty about what the country’s leaders really think of China, how self-sufficient the North’s economy actually is, and even the background of the “respected” leader, Kim Jong-un, beyond a few seemingly random details (he studied in Switzerland and likes basketball and Whitney Houston, for example). Evan Osnos — former Beijing correspondent for the New Yorker and now the magazine’s correspondent in the currently far more unpredictable capital of the U.S. — recently travelled to the Hermit Kingdom and reported an extensive cover piece for that magazine: “The risk of nuclear war with North Korea.” What are the prospects for war and peace in northeast Asia? Evan talked with Jeremy and Kaiser about his conversations with North Korean, Chinese, and U.S. government officials and people involved in the complicated regional powerplay. Recommendations: Jeremy: Jeeves & Wooster, a comedy TV series adapted from the P.G. Wodehouse books about a gormless English aristocrat and his very bright butler, played by Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, respectively. It’s “really a wonderful escapist pleasure [for] when you don’t feel like thinking about Donald Trump and North Korea,” Jeremy adds. Evan: The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot, a book by Blaine Harden that explains how North Koreans think about the Korean war — an essential piece of the current conundrum we all face. Kaiser: China in Disintegration, by James Sheridan, a narrative history of the Republican Era (1912-1949) in China. Events during the period such as the Republican Revolution and the May Fourth Movement are key to understanding modern China.

完整文稿请登录以下网址或查收今日微信： http://english.cri.cn/7146/2014/05/08/2582s825431.htm This is NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Yun Feng in Beijing. Here is the news. China is planning a program to promote cultural cooperation among countries along the ancient Silk Road. The Ministry of Culture says the program is aimed at improving cooperation in fields such as the entertainment business, tourism, protection of cultural heritage and sports. The Silk Road is an ancient trade route connecting China with Europe through Central Asia for centuries. During his visit to Central Asia last September,Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward the idea of a Silk Road economic belt. This cultural program is part of efforts to realize the new Silk Road economic belt concept. The program will include an annual cultural forum, joint production of TV shows, films and animation, trade and cultural events. The central government and provincial governments along the Silk Road will work out preferential policies for the program. The cultural ministry is working on detailed schemes for the program. This is NEWS Plus Special English. A Chinese documentary series "A Bite of China II" has seen widespread nostalgia for hometown delicacies. The series is a sequel to the 2012 hit of the same name. The first episode of the new season was aired at China Central Television in mid-April; and people have been pouring out their regrets that they are no longer capable of cooking their hometown delicacies. A local resident in Beijing Du Wenwen says that once her mother spent a week at her home, leaving a fridge full of tasty dishes. Du says that unlike her mother, she will probably leave only fast food coupons for her own children. "A Bite of China II" has eight episodes, and each episode was made by a different team. It covers the stories of more than 150 people and over 300 different dishes. The new season focuses more on people's life stories, while displaying delicious food. You're listening to NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Yun Feng in Beijing. A photo exhibition is being held in Beijing to mark the 95th anniversary of the "May Fourth Movement", an important cultural and political movement in modern-day China. Hosted by the New Culture Movement Memorial of Beijing and Duke University Libraries, the exhibition displays 140photographs showing China's "May Fourth Movement" and people's lives in early last century. The photos were taken by American photographer Sidney Gamble, grandson of James Gamble, one of the co-founders of Proctor and Gamble, or P and G. In early 1900s, photos were rarely seen in China, and few survive today. Gamble captured valuable historical moments from the perspective of a sociologist, and preserved those images well. The pictures on display include students delivering speeches, being arrested by the authorities, and protesting during the "May Fourth Movement" in May of 1919. Experts say the exhibition opened a window for the Chinese people to better understand their history and complement existing historical document for that period. The "May Fourth Movement" started with students' protests on May 4, 1919 against the government's response to the Treaty of Versailles that imposed unfair penalties on China and undermined the country's sovereignty. It then became a national campaign to overthrow the feudal society and promote scientific and democratic ideas. Gamble was then a secretary for the Beijing Young Men's Christian Association. He witnessed and documented this pivotal event. In 1908, he began taking pictures in China during his first trip in the country with his family. Gamble has been in Beijing several times, and he traveled widely in China. He conducted socio-economic surveys, and photographed urban and rural life, public events, architecture and the countryside. This is NEWS Plus Special English. The contracted transactions at China's biggest animation festival near Shanghai were almost 14 billion yuan, or more than 2 billion U.S. dollars. The week-long China International Cartoon and Animation Festival was held in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province. The festival attracted a record 1.4 million visitors. Participants include 600 companies and organizations from around 70 countries and regions. 12 industry trade and exchange activities have been held, and more than 400 animation-related products were released. China's animation industry has seen rapid growth in recent years, and around 30 animation films were made in the country last year with a total box office of around 650 million, 50 percent more than the previous year. Domestically-made animation films are expected to account for 10 percent of China's total box office earnings in the next two to three years, compared with 5 percent last year. The festival is held in Hangzhou annually since 2005.

The history of modern China is bound up with that of student politics. In Behind the Gate: Inventing Students in Beijing (Columbia University Press, 2010), Fabio Lanza offers a masterfully researched, elegantly written, and thoughtful consideration of the emergence of “students” as a category in twentieth-century China. Urging us to move away from a kind of historical view that takes the trans-historical existence of categories (like “students”), places (like cities or universities), and communities for granted, Lanza argues that it was only after and as a result of the May Fourth Movement and the events of 1919 that “students” emerged as a coherent notion connected with the specific spaces of the city of Beijing, Beijing University, and Tiananmen Square. The parts of the book successively introduce different sorts of space that were both produced by and helped generate the history that unfolds here, including everyday lived spaces, intellectual spaces, and political and social spaces. Lanza argues that new forms of everyday, lived practice in these spaces allowed student activism to emerge in the gaps where politics was separated from the state, and that the category of “students” as a signifier of a politics outside the state ended only with the government intervention ending the Red Guards in the late 1960s. In the course of this wonderfully readable history, we are offered glimpses into the classrooms and dorms of Beijing University, the bodily practices of early Beida students, and the streets of early twentieth-century Beijing. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The history of modern China is bound up with that of student politics. In Behind the Gate: Inventing Students in Beijing (Columbia University Press, 2010), Fabio Lanza offers a masterfully researched, elegantly written, and thoughtful consideration of the emergence of “students” as a category in twentieth-century China. Urging us to move away from a kind of historical view that takes the trans-historical existence of categories (like “students”), places (like cities or universities), and communities for granted, Lanza argues that it was only after and as a result of the May Fourth Movement and the events of 1919 that “students” emerged as a coherent notion connected with the specific spaces of the city of Beijing, Beijing University, and Tiananmen Square. The parts of the book successively introduce different sorts of space that were both produced by and helped generate the history that unfolds here, including everyday lived spaces, intellectual spaces, and political and social spaces. Lanza argues that new forms of everyday, lived practice in these spaces allowed student activism to emerge in the gaps where politics was separated from the state, and that the category of “students” as a signifier of a politics outside the state ended only with the government intervention ending the Red Guards in the late 1960s. In the course of this wonderfully readable history, we are offered glimpses into the classrooms and dorms of Beijing University, the bodily practices of early Beida students, and the streets of early twentieth-century Beijing. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The history of modern China is bound up with that of student politics. In Behind the Gate: Inventing Students in Beijing (Columbia University Press, 2010), Fabio Lanza offers a masterfully researched, elegantly written, and thoughtful consideration of the emergence of “students” as a category in twentieth-century China. Urging us to move away from a kind of historical view that takes the trans-historical existence of categories (like “students”), places (like cities or universities), and communities for granted, Lanza argues that it was only after and as a result of the May Fourth Movement and the events of 1919 that “students” emerged as a coherent notion connected with the specific spaces of the city of Beijing, Beijing University, and Tiananmen Square. The parts of the book successively introduce different sorts of space that were both produced by and helped generate the history that unfolds here, including everyday lived spaces, intellectual spaces, and political and social spaces. Lanza argues that new forms of everyday, lived practice in these spaces allowed student activism to emerge in the gaps where politics was separated from the state, and that the category of “students” as a signifier of a politics outside the state ended only with the government intervention ending the Red Guards in the late 1960s. In the course of this wonderfully readable history, we are offered glimpses into the classrooms and dorms of Beijing University, the bodily practices of early Beida students, and the streets of early twentieth-century Beijing. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices