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Feng Yuxiang is a Chinese warlord and leader of the Guominjun (a.k.a. the National People’s Army). Known as the “Christian General” for his religious fervor, he was a former member of the Zhili Clique before aligning with Fengtian and capturing Beijing. A few years later, the Zhili and Fengtian in turn joined forces and attacked him, forcing him to seek protection among Yan Xishan’s Shanxi Clique.

Biography[]

Feng was born in 1882, the son of an officer in the imperial army. He joined the army himself at age 11 as a deputy soldier, the absolute lowest rank. As a young man, Feng gained a reputation for thriftiness, hard work, and generosity to fellow soldiers in need, qualities that would inspire great respect among his comrades. In 1902 he was assigned to Yuan Shikai’s Beiyang Army.

When the Xinhai Revolution broke out, Feng joined the revolutionaries, which led to his imprisonment and near-execution by his own commanding officer. It was perhaps this experience that led to his conversion to Christianity in 1914. That same year, his rank was reinstated by General Yuan. Over the next several years, Feng’s loyalties shifted as Yuan Shikai was defeated and new warlord cliques arose. His conduct during the Constitutional Protection War saw him alternately stripped of his command and then reinstated and promoted by the Zhili Clique.

By the early 20s, Feng was a major member of the Zhili Clique, known for the great discipline of his troops and the pragmatic form of Christian socialism with which he governed his territories. However, he dramatically switched sides at the beginning of the Second Zhili-Fengtian War and surprised his former allies by quickly capturing Beijing. Then former emperor Puyi was expelled from the city, President Cao Kun was deposed and placed under house arrest, and Feng placed Huang Fu as acting President. Huang would prove a disappointment to Feng and his ally Zhang Zuolin and the two would soon create a whole new provisional government led by their ally Duan Qirui. Feng supported talks between the Beijing government and the Kuomintang for reunification, but unfortunately they fell apart with Sun Yat-sen’s death.

Feng renamed his forces the Guominjun, or the National People’s Army. The alliance between him and Zhang was falling apart, and both secretly negotiated for an alliance with Wu Peifu’s Zhili Clique. Wu decided to join with Zhang, and when a Fengtian general defected to the Guominjun and laid siege to Mukden, the Anti-Fengtian War began. When the Japanese Kwantung Army entered the war on Zhang’s side, the tide turned drastically and the Guominjun was beaten back on all fronts. In early 1927, Feng was forced to give up the city to the approaching Fengtian and Zhili forces.

Feng led the remnants of the Guominjun west to Shanxi. The governor of Shanxi Yan Xishan proved willing to provide shelter to the Guominjun, an army much larger and more experienced than his own, in the hopes that it would give him some leverage against the stronger cliques that surrounded him. Since that time, Feng has continued to command his army in exile.

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