Wen 丨 is ignorant
Editor 丨An Lan
The eldest husband was born between heaven and earth, and there are clear differences between grace and resentment in all things. I will repay what I have, and I will not forgive me.
——Zhang Zuolin
He was Zhang Zuolin, the "King of the Northeast" among the Beiyang warlords, and held 300,000 troops in power for 20 years. In his lifetime, he recognized as many as forty "dry fathers" and "dry mothers", and there are 12 in history alone. Among the Beiyang warlords at that time, almost all the Fengzhi warlords were his "brothers in worship".
But why did such a controversial legend end up dying strangely on a bomb-hit train?
Zhang Zuolin
Born in a troubled world, he became a bandit in order to make a living
Zhang Zuolin was born on March 19, 1875, to a poor family in the village of Beixiaowa, about 90 miles west of Haicheng County, Fengtian (present-day Liaoning Province), northeast China. Because of his poor family, Zhang Zuolin had independence from his peers from a very young age. But such a personality did not bring him much help, on the contrary, When he was a child, Zhang Zuolin was a "scumbag" who did not love to study and frequently skipped school, which saddened his parents. Once Zhang Zuolin made another mistake, his stepfather simply criticized him a few words, and as a result, the young and vigorous Zhang Zuolin turned his head in anger and ran out of the door, simply running away from home. Although Zhang Zuolin was only 14 years old at this time, it was a good period of youth, but he had been wandering outside for many years. The experience of wandering around outside has cultivated Zhang Zuolin's bold and adventurous personality.
Here I have to say a small anecdote about Zhang Zuolin, once Zhang Zuolin gambled money with others in the casino, inexplicably lost a thorough, and finally realized that he was deceived through the looks of the people on the other side. It turned out that the group of people on the other side had already conspired to come out and cheat Zhang Zuolin's money together. However, Zhang Zuolin, who was good at observation, soon found that although the damage tricks that this group of people came up with were indeed pitted, it was still obvious from their fearful actions that they were also hesitating. After some deliberation, Zhang Zuolin decided to "treat his body in the way of a man" in order to retrieve the silver that he had been "taken along".
Only to see Zhang Zuolin's eyes dripping and turning, his heart crossed, he felt a sharp dagger from his waist, and suddenly it was a fierce knife towards his thigh. He "snapped" and threw a piece of meat cut off from his leg onto the gambling table and shouted——
"This is my bet, and you must fight with meat like me!"
This sudden "cutting meat and gambling" operation frightened several people on the other side who were still thinking about how to divide Zhang Zuolin's silver, and they did not expect that this stinky hairy boy could be so fierce. Cut the flesh from the thigh, let alone cut it, even if it is bloodletting, these few people do not have the "tiger guts" to do it!
Since they have all reached this point, how can the guys who have just been arrogant still have the heart to take care of the silver on the table? After a few moments of eye contact, this group of people picked up their clothes without looking back and flew away from the casino. In this way, Zhang Zuolin only used a "bitter meat plan" to successfully scare this group of people who had harmed themselves into holding their heads.
So, some friends can't help but wonder when they see this, this person who has no academic qualifications, skips school every day, and has no hard background, how did he later become the "King of the Northeast" of the power side?
This has to start from the year when Zhang Zuolin was 19 years old. In 1894, the Sino-Japanese War broke out, in order to make a living in the war, Zhang Zuolin entered the Qing Army Song Qing as a soldier, and was later promoted to cavalry sentry commander. Within a few years, the Qing army moved its defenses, and Zhang Zuolin left the team and returned to his hometown. At that time, because the "Treaty of Maguan" had just been signed because of the loss of power and humiliation of the country, the entire social order was in chaos, and unemployed vagrants and scattered soldiers were running rampant everywhere, burning and looting. Fortunately, with the help of his father-in-law Zhao Zhanyuan, Zhang Zuolin formed a small armed force that was not very large.
After forming his own forces, Zhang Zuolin joined forces with several other large bandit gangs to gradually incorporate the small bandit gangs near his hometown into his name or directly eliminate them. By 1902, Zhang Zuolin's bandit force had reached more than 500 people, and the weapon configuration had reached nearly 400 guns, and it became the strongest local autonomous armed force in western Liaoning, and this team also became the earliest team of the later Feng Army.
Accept the recruitment, the first entry into the official field is revealed
In fact, during the Qing Dynasty, there were many bandits everywhere, especially in the northeast, but such a powerful bandit force as Zhang Zuolin had never been in contact. At that time, many bandits often clashed with the government, so the Qing government had two attitudes toward bandits: either obediently accepting the invitation, or honestly waiting to be "solved". After careful consideration, Zhang Zuolin decided to accept Zhao'an. Through many inquiries, he finally learned that the magistrate in his place was Zengqi, the shengjing general at that time. And Zengqi, who had always been in charge of the jurisdiction of Fengtian, did not remember in his heart how to recruit the local bandit forces to his name. Zhang Zuolin, who learned of this news, was overjoyed, and began to secretly seek opportunities to contact the government. Kung Fu paid off, and Zhang Zuolin's bitterness soon moved.
One day, Zhang Zuolin received a report from his subordinates that Zengqi's wife had just returned to Fengtian from outside guanwai and was passing through the Octagon Pass on the way. Zhang Zuolin, who learned the news, was overjoyed and thought that his opportunity had come, so he thought left and right, and immediately had a plan. Zhang Zuolin first let a small number of bandits disguise themselves as robbers and intercept the way of Mrs. Zeng's party, at which time Zhang Zuolin personally led a group of his men to emerge from the middle of the road and stage a drama of "heroes saving the United States". On the night after Zhang Zuolin successfully "rescued" Lady Zeng, Zhang Zuolin arranged for a small bandit to quietly enter Lady Zeng's room and deliberately made a posture of plotting against her. Madame Zeng was of course frightened to see someone wanting to be indecent to herself, and the panicked cry for help soon "attracted" Zhang Zuolin, who had been waiting for a long time. Only to see Zhang Zuolin without saying a word, he shot at the little bandit who committed the crime, and then asked his subordinates to drag the body out. After Zhang Zuolin's "hero saves the United States" twice, Zhang Zuolin's impression in Mrs. Zeng's heart has also changed a lot. At first, when Mrs. Zeng first arrived here, she was still worried about whether this group of bandits would do anything bad to her like other bandits, but now it seemed that her worries were completely superfluous.
"General Shengjing" Zengqi
After calming Mrs. Zeng's emotions, Zhang Zuolin truthfully expressed his concerns to Mrs. Zeng.
"I heard that General Zeng is a very stubborn man and hates bandits the most. If I defected to the government, I was afraid that he would not accept it. ”
Looking at the young man in front of her who was gentle and elegant, and did not look like a bandit leader at all, Madame Zeng thought about it and smiled at Zhang Zuolin, who was embarrassed, and said:
"Rest assured, it's all up to me."
Zhang Zuolin's frowning face instantly dissipated after hearing Mrs. Zeng's reply, and he didn't expect Mrs. Zeng to agree so happily. And his elaborate drama did bring him the result he wanted - entering the DPRK as an official and becoming the commander of the local government army.
With his previous tempering in the bandit gang, Zhang Zuolin soon became popular in the official arena. And Zengqi also appreciated Zhang Zuolin, and promoted Zhang Zuolin to the head of regimental training in just a few years. You know, the position of regimental training chief in the Qing Dynasty symbolized the existence of absolute military power.
In the chaotic era when everyone is in danger and has to carry a heart every day to live a life, if you don't want to be trampled underfoot, the only way out is to keep climbing up. Zhang Zuolin, who is well versed in this principle, repeatedly warned himself in his heart that he must go up. But if you want to ascend to a high position, you will inevitably give up some things, and the same is true for Zhang Zuolin. In order to have a better development, on this road of adding officials to knighthood, Zhang Zuolin gradually became an "egoist".
Zhang Zuolin's old photo (middle)
In 1907, the Qing Dynasty established a province in the northeast and appointed Xu Shichang as the governor of the three eastern provinces. Xu Shichang was the ally of yuan shikai, the later "great warlord of Beiyang", and later the president of the Republic of China. After Xu Shichang took office, the first thing he did was to suppress the bandits in western Liaoning and central Liaoning, the focus of which was the bandit Du Lisan, who was known as the "Emperor immediately". Du Lisan and Zhang Zuolin were equal bandits in western Liaoning, and the two had also "worshipped their brothers", of course, this so-called knot in the jianghu had no practical significance. After Xu Shichang learned of Zhang Zuolin's relationship with Du Lisan, he sent someone to secretly find Zhang Zuolin, using the high-ranking official Houlu as a quid pro quo, hoping that Zhang Zuolin could come forward to solve Du Lisan's first-class problem.
"Du Lisan and Zhang Zuolin, these two people should belong to the same kind of name in the northeast region, they are very strong bandit leaders. To some extent, Du Lisan may have more seniority than Zhang Zuolin, and his strength is greater and stronger. ”
"ImmediateLy Emperor" Du Lisan
On the one hand, he longed for a good opportunity for promotion for a long time, and on the other hand, he had been loyal to the rivers and lakes for many years, Zhang Zuolin fell into meditation in the face of a dilemma. But Zhang Zuolin, who has been in the official arena for a long time, also knows very well in his heart that the orders of his superiors are difficult to violate, and in his view, compared with loyalty, power and status are the most convincing side.
Is it the right to choose, or the righteousness of the jianghu?
After much thought, Zhang Zuolin finally decided to use the head of his "righteous brother" Du Lisan as a chip to exchange with Xu Shichang. But in the face of the fierce Du Lisan, what kind of plan can achieve this goal? The sociable Zhang Zuolin locked his eyes on a person, and this person was Du Lisan's most trusted uncle. Don't look at this person who is old and just an ordinary student, Du Lisan is almost obedient to this clan uncle and obedient. So Zhang Zuolin began to frequently interact with this clan uncle, treating each other sincerely every time, and over time easily gained the trust of this clan uncle. Zhang Zuolin told his uncle with a worried face that if Du Lisan refused to accept the invitation, the imperial court was bound to cut down Du Lisan's grass and root it out. Zhang Zuolin also asked his uncle to write a letter to Du Lisan, the content roughly showed the sincerity of the government, if Du Lisan was willing to accept the invitation, there should be no killing disaster, and even would be reused in the future.
Du Li Sanyi, who had always trusted his uncle, saw that his uncle had persuaded himself in this way, and he believed that he really agreed. A few days later, Du Lisan met with Zhang Zuolin, the uncle and his wife, and others in another tavern, and Zhang Zuolin earnestly advised Du Lisan that "if you insist on being your 'horse beard', I am afraid it will not last long." Who knew that this seemingly ordinary advice made Du Lisan angry, and he stood up and scolded Zhang Zuolin for being "despicable, villain.". Just as Du Lisan was preparing to continue to vent his anger at Zhang Zuolin, a bullet flying out of the shadows shot through Du Lisan's chest, and Du Lisan, who could not dodge, snorted and fell directly to the ground, and within a few seconds he lost his breath.
The successful killing of the bandit Du Lisan made Xu Shichang look at Zhang Zuolin with admiration, and he also deeply admired Zhang Zuolin's resourcefulness. On xu Shichang's strong recommendation, Zhang Zuolin was promoted to commander of the Fengtian Patrol Battalion. As he wished, he finally stepped on the corpse of the former "righteous brother" and stepped into Fengtian City. Later, due to his outstanding performance in suppressing the revolutionary movement in northeast China, Zhang Zuolin was promoted by Xu Shichang to commander of the Fengtian Provincial Garrison, responsible for all the defense work inside and outside the city, and the smooth pace of his career as an official made Zhang Zuolin one step closer to the goal of controlling the de facto power of the Fengtian Provincial Army.
On January 1, 1912, the Republic of China was established, and Yuan Shikai announced that he was the first president of the Republic of China. With the passage of time, Yuan Shikai's ambition to become emperor became increasingly vigorous. In order to test the attitude of local officials towards his claim to the title of emperor, he once secretly asked major officials from various places to go to Beijing for "secret talks."
Yuan Shikai
At that time, among the officials who were urgently summoned by Yuan Shikai to the Beijing-China talks were Zhang Zuolin in the northeast. In a face-to-face conversation, Yuan Shikai casually asked Zhang Zuolin: "How do you see the difference between the two titles of 'president' and 'emperor'?" ”
Zhang Zuolin, who is good at observing and observing colors, immediately understood the intention in his heart when he heard Yuan Shikai ask such a question. So Zhang Zuolin replied with a flattering smile:
"The president of this kind of foreign stuff, always feel that the back will be stabbed, feng shui is not good, not very suitable for Chinese." It is more appropriate to say that it is still the emperor of the old ancestors. ”
Zhang Zuolin's extremely flattering answer immediately made Yuan Shikai on the other side smile happily, and he gently stroked the thinning hair on the top of his head, and the greed under his eyes became deeper and deeper.
This ambitious feudal careerist seemed to be so satisfied with Zhang Zuolin's answer that after Yuan Shikai officially "became emperor" in 1915, the first edict was to appoint Zhang Zuolin as a second-class viscount, a general of Shengjing, and a military and inspector of Fengtian, which is equivalent to the combined positions of governor and secretary today.
Since then, with the addition of these official positions, Zhang Zuolin has naturally become the nominal supreme ruler of Fengtian Province.
The "King of the Northeast" in the Northeast The last leader of the Beiyang warlords
On June 6, 1916, the "emperor" Yuan Shikai died, and shortly after Yuan Shikai's death, the various factions of the Beiyang warlords began a warlord melee in order to compete for control of the Beijing government. Among the many local warlords, the "Fengzhi" warlords, centered on Fengtian and sitting in the three eastern provinces as their base, this warlord is led by Zhang Zuolin, and among all the warlords, the regional color is the most obvious and the most united. At that time, Duan Qirui, the leader of the Anhui system, the most powerful of all the warlords, entrusted people to find Zhang Zuolin and relayed that he hoped to get Zhang Zuolin's support and reach cooperation with Zhang Zuolin. Zhang Zuolin agreed to Duan Qirui's request, and the two sides reached a consensus on this. Shortly thereafter, Zhang Zuolin publicly expressed his support for Duan Qirui's assumption of power in Beijing.
In September 1918, the Beijing government appointed Zhang Zuolin as the envoy of the three eastern provinces, which officially established Zhang Zuolin's hegemony as the "King of the Northeast" in the northeast. At this time, Zhang Zuolin's career reached an unprecedented peak, not only with nearly 200,000 strong troops under his command, but also with sufficient and well-equipped advanced weapons. The Fengzhi military and political clique under his command and the direct and Anhui clans that dominated the Central Plains formed the three most powerful forces among the Beiyang warlords.
Zhang Zuolin, who is becoming more and more fledgling, is no longer satisfied with just dominating one side, in this era of war and strife, since his strength is already strong, why not set his sights on a wider place? Therefore, Zhang Zuolin began his entry operation. He united with the direct and Anhui clans in 1921-1927, and fought several battles in Guannei, although Zhang Zuolin's troops suffered losses in the middle, but for the most part, he was the side of the fisherman. And such a protracted battle within the Guan, to a certain extent, also consumed the combat effectiveness of the direct and Anhui clans.
In June 1927, Zhang Zuolin officially entered Beijing and announced the establishment of the Anguo government, and he was appointed as the "Grand Marshal of The Sea, Land and Air", becoming the last head of state in the Beiyang warlord era. In the face of those former enemies, Zhang Zuolin did not hold a grudge. For example, in his later years, Zhang Zuolin specially took Duan Qirui to Beijing to live permanently and honored him as a "teacher"; for example, Wu Peifu, who was also a sworn enemy who had fought with Zhang Zuolin, was once a sworn enemy of The Enemy who had fought with Zhang Zuolin, and when Wu Peifu was depressed in his later years, Zhang Zuolin's father and son had been trying their best to help, and Zhang Zuolin and Wu Peifu were also married as brothers of the opposite sex, such a story was once rumored to be a good story in the folk.
Wu Peifu
Duan Qirui
Zhang Zuolin's title of "King of the Northeast" was not only because he had a strong military strength, but this "number one" of the three eastern provinces had made many measures that were beneficial to the localities during his tenure as envoy to the northeast. Zhang Zuolin attaches great importance to the local construction of the northeast region, he vigorously runs factories, supports industrial development, and establishes education, and many of the foundations for undertakings in the northeast region are now laid from the period when he was in power here. In these constructions, Zhang Zuolin invested the most energy in the cause of education, although he himself was a "scum" who had not read for a few days, but Zhang Zuolin liked to interact with cultured people. Under Zhang Zuolin's proposal, Northeastern University was established in The Northeast, and he also stipulated that local governments must spend more than 40% of their fiscal revenue on the development of education every year. In this regard, Zhang Zuolin once said:
"Even if you raise 50,000 fewer soldiers, you still have to run education."
For a long time, in the cognition of many of us, Zhang Zuolin can sit on the throne of the "King of northeast China", which is indispensable to the support of the Japanese. On the contrary, although Zhang Zuolin was a mercenary, as a Chinese he did not want the Japanese to meddle in the northeast region under his jurisdiction. Therefore, from the very beginning of the Japanese entry into the three eastern provinces, Zhang Zuolin was consciously or unconsciously wary of the Japanese. Especially when the Japanese intended to demand the rights and interests of the northeast, Zhang Zuolin directly violated this demand and did not pay attention to the arrogant Japanese at all.
Once, Zhang Zuolin wrote a banner to the Japanese, and it is reasonable to say that at the end, he must write a drop in the paragraph, such as "Zhang Zuolin's hand ink" and so on. But Zhang Zuolin was going to "do the opposite", simply wrote a "Zhang Zuolin hand black" directly at the end of the payment. At that time, the Japanese who saw the banner also thought that Zhang Zuolin had written a wrong word because he had no culture, and they laughed at him.
The guards around Zhang Zuolin also reminded Zhang Zuolin vigorously, saying that he had written wrong.
As a result, the "King of the Northeast" smiled and opened his mouth lightly and said, "What do you know about this insult?" Can you deal with the Japanese without black hands? ”
However, over time, Zhang Zuolin's perfunctory attitude of facing and behind his back has also aroused strong dissatisfaction among the Japanese. On the one hand, they constantly put pressure on Zhang Zuolin, and on the other hand, they also secretly began to take some tough measures, such as intimidating Zhang Zuolin to make Zhang Zuolin submit to the Japanese side.
And the life of the last Beiyang warlord leader seems to be gradually getting closer and closer to death. A well-planned murder brought Zhang Zuolin's brilliant life to an abrupt end.
The tragic end of the death of the Emperor Gu Tun the chaotic tyrant
On May 27, 1916, The Kwantung Army's Doi Shosa assigned several ronin to assassinate Zhang Zuolin, who had returned from a trip. They came to the vicinity of Fengtian Xiaoxiguan and laid an ambush, waiting for the special train carrying Zhang Zuolin to pass by, and threw bombs at the carriages.
However, this assassination was not successful, and the few Japanese ronin who were ordered to assassinate Zhang Zuolin had never seen Zhang Zuolin's true appearance, resulting in the wrong crowd when the bomb was finally dropped, and it was mistakenly thrown into Tang Yulin's troops. In fact, the bomb did not hurt Zhang Zuolin at all, but only because the impact of the explosion blew away the military hat on Zhang Zuolin's head.
Zhang Zuolin's subordinates then rushed to report that Zhang Zuolin said that the murderer was Japanese, because the corpse found at the scene was wearing clogs on its feet, Zhang Zuolin did not think so on the surface, but in fact, when facing the Japanese, he directly told them" "I know that you did it, and you should not do this to me in the future." As for the Japanese people's desire to seek independence from Manchuria and Mongolia, Zhang Zuolin has always taken a firm stand against it.
"Northeast China and Mongolia are Chinese territory, and Chinese family affairs, and it is not the turn of the Japanese to talk about it!"
After this incident, the Intolerable Japanese finally decided to kill Zhang Zuolin. As a result, there was the "Huanggutun Incident" that shocked China and foreign countries.
On June 4, 1928, Daisaku Kawamoto, a senior Japanese staff officer, planned the bombing of the car and mobilized engineers to bury the explosives at the intersection of Nanman Road and Jingfeng Road at Shenyang Huanggutun Station, where Zhang Zuolin's special train back to Fengtian passed. At 5:30 a.m., Zhang Zuolin's special train drove to the Huanggutun Auto Show when it exploded, killing 20 people and injuring more than 50 people. Zhang Zuolin was also seriously injured in this explosion, and then immediately sent to Shenyang for rescue. At 9:30 a.m., after several hours of fighting with the god of death, this legendary general who had experienced hundreds of battles and had been famous in the northeast side could not defeat death after all, and the life of the "King of the Northeast" ended at the age of 53. On June 3, 1937, Zhang Zuolin was buried in Jinxian Stagecoach, with his wife Zhao.
Throughout the life of this legendary figure, from the bandit leader who fell into the grass, to the "King of northeast China" who fell into the grass, to the "King of northeast China" who was in power, and then to the last head of Beiyang who was armed with heavy troops, Zhang Zuolin's life was the convergence of countless contradictions, he was not only a mercenary egoist, he had slaughtered comrade Li Dazhao, a communist fighter, and his crimes were unforgivable; at the same time, Zhang Zuolin was also a hot-blooded tough man who was bold and loyal to protect his homeland, and when the Japanese invaded China's northeastern territory, he never took half a step back on the national issue.
"My only ambition is to govern the country well and make it stand tall among the nations of the world."
This is Zhang Zuolin's life, the life of a tyrant in a chaotic world, the life of a last warlord who "has great talent but no big plan".