The Chinese Great Game
The Chinese Great Game
The Fujian Government’s retreat took them into the interior, away from the coastline where the Regency Navy reigned supreme. Capturing Shaoguan on July 19, the Fujian army would receive an emissary from Nie Hongzhang, the governor of Guangdong. An ally of the Fajia, Nie disapproved of Hu Ruoyu’s replacement of Zhang Mingqi and agreed with the governor of Guangxi, Tang Jiyao, that the New Nanjing Clique needed to be opposed. His emissary gave the Fujian Government a map and a simple statement: Follow the allotted path and take part in several mock battles, and the governors of the Southwest would help them on their march to the Vietnamese border. With the Fujian Government viewed as a non-threat, it was deemed that humiliating Ruoyu was worth allowing an enemy force to escape unmolested. Song Jiaoren, with little hope of keeping his forces now swollen with untested volunteers cohesive otherwise, accepted. Although still engaging in reconnaissance to avoid walking into a trap, Jiaoren’s forces would begin traveling the rural areas of southern China on their march toward the safety of Vietnam.
Ruoyu would be left unaware of this effort with his attention directed elsewhere. Relying on the pursuing forces and local military formations to either slow down or halt Jiaoren, he concentrated on the invasion of Taiwan. Coordinating with Admiral Lin Baoyi, he would land an initial force of 2,000 men to the west of Taichung on July 24 and swiftly capture the city itself the following day against token resistance. A massive sealift effort, utilizing rotating ship crews, would see 50,000 men swarm Taiwan over the next 10 days, massively outnumbering Chiang Zhiqing’s forces and spreading out across the island. Zhiqing, after failing to check Ruoyu’s advance at the Battle of Chiayi, would abandon conventional warfare and go to ground, attempting to keep his forces intact for a future revolt rather than squandering them in an unwinnable battle. Although Ruoyu’s forces would continue to search for Zhiqing, Taiwan was officially declared secure on August 14.
With Taiwan subdued, Ruoyu turned his full attention to pursuing Jiaoren. Still receiving intelligence from the southwest governors and scouting parties, Ruoyu would frustrate Jiaoren’s efforts to outfox him and decisively break contact. Redeploying 20,000 men to Nanning as Jiaoren entered Guangxi, Ruoyu moved to wipe out his enemy. Although the deployed forces were mainly light infantry, they threatened to cut line of retreat for the exhausted Fujian forces and tie them up long enough for the rest of Ruoyu’s forces to slam into them from behind. The two would clash at the Battle of Dafengzhen on September 30, 80 kilometers north of Nanning. Fujian forces would break through after a fierce four-day battle in which the utilization of Japanese infantry mortars proved to be decisive. Even with the victory, Ruoyu’s gambit had succeeded in slowing down Jiaoren and drawing him into the Battle of Baise.
Ruoyu would catch Jiaoren’s forces attempting to cross the Youjiang River near the town of Baise after local Tuanlian destroyed all bridges, and would quickly begin operations to disrupt them. Although Jiaoren was able to hold off Ruoyu for two days as his inexperienced troops attempted to get their equipment across, the arrival of Ruoyu’s artillery threw the entire situation into chaos. The army, whittled down to 25,000 men after the grueling march and the battle at Dafengzhen, barely held together as men and women threw themselves into the river and swam across, abandoning their equipment and belongings. By the time Ruoyu’s men launched their attack, only 12,000 had managed to cross. The remainder, trapped against the river, either scattered or attempted a desperate last stand to buy their comrades on the other side time to escape. Although they would succeed, the Fujian Government was a mere shadow of what it once was. Three days later on November 2, the Fujian Government would cross the border into Vietnam’s mountainous Cao Bang Province, where local forces would intern them.
Contrary to the hopes of the Minquan, Ruoyu’s failure to destroy Jiaoren completely did little to dent his prestige. His rapid destruction of both the Fujian Government and Chiang Zhiqing’s rebellion would cause Yan Jang to praise him, granting him the newly-established rank of Marshal of China, making him second only to Yan Jang himself in the Army’s hierarchy. Some feared that this was a prelude to Ruoyu being declared Jang’s official successor, and began to plan accordingly.
These men would find ready allies among the high command, many of whom had fought for the Regency during the Civil War and who deeply resented the raising of a “turncoat” over them. In particular, General Ma Fuxiang was furious at the perceived snubbing. Fuxiang, who had served under General Dong Fuxiang and joined the Regency’s military when his commander had, had been in charge of Regency armies at the Battle of Baoding. Despite being responsible for the victory that proved China was the equal of the West and his continued excellence during the rest of the war, he had received scant more than a ceremonial title and a pay increase as recompense. Fuxiang, burning with jealousy and resentment, would make it his goal to bring down Ruoyu and the Chinese Reconstruction Society. With him he would bring much of the Northwest, where the Ma Clique held much sway.
The New Nanjing Clique was aware of their growing opposition, and moved to secure new allies of their own. Minister of Revenues H H Kung was approached with the offer of an extremely lucrative arms contract for the establishment of the Chinese Air Force, in addition to reassigning contracts from pro-Fajia businessmen to Kung’s friends and allies. Promising numerous economic concessions, such as loosening China’s nascent safety regulations, would see the New Nanjing Clique gain many allies among the Western Outreach Society.
The growing ties between the New Nanjing Clique and China’s monied classes would cause a growing strain in the Clique itself. The Chinese Revolutionary Committee became increasingly concerned that the Clique was betraying the Chinese people while simultaneously opening the door to foreign influences. Tan Sitong, the de facto leader of the Committee due to his long service with the Old Clique, moved to soothe the growing divide by meeting with the influential Minister of Foreign Affairs Yan Xiang on February 8, 1927. Although the meeting would see Yan pledge himself to keeping foreigners out of Chinese affairs, the growing rift inside the Clique was unable to be completely painted over.
Even as the power struggle enveloped the Chinese government, its rule continued. In Nanjing, the government began the construction of the Capital Sector, an area stretching over 20 square kilometers and intended to be the beating heart of China’s government. To supplement this, a new series of reforms were announced for the Examination Yuan and several universities explicitly to train bureaucrats were established. In a masterstroke of maneuvering, the Fajia School were able to ensure that the administration for the majority of the universities were supporters, dealing a deathblow to the hope that they would soon fade out of relevancy.
As part of the construction of this new sector, Nanjing’s haphazard public transportation would face a massive overhaul, with a city-wide metro breaking ground in June 1926 and the modernization of old roads to support multiple bus routes. Both would connect with a new series of apartment complexes designed to hold 300,000 people. Other major cities, such as Taiyuan, Xi’an, and Guangzhou, would have their own projects reflecting the development of Nanjing.
These vast projects could only be supported by the rapidly expanding Chinese economy. Built off the post-demobilization surge of soldiers awash with cash and removal of most internal barriers, the Chinese economy boomed with a 3% annual growth rate well into the late 1920s when growth finally slowed down. With the stability brought by the reassertion of the Regency’s supremacy, foreign investment flowed in uncontested while government projects on a truly national scale could finally be implemented. The construction of new dams along the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, unification of the national railway gauge, expansion of port facilities, and construction of new infrastructure, the last of which would ironically aid in the Fujian Government’s escape, would further stimulate the Chinese economy through direct investment and more directly connecting the nation’s farmers to their markets in the cities.
Coupled with a final push to eradicate opium usage in Central China, this Golden Decade would see Chinese life expectancy and quality of life rise and the cementing of the Regency’s popularity even as rebellion continued to rage in Fujian and central authority remained limited along the fringes. Hailed as a callback to the reforms of the Tongzhi Emperor and Li Hongzhang that had restored the famine relief system and improved the lot of millions of Chinese, for the first years of the decade the average citizen could care less about the political struggles of the government. Even as the rush of goodwill began to recede in the second half of the 1920s, the Chinese people remained supportive even as the seeds of future discontent were laid in wildcat strikes, concerns about growing land estates, and the requisition of land for government projects.
