WI Beiyang China united

Suppose that the Zhili clique had been able to defeat the competing warlord cliques in the early 1920s.

From what I gather the Zhili were significantly more anti-Japanese than their Anhui and Fengtian counterparts.

Does this lead to an earlier 2nd Sino-Japanese War? Are the southern warlords and the KMT going to be peacefully reincorporated into China or will something akin to the Northern Expedition still take place?
 
Fengtian was effectively forced to be a Japanese client state, and the Japanese still had Zhang Zuolin killed once he took more territory in China proper than they were comfortable with him holding.

Not sure about Anhui, but they were pretty small by the mid-20s. IOTL they were eliminated around the time of the 2nd Fengtian-Zhili War.

The Zhili Clique in general seems more politically inept than the KMT. I imagine that a China about to be united by them would look threatening to Japan and as such Japan would support Fengtian and the KMT against them. Such a conflict might force the Japanese to avoid killing Zhang Zuolin as they will need him as a proxy to fight the ROC. Meanwhile the KMT and CCP will probably stay in their united front until the Zhili Clique is gone. I'd say this PoD delays the 2nd Sino-Japanese War because it likely delays the unification of China.
 
Fengtian was effectively forced to be a Japanese client state, and the Japanese still had Zhang Zuolin killed once he took more territory in China proper than they were comfortable with him holding.

Not sure about Anhui, but they were pretty small by the mid-20s. IOTL they were eliminated around the time of the 2nd Fengtian-Zhili War.

The Zhili Clique in general seems more politically inept than the KMT. I imagine that a China about to be united by them would look threatening to Japan and as such Japan would support Fengtian and the KMT against them. Such a conflict might force the Japanese to avoid killing Zhang Zuolin as they will need him as a proxy to fight the ROC. Meanwhile the KMT and CCP will probably stay in their united front until the Zhili Clique is gone. I'd say this PoD delays the 2nd Sino-Japanese War because it likely delays the unification of China.

I think they had Zhang killed because he was unable to halt the KMT from advancing into Beijing.

As far as the Zhili-Fengtian war is concerned, the Zhili had some capable commanders and a large enough pool of manpower to defeat whatever the Fengtian can throw at them. Thus forcing Japan into taking a more active military position in China.
 
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