The Zhili Clique was a Chinese warlord clique whose political power flourished in the Central China Plain in the period between 1920 and 1924. It had the support of Anglo-American business interests, and its army was led by the capable commander Wu Peifu (first Chinese man to have appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine). However, as Wu was engaged in war against the Fengtian clique in 1924, rival warlords staged a coup in Beijing and replaced his puppet president, Cao Kun, with the pro-Japanese Duan Qirui. Wu lost his momentum as a result of this, and hunkered down in Central China until he was defeated by the Kuomintang in their Northern Expedition.
But what if his puppet government in Beijing had not been overthrown in the middle of his campaigns?
Could Wu Peifu's clique, rather than the KMT, have unified China? Considering his center of power, could he have taken over the province of Shandong and held it more stably than the KMT?