When the Xinhai Revolution broke out, Zhang Zongchang, who was the head of the door police in Vladivostok, gathered hundreds of people and took a boat to Shanghai to join the Guangfu Army. It was incorporated into a cavalry regiment, with Zhang Zongchang as its regimental commander.
However, Zhang Zongchang joined the revolution only to speculate. During the second revolution, the Beiyang army marched south in a big way, and Zhang Zongchang went north with the Guangfu army, and after the defeat of Erlang Mountain in Xuzhou, he saw that the Beiyang army was strong, so he immediately changed the court and turned to Zhang Xun.
After Feng Guozhang learned of this, he thought that Zhang Zongchang knew about the military situation of the Guangfu Army and would be useful in the future, so he asked him from Zhang Xun and took him for his own use. Zhang Zongchang did not disappoint him, and soon gathered the fleeing soldiers of the Guangfu Army in Xuzhou, and then collected the bandit armed Chu Yupu department, formed a division, and participated in the battle against Nanjing.
After that, Zhang Zongchang participated in the assassination of Chen Qimei, contributed a lot to Feng Guozhang, won his trust, and served as the supervisor of the Jiangsu Officers' Education Corps. When Feng Guozhang went to Beijing to act as president, Zhang Zongchang also followed him north and served as the chief military attaché of the presidential palace.
However, Zhang Zongchang was impatient and lonely, so he asked Feng Guozhang to be released and wanted to lead the troops himself. Feng Guozhang also intended to expand his power, so he appointed him as the brigade commander of the Sixth Mixed Brigade in Jiangsu.
After Zhang Zongchang arrived in Nanjing, he gathered the old troops, and by recruiting soldiers and recruiting bandits, he quickly pulled up more than 6,000 troops, and the equipment and supplies were directly borne by the Beiyang government. Because of Feng Guozhang's relationship, the equipment of the Sixth Mixed Brigade was also good, with more than 4,000 rifles, 4 75 mm Krupp mountain guns, and more than 20 machine guns.
In the War of Defending the Fa, Zhang Zongchang led his troops, together with Shi Congbin's Shandong First Division and other units, to follow Zhang Huaizhi, the overseer of Shandong, to Hunan to participate in the battle. After Zhang Huaizhi led his army to Youxian County, he encountered liu jianfan of the Xiang army. The two sides fought a fierce battle, and the Beiyang armies were defeated by the Xiang army. Zhang Zongchang fled all the way to Changsha with his troops, but then he took advantage of the slack of the Xiang army to launch a night attack, achieving a great victory, capturing a lot of weapons and supplies, and turning defeat into victory.
Feng Guozhang was overjoyed after receiving the reward, and expanded Zhang Zongchang's Sixth Mixed Brigade into the First Division of the Provisional Army, stationed in Youxian County, Chaling, Liling and other places. The beiyang government is still responsible for the weapons and grain needed by the provisional first division. With Feng Guozhang's face, the military salary was issued in a relatively timely manner during this period. It's just that Zhang Zongchang gambled well, and once after getting two months and 400,000 yuan of military salary, he lost a fine light overnight. In the end, there was no way, Zhang Zongchang could only go to Feng Guozhang with a thick skin, and paid another half a million yuan before sending the military salary down.
Therefore, during this time, Zhang Zongchang still lived a very moist life.
However, after Feng Guozhang's death, Zhang Zongchang's life was not very good. The salaries of the provisional first division were often withheld by the Beiyang government, and Zhang Zongchang went to Beijing several times to beg for it, but returned empty-handed. In the end, he could only dispatch in situ at the station and struggled to maintain it.
By May 1920, the contradictions between Cao Kun and Duan Qirui intensified, and Wu Peifu withdrew his troops from Hengyang, planning to go north and start a war with the Anhui clan. In Beiyang, Hunan, his various armies saw that the situation was not good, and they also withdrew, and Zhang Zongchang naturally did not dare to stay any longer, and hurriedly retreated to Yuanzhou, Jiangxi.
Chen Guangyuan, the overseer of Jiangxi, was also the backbone of Feng Guozhang's lineage, and once allied with Li Chun, the overseer of Jiangsu, and Wang Zhanyuan, the overseer of Hubei, was Feng Guozhang's main dependency, and zhang Zongchang was originally a camp.
After all, Zhang Zongchang was not from Beiyang and had no direct friendship with Chen Guangyuan. It is common for warlords to turn faces between themselves, and there are many enemies who have friendships, not to mention that everyone has no friendship. Chen Guangyuan was worried that Zhang Zongchang would seize his own territory, and coupled with Zhang Zongchang's lack of grain and salary, he could only forcibly borrow grain near Yuanzhou, and the relationship between the two sides deteriorated.
However, Chen Guangyuan did not have many soldiers, only one division directly under him and four local troops of the town guards, and these troops were scattered throughout Jiangxi, and it took time to dispatch them. Therefore, Chen Guangyuan decided to design to paralyze Zhang Zongchang first in order to buy time.
Chen Guangyuan soon found out that Zhang Zongchang was more, and there were already eight wives and concubines in the family. So Chen Guangyuan threw himself into his favor and spent a lot of money to buy a jianghu woman who stepped on a soft rope, and gave it to Zhang Zongchang, pretending to show goodwill. Zhang Zongchang really won the plan, thinking that Chen Guangyuan was far enough to be a friend, and relaxed his vigilance.
Chen Guang's vision of the beauty plan succeeded, so while secretly mobilizing troops, he began to secretly contact Zhang Zongchang's subordinates and dug up the corners.
Therefore, after the Jiangxi troops besieged Yuanzhou, Wang Kangfu led the fourth regiment out of the city, and Chu Yupu also used various excuses to keep his troops still. Zhang Zongchang woke up like a dream at this time, but at this time, because half of the troops were bribed, the rest of the troops were also scattered and had no fighting spirit, and he was unable to return to heaven, so he could only change into plain clothes and flee back to Beijing.
As soon as Zhang Zongchang ran, the Provisional First Division naturally had no intention of fighting, and they laid down their weapons one after another and surrendered to Chen Guangyuan, thus completely disintegrating.