95 years ago today (October 18, 1924), the patriotic general Feng Yuxiang decided to launch a coup d'état in Beijing, and on October 23, he quietly sneaked back to Beijing, imprisoned The Great President Cao Kun without a single shot in the heavily guarded city of Beijing, and then instructed the regent cabinet to pass the "Amendment to the Preferential Conditions for the Qing Dynasty", abolish the imperial title, move the Qing Room out of the Forbidden City, and expel Puyi from the palace.
Why did Feng Yuxiang launch the "Beijing Coup"? How did you do this big thing without spending a shot and a bullet? Looking at the original experience, I can't help but give people a thumbs up: Great, General Feng!
Warlords were fighting, and Cao Kun bribed him to become president
In 1911, the Xinhai Revolution was successful, the republic was established, and the Qing Dynasty abdicated. Unfortunately, the fruits of the revolution were stolen by Yuan Shikai. Since then, the warlords have divided the territory, fought in the war for many years, and the country has no peace. After Yuan Shikai's death, in addition to the warlords of Dian, Gui, Guangdong, and Jin, who divided one side and claimed the title of king, the Beiyang warlords gradually split into three major factions, namely Duan Qirui's Anhui clan, Zhang Zuolin's Feng clan, and Wu Peifu's direct lineage. The struggle for power between the various factions is fraught with contradictions and fierce struggles. Under the manipulation of these powerful factions, the president of the Beijing government of the Republic of China changed frequently, from Li Yuanhong to Feng Guozhang, from Xu Shichang to Cao Kun.
(Duan Qirui)
Duan Qirui, as the leader of the Anhui clan, controlled the Beijing government for many years, and although he did not become president, his ambitions did not die, and his arrogance was deeply dissatisfied with the two clans. Finally, the Zhiwan War broke out. In July 1920, the direct lineage of Cao (锟) and Wu (Peifu), together with Zhang Zuolin, defeated duan Qirui of the Anhui clan in one fell swoop, and Duan Qirui was forced to resign by telegram. After that, Zhang, Cao, and Wu gained power, and the Beijing regime was controlled by the Zhifeng and Feng clans. However, the interests are trending, and the contradictions between the two sides are intensifying day by day. On April 29, 1922, the First Zhifeng War finally broke out. As a result, Wu Peifu, a direct descendant, defeated Zhang Zuolin of the Feng clan. The Feng army retreated to the northeast, declared the northeast "autonomous", closed itself off, and recuperated. Cao Wu, on the other hand, single-handedly controlled the Beijing government and presented himself as the central government.
(Cao Kun)
On October 5, 1923, Cao Kun was elected president through bribery. At this time, Zhang Zuolin's military strength was becoming increasingly strong, so he called Beijing on September 4, 1924, denouncing Cao Kun, and declaring war on the Zhi Army on September 15. Zhang Zuolin made himself commander-in-chief, divided his troops into three routes, and entered the customs to attack Cao Wu. President Cao Kun hastily appointed Wu Peifu, who had a heavy army, as the commander-in-chief of the crusading army, and divided his troops into three ways to meet the Feng army. Thus, the Second Zhifeng War broke out. In this great war, the two sides fought with all their might and fought to the death, and in the tug-of-war, the attackers attacked strongly, the defenders defended, and the attack and defense were staggered, cruel and fierce.
At this time, Feng Yuxiang was serving as the commander-in-chief of the Third Route Army under Wu Peifu.
With a good commander-in-chief, why did Feng Yuxiang launch a coup d'état in Beijing? This has to start with Wu Peifu's desire to "borrow" to kill people to weaken Feng Yuxiang and Feng Yuxiang's relationship with Sun Yat-sen.
Wu Peifu wanted to kill people through the "Tao"
Wu Peifu ostensibly sent Feng Yuxiang as the commander-in-chief of the Third Route Army, and said: This road is not a strong force and is not competent, but in fact wants to put Feng to death. This road is not only a long way, but also a mountain range, rugged roads, extremely difficult to march, and there is a desert in the northeast of Chifeng, which is sparsely populated. The climate in the north was cold, and the Feng army only had a single coat, and Wu also stipulated that there would be no military stations along the march, and the grain and grain items would be organized by all the armies. The places that Feng Bu passed through were very remote, and often there were no people within a hundred miles, so there was no way to talk about raising grain on the spot, and Feng had always been reluctant to raid the place. Wu attempted to kill people with a knife, that is, to eliminate Feng Jun by the hand of Feng Jun. In case he was not eliminated by the Feng army, Feng would also be punished for defeat.
Feng Yuxiang was not a fool and knew this.
Feng Yuxiang, who has always had revolutionary ideas, actually had contacts with Dr. Sun Yat-sen earlier, and interacted closely with members of the League among Hu Jingyi, Sun Yue and other direct generals, and agreed to "reverse straight" together.
Secretly arranged the internal response, Cao Kun did not know
After Wu Peifu issued the battle order, Feng Yuxiang began to arrange a "straight" military response in Beijing before the opening of the battle, and suggested to Cao Kun that Wang Huaiqing's 13th Division be sent to the front line, and Sun Yue's 15th Mixed Brigade should be transferred to defend the capital. Unconsciously, Cao Kun gladly agreed to this proposal, that is, to transfer Sun to Beijing and appoint Sun as the deputy commander of the Beijing garrison. The coup d'état was a very important step.
(General Feng Yuxiang)
Feng had always advocated the speed of the soldiers, but this time he was slow to move, and after Wu Peifu's repeated urging, he launched the vanguard on September 21. Feng Ling's troops traveled twenty or thirty miles a day, and the headquarters also moved slowly. After Feng's headquarters arrived at Gubeikou, he borrowed supplies and stayed. On the one hand, he supervised the construction of roads in the counties along the way to prepare for the return of the division, and on the other hand, he ordered Lu Zhonglin's troops to practice marching from the garrison to Beijing every day, or 50 miles, or 60 miles to turn back, the intention was not only to prepare for the rapid march back to the division, but also to make people along the way accustomed to their marching movements, so as not to cause the later class division to attract the attention of the outside world.
When Feng Yuxiang's headquarters reached Gubeikou, Zhang Zuolin's representative Ma Bingnan came to see Feng again and handed over Zhang Zuolin's letter: "As long as Cao and Wu are overthrown, Fengfang's purpose will be achieved, and he will never again march into Guannei." Feng and Ma Bingnan agreed that if the two armies met, they should fire their guns into the sky.
After Feng Yuxiang arrived in Luanping from Gubei, he sent Liu Zhizhou and others to Tongzhou to secretly contact Hu Jingyi, asking Hu to postpone the opening and discuss the date of the class.
After Feng learned of Wu's defeat at the front, he further confirmed that Wu Peifu had transferred the 3rd Division from Fengtai to the customs front, and at this time, Feng Yuxiang felt that the time was ripe for the division to return to Beijing.
Feng Sun Hu Caoting secretly discussed the imminent defection
(General Sun Yue)
(Hu Jingyi)
Feng Yuxiang, Sun Yue, and Hu Jingyi were all direct generals who were ideologically progressive, inclined to revolution, and supported Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary ideas, and all had the same experience in their military careers. Before the coup, Sun Yue served as the brigade commander of the 15th Mixed Brigade and the envoy of Daming Town. As early as 1912, Sun Yue, who was already the commander of the 19th Division of the Army, was suspected of being a revolutionary, and was often suspected of being jealous and ostracized by Wu Peifu, and his military power was reduced, and his position was not promoted, but he was demoted. Hu Jingyi was the commander-in-chief of the Defending Army, and after Sun Yue and He Sui's activities led the troops to defect to Cao Kun, he served as the commander of the army's provisional 11th Division. Sun Yue and Hu Jingyi were both members of the Old Alliance, while Sun Yue and Feng Yuxiang were like-minded old comrades-in-arms and married Jinlan, Sun was a few years older than Feng, and Feng affectionately called Sun Yue the second brother. Before the coup, Feng had also been ostracized and guarded by Wu. The common encounters and common ideals of the three direct generals Sun, Feng, and Hu made them stand together and form an anti-Wu alliance.
Feng and Sun prepared to rebel together, and decided that Sun Yue would contact Hu Jingyi. When he learned of the situation of going straight, Hu Daxi sent his subordinate general Yue Weijun to Beijing to see Feng, indicating absolute obedience to Feng's orders. A few days later, under the pretext of going to Beijing for medical treatment, Hu Jingyi personally had a secret conversation with Feng Sun in the "Caoting Pavilion" to express his determination to cooperate with Feng. At this point, the Feng, Hu, and Sun triangle alliances were formed. The "Caoting Secret Discussion" opened the prelude to the coup d'état in Beijing. On October 18, 1924, Feng Yuxiang made up his mind to defect and launch a coup d'état in Beijing.
Quietly the class returned to Beijing without spending a single shot
At midnight on October 22, 1924, Sun Yue sat at the Beijing Garrison Headquarters of The Tan Temple, and ordered his close aide-de-camp, Men Bingyue, director of the Land Defense Department, to send horse teams and infantry to patrol the main streets of Beijing; ordered the regimental commanders of the 15th Mixed Brigade to stand by, and as soon as Feng Yuxiang's troops arrived, they immediately occupied the key departments and surrounded the presidential palace. After the deployment is ready, wait for the change. At 1:00 a.m. on the 23rd, Lubu arrived at Andingmen, and Sun Yue immediately ordered the city gate to be opened to welcome the city, and the 15th Brigade quickly occupied the main departments such as the railway station, telegraph office, and telephone bureau, and occupied the main traffic route. Lu Zhonglin took the lead, walked 20 meters and arranged for troops to be on guard, until he reached Tiananmen Square and surrounded the presidential palace. At this time, the whole city of Beijing was still silent, and the presidential palace did not even have a guard post.
On the evening of the 22nd, Sun Yue arranged in advance for his wife Cui Xueqin to come to the presidential palace and ask Cao Kun's wife, Sun Juxian, to play cards. The first is to act as an internal line to monitor the movements of the presidential palace. The second is to divert Cao Kun's line of sight to facilitate action. Cui Xueqin is Sun Juxian's righteous sister, who usually comes and goes frequently, and is very close. As soon as Cui Xueqin arrived, Cao Kun's fourth aunt, Liu Fengwei, immediately played cards. President Cao Da's card was so addicted that he forgot everything as soon as he came to the table, and the more he played, the greater his interest became, until Cui Xueqin got up and resigned, and Cao fell asleep under the service of Lady Liu. Xueqin left Cao Mansion and went straight to the garrison headquarters to report the situation of the presidential palace to Sun Yue, who was relieved and sent a battalion of troops to quietly surround the presidential palace.
Why didn't the Presidential Palace even have a guard post at this time? It turned out that Cao Shijie, the brigade commander of Cao Kun's Presidential Guard Brigade, was stationed in Baoding, and only one guard regiment was left in Beijing to defend the presidential palace. At this time, according to Sun Yue's arrangement, the leader of the guard regiment was invited to play mahjong at the Temple, and the other officers of the guard were also invited by Sun Yue's people to play cards. On this night, it can be said that everyone from the Grand President to the Guards officers were playing cards. What reassured the officers and men of the guards even more was that Sun Yue, who was the commander of the Beijing garrison, was their old boss. At this time, the group of dragons had no leader and the guards who thought of themselves as the Imperial Forest Army, who would still be willing to go to the city gate to stand guard and put on a guard? So when the Presidential Palace was surrounded, the Guards soldiers were all asleep, unaware.
At dawn on the 23rd, Cao Kun was sleeping soundly, when he overheard someone outside the door shouting: "Not good!" Big President, wake up! Something went wrong! Something went wrong! Cao Kun jumped out of bed and asked, "What happened?" What a fuss! Gu Haiqing told Cao Kunyi about the situation, and Cao Kun angrily scolded and quickly picked up the phone to find someone, but the telephone line had long been cut. Only then did I feel that the situation was serious, and I sat paralyzed in a chair and did not know how to be good. Lu Zhonglinli sent a battalion of officers and men to replace the guards of the Presidential Palace and put Cao Kun under house arrest at the Yanqing Building in Zhongnanhai. At this point, the entire city of Beijing was controlled by sun yue and Feng Yuxiang's troops. In this way, without firing a single shot, without a single bullet, without bloodshed, overnight, the Beijing coup was successful. Afterwards, Sun Yue entered the government to ask Cao to hand over the presidential seal, and Cao could not help but cry loudly, saying that he was willing to live in DongjiaominXiang Hospital for recuperation, no longer pay attention to political affairs, so he handed over 15 large and small seals.
(Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City)
After the coup, Feng Yuxiang instructed the regent cabinet to pass the "Amendment to the Preferential Conditions for the Qing Dynasty", stipulating that the imperial title should be abolished, the Qing chamber should move out of the Forbidden City, and Puyi should be expelled from the palace. Immediately the inventory and preservation of the cultural relics of the Forbidden City not only eradicated the feudal imperial system, but also had great significance for clearing the feudal consciousness in people's minds and protecting historical precious cultural relics.
Therefore, the "Beijing Coup" led by General Feng Yuxiang completely ended the remnants of China's feudal imperial system and was of great significance in Chinese history.
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