Text/Fu Huaxuan
In October 1924, after the victory of the Second Zhifeng War, Zhang Zuolin entered Beijing, where he was neither president nor prime minister, and served as grand marshal of the army and navy, exercising his ruling power on behalf of the Beijing government and becoming the supreme ruler of the country. After the five-color flag-flying Beijing government has been running for more than three years, the political situation will change.
On January 8, 1928, Chiang Kai-shek was inaugurated as commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army. In February, the three giants of China's political arena, Chiang Kai-shek, Feng Yuxiang, and Yan Xishan, sat side by side, leaving behind an important group photo in modern history: all three were sitting in a precarious position, Chiang Kai-shek was in the center, Feng Yuxiang was on the left, and Yan Xishan was on the right. Jiang was dressed in a military uniform, straight and exquisite, sandwiched between Feng and Yan, this thin and tall Zhejiang man was slightly restrained; Feng Yuxiang was tall, dressed casually, and the coarse cloth linen lined his face with thickness and simplicity; Yan Xishan was also dressed in a military uniform, but he looked heavy and old. This photograph foreshadows Chiang Kai-shek joining hands with Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan against their enemy, Zhang Zuolin, who is entrenched in Beijing.
On February 22, Chiang Kai-shek issued a telegram stating that he would complete the Northern Expedition in the shortest possible time. In May, the Nationalist Northern Expeditionary Army had entered the territory of Teng County, Shandong, and the warlord Zhang Zongchang retreated to Zou County, Shandong. On May 3, the Japanese army raped and plundered in Jinan, slaughtering more than 10,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians, and creating the appalling "May 3" massacre. On the 9th, the warlord Sun Chuanfang sent a telegram from Tianjin to Pan Fu, the premier of the Beijing government, saying: "The north and the south are in contention, the Jinan incident, the Japanese people insult me too much, I am supervised by my conscience, and I am not willing to continue to have internal strife ..." "
On the night of May 30, 1928, Zhang Zuolin, seeing this embattled situation, convened the supreme emergency meeting of the military government, accepted the advice of Pan Fu, Sun Chuanfang, and others, and issued a retreat order in the name of the Grand Marshal. On June 1, Zhang Zuolin ordered that the "Grand Marshal of the Anguo Army" seal flag, the seal letter of the State Council, and the important archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should all be transported to Fengtian. On the 2nd, Zhang Zuolin telegraphed and announced his withdrawal from Beijing. After Zhang Zuolin withdrew from Beijing, he needed to leave five thousand soldiers in the city to maintain order until the victorious side came to take over. The terms of the compromise between the parties were that Chiang Kai-shek's army would not enter the city of Beijing, and that the capital would be controlled by Yan Xishan's troops from Shanxi. The Beijing government no longer existed, the five-color flag disappeared in Beijing, and only the Northeast Army still erected the five-color flag.
At one o'clock in the morning of June 3, under the bright moonlight of Beijing's Qianmen Railway Station, Zhang Zuolin boarded a train and left Beijing to return to Fengtian. At 4 p.m., the train arrived at Shanhaiguan. The guards delivered exquisite food, which was Zhang Zuolin's last supper. According to chef Park Toyota, the dinner menu was: grilled eggplant, stewed beans, stir-fried meat with squeezed vegetables, dried fried yellow croaker, spinach shrimp segments, spicy chicken cubes, and Cabbage soup.
In the early morning of June 4, before the bomb attack on Huanggutun, Zhang Zuolin, who was sitting in the carriage, felt slightly cold. The attendant asked, "It's a little cold, do you want to add a piece of clothing?" Zhang Zuolin looked at his watch, it was more than five o'clock, and then replied: "Forget it, I'm going home soon!" The words did not fall, and a loud explosion engulfed them. In the morning, Zhang Zuolin was rushed to the Fengtian Grand Marshal's Mansion and died soon after, at the age of fifty-four. Zhang Zuolin's last words were: "I was too badly injured... I'm afraid not... Tell Xiao Liuzi to return to Fengtian quickly! "
Zhang Zuolin himself was also aware of the ambitions of the Japanese, and he used the Japanese for the benefit of his family, but he was also careful and wary of the Japanese. At that time, the Japanese controlled the ports of Lushun and Dalian, and also controlled the South Manchuria Railway, stationing troops along the line, almost monopolizing the transportation in the northeast region. In order to break this monopoly, Zhang Zuolin prepared to build a railway parallel to the South Manchuria Railway to break Japan's control of the northeast, and he ordered the construction of the port of Yingkou to weaken the influence of Dalian and Lushun on the northeast. In this regard, the Japanese were extremely angry and openly protested the construction of the railway, believing that this was a "provocation" to Japan's rights and interests in Manchuria and Mongolia, and demanded that Zhang Zuolin immediately stop building the railway. Zhang Zuolin, while perfunctory Japanese, accelerated the construction process and finally completed the construction of the railway. In addition, Zhang Zuolin, who came from the bottom of the ladder, also made strange moves, "tossing" the Japanese with various small means.
For example, the Japanese went to great lengths to obtain the right of residence of Japanese expatriates in the northeast, but Zhang Zuolin secretly ordered that the Chinese people be forbidden to rent houses to the Japanese, and a large number of Japanese who came to the northeast had no houses to live in. For example, the Japanese garrisoned along the railway line in the northeast region, and Zhang Zuolin made heavy defenses in every place where the Japanese army was stationed, ensuring absolute superiority in numbers and preparing for the armed invasion of the Japanese army. Seeing that Zhang Zuolin still refused to obey, the Japanese, who were ashamed and angry, decided to showdown. On May 17, 1928, Japanese Minister Fang Ze submitted a note to Zhang Zuolin to the Japanese government, demanding that Zhang Zuolin fulfill the rights and interests he promised to the Japanese when Guo Songling rebelled, otherwise the Japanese government would intervene by force. Zhang Zuolin was furious in the face of Fangze's threats and intimidation, declaring that he had never made any promises, which made the Japanese angry. On the night of June 3 of the same year, the day before Zhang Zuolin led the main force of the Feng army back to Shenyang from Beijing, Fang Ze again asked to see Zhang Zuolin and carry out a final threat. But Zhang Zuolin did not see him at all, and Fang Ze in the reception room also heard Zhang Zuolin in the next room scolding the eight generations of ancestors of the Japanese in a high octave voice, which finally made the Japanese side make up its mind to get rid of Zhang Zuolin.
For more than half a century, people have been thinking that Zhang Zuolin's death was related to the Japanese, and speculated that the Japanese's motivation was to punish Zhang Zuolin for not withdrawing troops with Japan without authorization and refusing to resist the Northern Expeditionary Army. Daisaku Kawamoto, a former senior staff officer in the Japanese Kwantung Army and a war criminal, even wrote the article "I Blew Up Zhang Zuolin" in prison.
However, the twenty-first-century Russian historian Prokhorov said in the article "Archives of the Death of Marshal Zhang Zuolin" written based on the declassified historical archives of the Soviet Union that Zhang Zuolin's death had nothing to do with Japan, was committed by the Soviet Military Intelligence Bureau, and the specific executors were Soviet spies Sarnen, Etingon, Anderov.
After the outbreak of the October Revolution in Soviet Russia, a number of Russian nobles, generals and high-ranking officials fled to northeast China, such as Kolchak, Semenov, and so on, while Zhang Zuolin actively sheltered and supported these people and their armed forces to help these people engage in "anti-Soviet restoration" activities. Therefore, Zhang Zuolin's death has a new theory. Yes? Phyah? Wait for history to be revealed.
On June 8, the National Revolutionary Army entered Beijing without spending a single shot and an artillery piece, and Beijing was safely defended. On the 13th, the Nationalist government ruled that The Chinese embassies abroad changed to the new national flag of the blue sky and white sun. On the 20th, the province was renamed Hebei Province, and Beijing was changed to Beiping.