In December 1915, Yuan Shikai, a thief who stole the country, announced his acceptance of the imperial system in Beijing, and the revolutionary general Cai Yi and others in the southern provinces declared independence one after another and sent troops to swear to court Yuan. Lu Rongting, a Warlord of the Gui clan who was occupying Guangxi at that time, also took the opportunity to expand his territory and strength, and in the name of crusading against Yuan Shikai, he invaded Guangdong and Hunan, and successively obtained the posts of Governor of Hunan and Governor of Guangdong.
The Lao Gui clan borrowed Guangdong's financial resources to expand the army
100,000
After the end of the Patriotic War, although Lu Rongting's Gui army withdrew from Hunan, it was unwilling to give up Guangdong Province, which was known as the area of wealth, and not only continuously dispatched troops to station, but also desperately squeezed the people of Guangdong and used the looted wealth to expand the army. Before the Patriotic War, Lu Rongting had only 2 divisions and 2 mixed brigades, about 20,000 people; shortly after the end of the Patriotic War, it had been expanded to 7 armies with a total strength of more than 50,000 troops; by 1920, when the Lao Gui clan was expelled from Guangdong, its strength had grown to about 100,000 people.
Exclude Sun Yat-sen and monopolize Guangdong territory
As his strength grew, Lu's ambitions also swelled rapidly, allowing any forces to encroach on guangdong province's territory, first using the French War to send troops to Hunan to resist the threat of the Beiyang warlords to Liangguang, and then squeezing out Sun Yat-sen, who had established a military government in Guangdong to protect the Law, forcing Sun Yat-sen to leave Guangzhou and return to Shanghai in May 1918. However, it was also Lu Rongting's performance in the War of Defending the Law that made Sun Yat-sen thoroughly see his warlord essence, realizing that to save the country, he must first eliminate the "Gui Thieves", "unify the South", and then "be able to go north".
Raise funds from many parties to arm Chen Jiongming's Yue army
Although Sun Yat-sen was famous, he lacked an army under direct command, so he could only pin his hope that the "Gui thieves" who would first destroy the country to save the country could be planted by himself, and Chen Jiongming, a Cantonese army that was expelled from Guangdong by the Gui clan and stationed in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, in the name of "aiding Fujian". To this end, he raised funds from many sources to economically help the Guangdong army that was in a difficult situation, and instructed Chen Jiongming to pay close attention to training the army and be ready to return to Guangdong at any time to attack the Gui clan that harmed the people in the name of false protectors.
The Guangdong army returned to Guangdong as if it were a bamboo
In August 1920, Chen Jiongming, in accordance with Sun Yat-sen's orders, led the Cantonese army back to Guangdong and attacked the Gui clan. At that time, Lu Rongting's troops deployed in Guangdong Province were 80,000 to 90,000 people, claiming to be 100,000 people, while Chen Jiongming's Yue army was only more than 20,000 people, and the two sides had a huge disparity in strength. However, the Cantonese army was a righteous division under the banner of Sun Yat-sen's revolution, and it was also to save their hometown from water and fire, so morale was high. At the same time, the Cantonese army still appeared as a liberator, and everywhere it went, it was warmly welcomed and vigorously helped by the people. After the Yue army advanced rapidly, less than 10 days after returning to the division, it captured most of Shantou and Chao and Mei, and Lu Rongting had to concentrate his forces to fight the Guangdong army in the Dongjiang area.
Armed forces in various parts of Guangdong rebelled and repelled the Gui clan
At the beginning of October, the guangdong local armed forces attached to the Gui clan and the Cantonese officers and soldiers in the Gui army saw that Lu Rongting's general trend had gone, and they turned against each other, and the anti-Gui trend spread throughout Guangdong. Wei Bangping, director of the Police Department of the Capital of Guangdong Province, and Li Fulin, the guardian of Guanghui Town, jointly electrified li Fulin, announced his independence from the Gui clan, and Chen Bing guangzhou Henan; All walks of life in Guangzhou publicly elected Tang Tingguang as the governor of Guangdong and forced Mo Rongxin, the governor of Guangdong, to step down; The Guangdong Federation of Students sent a telegram to welcome the Guangdong army back to Guangdong; Cai Binghuan and others of the Guidian army stationed in Qiongzhou and the gui generals Huang Zhihuan and Lu Lanqing stationed in Qinlian also declared independence. Under this embattled situation, the Gui army, which was fighting the Dongjiang front, had no intention of fighting, and withdrew from the front line one after another, fleeing to the Beijiang and Xijiang areas.
On October 29, Chen Jiongming's Cantonese army entered the provincial capital of Guangzhou without major fighting. Subsequently, the fleeing Gui army was pursued by separate routes, and it was completely driven back to Guangxi without a major battle. In late November, there was no trace of the Gui army in the whole territory of Guangdong.