The Morality of the Beiyang Era (359): Internal lifting does not avoid relatives, and external lifting does not avoid suspicion.
Since ancient times, family relations have been the most basic and important of all the social relations of a person. In the history of Beiyang, within an old-style Beiyang warlord clique, the most important thing for its leader is undoubtedly the loyalty of his subordinates to him personally, and the kinship relationship is undoubtedly the most capable of achieving this goal. In the case of warlord leaders, the traditional concept of the family requires him to help his relatives as much as possible when he is able; in the case of family members, it stems from his natural attachment to the warlord leader, one is that they do not have too much ability themselves, and once they leave the chief, they will lose everything they have; and the other is derived from the traditional family moral concept, which makes it impossible for the family members to betray the warlord leader. This natural loyalty to warlord leaders often enables family members to "hold positions far more important than they can."
Moreover, the stronger the traditional concept of warlord group leaders, the deeper the emphasis on kinship, which cao kun and Wu Peifu typically embody. Cao Kun was born as a cloth merchant, had a strong traditional concept of literacy, was generous and honest, and was known as the "Three Fools of Cao", and his emphasis on kinship was not only much more serious than that of Wu Peifu, another bearer of the warlords directly related to him, but also rarely matched among the entire Beiyang warlords. He put his fourth brother Cao Rui, who could only accumulate wealth, in charge of a province directly under his command, and gave him great power, let Cao Ying, the seventh brother of the Qinglou regular, directly lead a group of people and horses, and let a nephew Cao Shijie serve as the brigade commander of his guard brigade, and the positions held by these three people were far beyond their capabilities. Compared with Cao Kun's large-scale and high-standard appointment of family members, Wu Peifu, who was more educated and talented, was obviously much better, and he did not appoint his only younger brother Wu Wenfu to any important position.
However, this excessive use of kinship has a clear dual effect. First, in terms of quantity, the excessive emphasis on incompetent relatives, this nepotism infuriates other members of the warlord clique and exacerbates the contradictions within the warlord clique. Cao Rui, with his great influence on Cao Kun, angered almost all the generals of the warlords in his immediate line in the first zhifeng war, so that some people proposed to kill Cao Rui. His tyrannical conquests of Zhili also made the Zhili people intolerable, and Cao Kun had to depose him. Cao Ying took his troops into the famous "Teapot Team", and also fled back to the rear in the First Zhifeng War, once again causing dissatisfaction among the warlords and generals of his immediate lineage. But apparently Cao Kun did not have the slightest distrust of his two brothers because of this.
In the end, in terms of quality, the unbridled reuse of the beiyang warlords' relatives led to the formation of personal vested interests of these relatives, which even directly conflicted with the interests of the warlord group, and the interests of the group and the interests of the leader coincided to a large extent, which led to the separation of the interests of the relatives and the interests of the warlord leader, which in turn threatened the interests of the entire group, including the chief. Cao Rui was stationed in Tianjin from the sixth year of the Republic of China, and Cao Kun's excessive trust in his brother made Cao Rui do whatever he wanted in the direct subordination, not only controlling the direct subordination, so that the successor Wang Chengbin became a false post. In the irreconcilable situation of the contradictions and conflicts between the warlords of the Zhifeng clan, in order to protect his private property, he was unwilling to engage the warlords of the Feng clan, twice went to Fengtian to make peace, and even made preparations to sacrifice Wu Peifu, which threatened the interests of the entire warlord group of the direct clan, and this situation was both a common disease and a fate that was difficult to escape.