On February 12, 1912, Emperor Puyi of Xuantong promulgated the Edict of Abdication, and the Qing government officially declared its demise. However, Yuan Shikai stole the fruits of victory in the Xinhai Revolution in an attempt to establish the "Chinese Empire", but died in anger amid the condemnation of the rebellion. After Yuan Shikai's death, China was caught up in a warlord war that lasted for more than a decade. During this period, the four major warlords of the Gui, Anhui, direct and Feng clans rose one after another and became the leaders of the Chinese warlord circles, they were also called the "Four Heavenly Kings", occupying the northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest corners of China, so who were their leaders?
First of all, let's look at the warlord Zhang Zuolin, who is entrenched in the northeast. Compared with other warlords, Zhang Zuolin's origin is not high, and his power and status were obtained by helping the Qing government to "suppress bandits". After the Second Zhifeng War, Zhang Zuolin took the upper hand, controlled Beijing, and appointed himself Grand Marshal of the Navy and Army, which was the most glorious period of Zhang Zuolin's life. Unfortunately, later, with the unfavorable war with the National Revolutionary Army, Zhang Zuolin retreated to the northeast and finally died in the "Huanggutun Incident" launched by the Japanese.
Around the same time, Feng Yuxiang in the northwestern region controlled the northwestern region of China. As a well-known "defecting general", Feng Yuxiang was a partner of the Chinese Nationalist Army, although in the midst of the warlord melee, Feng Yuxiang was squeezed to the northwest border, but he did not blindly depressed, but was determined that the United Nations Civil Army would end the warlord melee in one fell swoop, and during the Northern Expedition of the National Revolutionary Army, he sent troops to Xi'an and controlled most of the northwestern region west of Shaanxi.
To the southeast, Sun Chuanfang occupied the southeastern regions of Shanghai, Anhui, and Jiangxi. When the Second Zhifeng War broke out in 1925, Sun Chuanfang single-handedly expelled all the Feng warlords who were entrenched in the above areas, and won the victory of the Second Zhifeng War perfectly, and later ran out of military strength on the way to stop the Northern Expedition of the Nationalist Army, and was finally forced to go to the wilderness.
In the southwest, Tang Jiyao, a Dian warlord who controlled the Yunnan region, was also a very famous warlord. Although Tang Jiyao's family was not wealthy, his parents attached great importance to his education, so when he grew up, he went to Tokyo, Japan to study and learn a wealth of cultural knowledge. After returning to China, he participated in uprisings such as the Patriotic Movement, and eventually became emperor in Yunnan. However, in his later years, he colluded with Wu Peifu and Sun Chuanfang in an attempt to stop the Nationalist army from moving north, destroying all his heroic name, and finally died of illness in Yunnan in the midst of rebellion.