Marshal Zhang Zuolin once went all the way from Heilongjiang to Shanghai, which can be said to be a victory, and it is difficult to defeat no opponents. However, why did Zhang Zuolin not complete the unification?
In the 2nd Zhifeng War, Zhang Zuolin and Feng Yuxiang joined forces to defeat Wu Peifu, and the Northeast Army officially entered Guannei. The two major pioneers of the Northeast Army, 1 was Li Jinglin and 1 was Zhang Zongchang, these two were like bamboo along the way, capturing Rehe, Zhili, Shandong, and all the way south and occupying Jiangsu and Shanghai.
Zhang Zuolin now owns a large area of land in the northeast, Rehe, Zhili, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shanghai and other large areas, and then further seizes Zhejiang, which is already a foregone conclusion. That is the direct warlord Sun Chuanfang, because Yang Yuting's arrogance is unmanned and flying.
The minor warlords of Anhui, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Fujian, and Zhejiang were determined to defend themselves, and they elected Sun Chuanfang as commander and formed a five-province alliance. On October 10, 1925, they announced that they were going to conduct a major autumn exercise, and under the cover of the military exercise, the five-province coalition began to assemble troops.
Subsequently, the Five Roads Army pounced on the Northeast Army in Jiangsu and Anhui, and the battle broke out in an instant, and Yang Yuting and Jiang Dengxuan fled in defeat. The coalition forces pursued all the way to northern Jiangsu, where they encountered the 120,000-strong army of Zhang Zongchang, the general of the Northeast Army, and the two sides broke out in northern Jiangsu with the main decisive battle, resulting in Zhang Zongchang's defeat.
Sun Chuanfang also suffered heavy losses, and after occupying Xuzhou, he began to rest. In November 1925, a major event occurred in the northeast, and Guo Songling began to rebel. As a result, when Guo Songling was defeated, the Northeast Army lost tens of thousands of elite forces, and its strength dropped significantly.
The two great talents of the Northeast Army have shortcomings in their personalities. Guo Songling is very self-conscious and not open-minded. Yang Yuting is tyrannical, unobtrusive, arrogant and rude. The shortcomings of these two people were exposed in the past 1 year, which also led to the serious injury of the Northeast Army.
Just when Guo Songling rebelled, Feng Yuxiang's army raided the Northeast Army, and defeated Li Jinglin after capturing Zhili. In this way, the Northeast Army only took more than 1 year and 2 years to lose almost all the territory in Guannei, leaving Shandong and Rehe.
The Northeast Army is relatively strong in the warlord army, and it is good for heavy artillery, multiple machine guns and multiple weapons. Whether it was the Battle of Zhifeng or the Battle of Nankou besieging Feng Yuxiang's main force. Or the 2nd Northern Expedition in 1928 in the vicinity of Hebei in Henan province with the Northern Expeditionary Army.
The Northeast Army can be regarded as having considerable combat effectiveness. However, among the Northeast Army, the combat effectiveness was very seriously differentiated, and the strength of those old troops was too poor, as can be seen from the fiasco in the first Zhifeng War to the fiasco in Jiangsu, Shanghai and Anhui. However, the combat effectiveness of those new armies of the Northeast Army is still good.
In terms of officers, there are many factions within the Northeast Army, most of whom are from bandit origins, and their military talents are extremely mediocre and embarrassing. At the time of the 918 Incident, Mitsuharu Miyake and Toranosuke Hashimoto of the Kwantung Army, Ishihara Guan'er, Itagaki Seishiro, and so on, all received ten years or more of formal military teaching and training, and they were all ambitious, bold, daring, and had the ability to act alone. This led to the more bitter defeats that followed, the 918 Incident and the Defeat at the Battle of Rehe.