Introduction: When it comes to the Beiyang warlord period, although the early period did achieve short-term stability, it was later intensified by internal differentiation, which led to a complicated situation at that time. At that time, there were also many leaders who were verbally called the Fuehrer, but were actually puppets. However, there are indeed a few of them, who have real power in their hands, and today we will talk about one of them, Cao Kun.
Born into poverty, he had to shoot horses
Cao Kun's family was poor, and he began to take on the heavy responsibilities of the family at a very young age and did a lot of hard work. But after he entered the Beiyang New Army, his fate took a huge turn.
When he first joined the Beiyang New Army, he was still a nobody, and he served under Yuan Shikai. In order to get ahead as soon as possible, he first tried his best to inquire, and learned that Yuan Shikai's uncle and grandfather had a brother who worshiped him, and even had some relatives with him.
So he immediately went to visit, and also won the favor of this old man, who also strongly recommended Cao Kun to Yuan Shikai.
Cao Kun was a very sleek man, especially good at sneaking and patting horses, and slowly his strength gradually grew, and after Feng Guozhang's death, he was stationed in Beijing and controlled the Beiyang government. But his ambitions went far beyond that, and he began to contact imperialism and launch an offensive against the Chinese supreme head of state.
Success is in place, and everything is spurned
Cao Kun was bent on becoming a big president, so he began to participate in the presidential election, and in order to gain an advantage for himself, the "big presidential bribery case" came from him, and this was a scandal that was ridiculous.
Cao Kun let his subordinates go to the home of the parliamentarian to bribe, but the conditions he gave were really very tempting, he could give people 5,000 yuan for a vote, and the price of the vote for the speaker of the National Assembly was even more frightening, and he was even speculated to 400,000 yuan later.
Then after that election, Cao Kun did not spend less money, more than 10 million, but this money did buy him the throne of the president.
However, his bribery behavior is well known to everyone, and such behavior makes everyone despise and spurn him very much. Not only did he have no prestige in the country, but there was also a mutiny later. He was first put under house arrest, tossed for most of his life, and then returned to Tianjin to settle down.
Although this life was really bumpy, he could finally enjoy a peaceful life in his later years, but he did not expect that the arrival of the Japanese broke his peace.
Refuse to receive, rather die patriotic
After the Japanese entered China, they first occupied North China, and later he invited Cao Kun many times to discuss current affairs together.
However, Cao Kun is also a man of understanding, and he knows that once he accepts this invitation, he will become a proper traitor.
He refused, but later the Japanese invited many times, but he kept the high wind and festival, vowed to die unwilling to meet the Japanese, until finally in 1938 Cao Kun died at the age of 76, everyone also speculated about his death, some people said that he died of illness, some people said that he died of Japanese. But what the truth is, we don't know.
After Cao Kun's death, the Nationalist government in Nanjing praised his patriotic spirit and sent him a pension, but Cao Kun's family refused to accept it, and by 1938, he gave Cao Kun the title of first-class general in the army, firmly affirming his patriotism.