The house dispute refers to the struggle between the president and the prime minister. During the Beiyang period, there were two battles between the government and the court, the first was the struggle between Li Yuanhong and Duan Qirui, and the second was the struggle between Li Yuanhong and Feng Guozhang. In these 2 struggles, who of the 3 of them became the final winners?
On October 8, 1911, the Wuchang Uprising broke out in Wuhan. Subsequently, various places responded one after another, which made the Great Qing, which existed for more than two hundred years, go to the end of the road. Although after the Xinhai Revolution, the Qing Dynasty was no longer able to control the situation, and the revolutionaries were full of momentum and prosperity, because the revolutionaries did not have many troops in their hands, they still lacked a chance of victory against the Qing court and Yuan Shikai, who held the new army.
In this context, Yuan Shikai began to mediate between them for his own interests and promoted the peace between the Qing court and the revolutionaries. Yuan Shikai forced the Qing court to issue an edict of abdication through coercion and inducement, but also won the "Preferential Conditions for the Qing Dynasty" for the Manchu Qing imperial family. At the same time, in order to win Yuan Shikai over, the revolutionaries offered to make Yuan Shikai the president of the Republic of China, which made the fruits of the revolution fall into the hands of Yuan Shikai.
After Yuan Shikai became the president of the Republic of China, his greed was insufficient and he wanted to become emperor. Soon after, Yuan Shikai acted perversely and ascended the throne as emperor. Yuan Shikai's act of claiming the title of emperor not only caused dissatisfaction among the revolutionaries and the people of the world, but also his Beiyang generals were quite dissatisfied with him. This made Yuan Shikai fall into the rebellion for a time, resulting in him only being emperor for 83 days, and announcing the abolition of the imperial system in the anti-Yuan wave. This incident hit Yuan Shikai very hard, and after his abdication, he fell ill and died of serious illness that year.
After Yuan Shikai's death, the Republic of China began to implement a responsible cabinet system. At the same time, his Beiyang generals were also caught in a situation where the dragons were leaderless and infighting was constant. Duan Qirui was one of the three masters of Beiyang, the "Tiger of Beiyang", or the leader of the Anhui warlords, so he became the head of the cabinet, which made the power fall into the hands of Duan Qirui. Li Yuanhong, vice president of the Republic of China, who represented the interests of the revolutionaries, became the president of the Republic of China.
Li Yuanhong was originally a Qing Dynasty general and had a high prestige in the Hubei New Army, so both the revolutionaries and the Qing court wanted to win Li Yuanhong over. The Qing court wanted to use Li Yuanhong's new army to suppress the revolutionaries, and the revolutionaries wanted to win Li Yuanhong against the Qing court. After the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising, the revolutionaries who had a good feeling for Li Yuanhong elected him as the governor of Hubei, making Li Yuanhong a representative of the interests of the revolutionaries.
After the peace talks between the North and the South, Yuan Shikai became the president of the Republic of China, and Li Yuanhong became the vice president of the Republic of China on behalf of the revolutionaries. After Yuan Shikai's death, Li Yuanhong succeeded him as acting president of the Republic of China, and Duan Qirui became the prime minister of the cabinet, but because after Yuan Shikai's death, the Republic of China began to implement the responsible cabinet system, so the power was transferred from the president to the premier, and President Li Yuanhong became the stamping machine of the premier Duan Qirui.
Li Yuanhong was unwilling to be Duan Qirui's "walking stamping machine", and the "palace dispute" between the two broke out. At the height of the two men's struggle, Li Yuanhong ordered Duan Qirui to be removed from his post as prime minister, which made Duan Qirui angry, and then planned to arm Li.
In order to oppose Duan Qirui, Li Yuanhong contacted Zhang Xun to oppose Duan Qirui, but after Zhang Xun led his troops into Beijing, he acted perversely and supported the little emperor Puyi to claim the title of emperor. Zhang Xun's restoration farce lasted only 12 days before it was defeated by Duan Qirui's rebel army.
Due to Zhang Xun's restoration farce, Duan Qirui returned to politics because of his support for the republic, and Li Yuanhong could only resign as president of the Republic of China and go to Tianjin to live in seclusion. In the first "battle of the government" between Li Yuanhong and Duan Qirui, it ended with Duan Qirui's complete victory.
After Li Yuanhong resigned, the presidency became vacant, Duan Qirui invited Feng Guozhang to Beijing as acting president, and Duan Qirui succeeded him as prime minister.
Feng Guozhang is one of the three masters of Beiyang, the "Leopard of Beiyang", but because he listens too much to Yuan Shikai's words, he is called "dog of Beiyang". Like Duan Qirui, Feng Guozhang was also a big man in the Beiyang clan, he was the leader of the warlords of the direct lineage, and his strength and ability were very strong.
Li Yuanhong, who did not have many troops in his hands, was unwilling to be Duan Qirui's puppet, and Feng Guozhang, who had territory, an army, and strength, would naturally not be willing to be Duan Qirui's "walking stamping machine", so a second "dispute between the government and the courtyard" broke out between the two.
The two initially had conflicts over the policies of the warlords in the southwest and the guangdong protector junta. Duan Qirui advocated "reunification by force" to expand his Anhui forces, while Feng Guozhang advocated "peaceful reunification" in order to curry favor with the warlords in the southwest and protect the interests of his immediate family.
In August 1917, Duan Qirui did not care about Feng Guozhang's opinion and launched the Civil War (The War of Defending the Law), but then, the generals among the warlords directly under his direct lineage sent telegrams to discuss peace, which put a lot of pressure on Duan Qirui, and he was eventually forced to resign as the premier of the cabinet, but Duan Qirui did not concede defeat, and then he instigated the Ten Governors of the North: Cao Kun, Zhang Huaizhi, Zhang Zuolin, Ni Sichong, Yan Xishan, Chen Shufan, Zhao Qian, Yang Shande, Lu Yongxiang, Zhang Jingyao and others to hold a meeting of the Overseers in Tianjin. A joint telegram asked Feng Guozhang to explicitly order a crusade against the southwest.
In the face of pressure, Feng Guozhang could only give in, and he let Duan Qirui do the war supervision. In November of the same year, Cao Kun, the tenth governor of the north, issued a telegram advocating that the Provisional Senate controlled by the Anhui Dynasty should act as the deputy to the national assembly and elect a formal president, in an attempt to "legally overthrow Feng". Faced with the imminent progression of the Anhui clan, Feng Guozhang prepared to go south and return to Nanjing, the direct stronghold of his control, on the pretext of attacking the southwest, but as soon as the car arrived in Bengbu, he was intercepted by Ni Sichong, the overseer of Anhui in the Anhui clan, and forced to return to Beijing. At the same time, Zhang Zuolin's Fengjun also entered the customs "military advice".
After the anhui-Feng alliance, Feng Guozhang was overwhelmed and forced to make Duan Qirui the prime minister of the cabinet, but on September 4, 1918, the National Assembly elected Xu Shichang as the new president of the Republic of China, and Duan Qirui and Feng Guozhang both went to the field, and neither of them won the "battle between the government and the court".