Military history of China

The recorded military history of China extends from about 2200 BC to the present day. This history can be divided into the military history of China before 1912, when a revolution overthrew the imperial state, and the period of the Republic of China Army and the People's Liberation Army.

Pre-modern period

Main article: Military history of China before 1912
See also: Wen and wu

Although the traditional Chinese Confucian philosophy favored peaceful political solutions and showed contempt for brute military force, the military was influential in most Chinese states. The Chinese pioneered the use of crossbows, advanced metallurgical standardization for arms and armor, early gunpowder weapons such as the Cannon and Fire Lance, and other advanced weapons, but also adopted nomadic cavalry[1] and Western military technology later on.[2] In addition, China's armies also benefited from an advanced logistics system as well as a rich strategic tradition, beginning with Sun Tzu's The Art of War, that deeply influenced military thought.[3]

Modern period

Warlord era

This section is an excerpt from Warlord Era.[edit]

The Warlord Era was the period in the history of the Republic of China between 1916 and 1928, when control of the country was divided between rival military cliques of the Beiyang Army and other regional factions. It began after the death of Yuan Shikai, the President of China after the Xinhai Revolution had overthrown the Qing dynasty and established the Republic of China in 1912. Yuan's death on 6 June 1916 created a power vacuum which was filled by military strongmen and widespread violence, chaos, and oppression. The Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) government of Sun Yat-sen, based in Guangzhou, began to contest Yuan's Beiyang government based in Beijing for recognition as the legitimate government of China.

The most powerful cliques were the Zhili clique led by Feng Guozhang, who controlled several northern provinces; the Anhui clique led by Duan Qirui, based in several southeastern provinces; and the Fengtian clique led by Zhang Zuolin, based in Manchuria. The three cliques often engaged in conflict for territory and hegemony. In mid-1917, after Yuan's successor Li Yuanhong attempted to remove Duan as premier, the general Zhang Xun forced Li to resign and made a brief attempt to restore the Qing dynasty, which was quashed by Duan's troops. Feng became the acting president, but was forced to step down by Duan in late 1918 and was replaced by Xu Shichang. In mid-1920, the new Zhili clique leaders, Cao Kun and Wu Peifu, defeated Duan in the Zhili–Anhui War in an alliance with Zhang Zuolin. A power struggle broke out between Cao and Zhang which ended with Cao's victory in the First Zhili–Fengtian War in 1922. Li was briefly restored to an impotent presidency before being deposed by and in favour of Cao until 1924, when during the Second Zhili–Fengtian War the latter was betrayed by his subordinate Feng Yuxiang, who joined with Zhang to stage a coup against Cao. Feng and Zhang shared power and recalled Duan to serve as president before Zhang removed them both in 1926; in 1927, he declared himself Generalissimo.

The warlords of southern China, who had cooperated against Yuan's dictatorship and Duan's attempt to extend Beiyang control to the south, were divided between Sichuan, Yunnan, Hunan, and Guangxi cliques, among others. In 1917, Sun Yat-sen created the Constitutional Protection Junta in Guangzhou to oppose the Beiyang warlords, but the southern warlords rivaled him for control, leading Sun to abandon it in 1918. In 1920, Chen Jiongming invaded Guangdong in the Guangdong–Guangxi War and gained control, after which Sun returned to Guangzhou. In 1922, Chen and Sun broke over political disagreements, after which the Yunnan and Guangxi warlords helped Sun regain power in 1923. To resolve the problem of being dependent on warlords, Sun accepted Soviet assistance in building a party and military infrastructure of his own, creating the Whampoa Military Academy and the National Revolutionary Army (NRA). After Sun died in 1925, the head of the Whampoa Academy, Chiang Kai-shek, emerged as leader of the NRA and KMT.[4] In 1926, he launched the Northern Expedition, which destroyed the Zhili and Anhui forces. Zhang Zuolin was assassinated by the Japanese in 1928, and on 29 December his son Zhang Xueliang accepted the leadership of Chiang's Nationalist government, thus reunifying China and beginning the Nanjing decade.

Despite the official end of the era in 1928, several warlords retained their influence during the 1930s and 1940s, resulting in events such as the Central Plains War of 1929–1930, in which the former warlords Yan Xishan of Shanxi, Feng Yuxiang, and Li Zongren of Guangxi rebelled against Chiang. Regional control by former warlords was problematic for the Nanjing government during the Second Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War, and contributed to the Communists' final victory in 1949. Other major warlords included the Ma clique in Gansu, Ningxia, and Qinghai; Liu Xiang and Liu Wenhui in Sichuan; Long Yun in Yunnan; Zhang Jingyao in Hunan; Zhang Zongchang and Han Fuju in Shandong; and Sheng Shicai in Xinjiang.

Republic of China Army

Main article: Republic of China Army

The Republic of China Army was founded as the National Revolutionary Army, the armed wing of Sun Yat-sen's Kuomintang (KMT) in 1924. It participated in the Northern Expedition, the Second Sino-Japanese War (during World War II) and the Chinese Civil War before withdrawing with the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. After 1949, the ROC Army has participated in combat operations on Kinmen and the Dachen Archipelago against the PLA in the Battle of Kuningtou, and in the First and Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. In addition to these major conflicts, ROCA commandos were regularly sent to raid the Fujian and Guangdong coasts. Until the 1970s, the stated mission of the Army was to retake the mainland from the People's Republic of China. Following the lifting of martial law in 1988 and democratization of the 1990s, the mission of the ROC Army has been shifted to the defense of Taiwan (Formosa), Penghu (the Pescadores Islands), Kinmen and Matsu from a PLA invasion.

With the reduction of the size of the ROC armed forces in recent years, the Army has endured the largest number of cutbacks as ROC military doctrine has begun to emphasize the importance of offshore engagement with the Navy and Air Force. After this shift in emphasis, the ROC Navy and Air Force have taken precedence over the ROC Army in defense doctrine and weapons procurement.[5] Recent short-term goals in the Army include acquisition and development of joint command and control systems, advanced attack helicopters and armored vehicles, multiple launch rocket systems and field air defense systems. The Army is also in the process of transitioning to an all volunteer force.[6]

People's Liberation Army

Main article: History of the People's Liberation Army

Chinese military history underwent a dramatic transformation in the 20th century, with the People's Liberation Army beginning in 1927 with the start of the Chinese Civil War, and developing from a peasant guerrilla force into what remains the largest armed force in the world.

See also

References

  1. ^ H. G. Creel: "The Role of the Horse in Chinese History", The American Historical Review, Vol. 70, No. 3 (1965), pp. 647–672 (649f.)
  2. ^ Frederic E. Wakeman: The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-century China, Vol. 1 (1985), ISBN 978-0-520-04804-1, p. 77
  3. ^ Griffith (2006), 1
  4. ^ Jordan, Donald A. (1976). The Northern Expedition: China's National Revolution of 1926–1928. University of Hawaiʻi Press. pp. 4–6, 32–39. ISBN 9780824880866.
  5. ^ Roy, Denny (2003). "Taiwan's Threat Perceptions: The Enemy Within" (PDF). Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) See "Reforming the Armed Forces", page 5.
  6. ^ "2004 National Defense Report" (PDF). ROC Ministry of National Defense. 2004. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-03-11. Retrieved 2006-03-05.

Further reading

For earlier periods, see Military history of China before 1912 (Further reading)

General

  • Elleman, Bruce A. Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795–1989. New York: Routledge, 2001.
  • Graff, David Andrew, and Robin Higham, eds. A military history of China (University Press of Kentucky, 2012).
  • Hayford, Charles W. (2018). "New Chinese Military History, 1839–1951: What's the Story?". Frontiers of History in China. 13 (1): 90–126. doi:10.3868/s020-007-018-0006-0.
  • Li, Xiaobing, ed. China at War: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2012. online
  • Liu, Frederick Fu. A Military History of Modern China, 1924-1949 (1972).
  • Lorge, Peter. “Discovering War in Chinese History.” Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident 1 38 (2014): 21–46.
  • Mitter, Rana. "Modernity, internationalization, and war in the history of modern China." Historical Journal (2005) 48#2 pp. 523–543 online.
  • Swope, Kenneth, ed. Warfare in China since 1600 (Routledge, 2017).
  • Wilkinson, Endymion. “War.” In Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, pp. 339–62. 5th ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018.
  • Worthing, Peter M. “China's Modern Wars, 1911–Present.” Oxford Online Bibliographies, 2011.
  • --. A Military History of Modern China: From the Manchu Conquest to Tian’anmen Square. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2007.
  • Wortzel, Larry M., and Robin Higham. Dictionary of contemporary Chinese military history (ABC-Clio, 1999).

Mid-Qing to 1912

  • Elman, Benjamin A. “Naval Warfare and the Refraction of China's Self-Strengthening Reforms into Scientific and Technological Failure, 1865–1895.” Modern Asian Studies 2 (2004): 283–326.
  • Elliott, Jane E. Some Did It for Civilisation, Some Did It for Their Country: A Revised View of the Boxer War. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2002.
  • Fung, Allen. “Testing the Self-Strengthening: The Chinese Army in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895.” Modern Asian Studies 4 (1996): 1007–31.
  • Halsey, Stephen R. Quest for Power: European Imperialism and the Making of Chinese Statecraft. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.
  • Klein, Thoralf. “The Boxer War-the Boxer Uprising.” Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence (2008). Online massacre-resistance/en/document/boxer-war-boxer-uprising.
  • Mao Haijian,The Qing Empire and the Opium War: The Collapse of the Heavenly Dynasty , translated by Joseph Lawson, Craig Smith and Peter Lavelle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. (Orig, Tianchao de bengkui. Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1995).
  • Paine, S. C. M. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power and Primacy.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
  • Platt, Stephen R. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War. New York: A.A. Knopf, 2012.
  • Thompson, Roger R. “Military Dimensions of the ‘Boxer Uprising’ in Shanxi, 1898–1901.” In Warfare in Chinese History, edited by Hans van de Ven, 288–320. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
  • Waley-Cohen, Joanna. The Culture of War in China: Empire and the Military under the Qing Dynasty. London: I. B. Tauris, 2006.

1912–1937

  • Chan, Anthony B. Arming the Chinese: The Western Armaments Trade in Warlord China, 1920–1928 . 2nd ed. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010.
  • Jordan, Donald A. The Northern Expedition: China's National Revolution of 1926–1928. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1976.
  • ——. China's Trial by Fire: The Shanghai War of 1932. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2001.
  • Diana Lary, “Warlord Studies.” Modern China 4 (1980):439–70. State of the field article.
  • McCord, Edward Allen. The Power of the Gun: The Emergence of Modern Chinese Warlordism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
  • Waldron, Arthur. From War to Nationalism: China's Turning Point, 1924–1925. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
  • ——. “The Warlord: Twentieth Chinese Understandings of Violence, Militarism, and Imperialism.” The American Historical Review 4 (1991): 1073–1100.

The Second Sino-Japanese War

  • Chang, Jui-te. “Nationalist Army Officers during the Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1945.” Modern Asian Studies 4 (1996): 1033–56.
  • ———. “The National Army from Whampoa to 1949.” In A Military History of China, edited by David A. Graff and Robin D. S. Higham, 193– 209. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2012.
  • Ford, Daniel. Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and the American Volunteer Group. 2nd edition. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2007.
  • Gordon, David M. “The China-Japan War, 1931–1945.” The Journal of Military History 1 (2006): 137–82. Bibliographical essay.
  • Hagiwara Mitsuru. “The Japanese Air Campaigns in China, 1937– 1945.” In The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945, edited by Mark R. Peattie, Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013, 237– 55.
  • Harmsen, Peter. Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangzi. Oxford: Casemate, 2013.
  • Haruo, Tohmatsu. “The Strategic Correlation Between the Sino-Japanese and Pacific Wars.” In The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945, edited by Mark R. Peattie, Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven, 423–45. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.
  • Hattori Satoshi with Edward J. Drea, “Japanese Operations from July to December 1937.” In The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945, edited by Mark R. Peattie, Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven, 159–80. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.
  • Lary, Diana. “Defending China: The Battles of the Xuzhou Campaign.” In Warfare in Chinese History, edited by Hans van de Ven, Leiden: Brill, 2000, pp. 398–427.
  • Lew, Christopher R. The Third Chinese Revolutionary Civil War, 1945–49: An Analysis of Communist Strategy and Leadership (Routledge, 2009).
  • Mitter, Rana. "Old ghosts, new memories: China's changing war history in the era of post-Mao politics." Journal of Contemporary History 38.1 (2003): 117–131.
  • Lary, Diana. “Defending China: The Battles of the Xuzhou Campaign.” In Warfare in Chinese History, edited by Hans van de Ven, Leiden: Brill, 2000, pp 398–427.
  • Li, Chen. “The Chinese Army in the First Burma Campaign.” Journal of Chinese Military History 2 (2013): 43–73.
  • MacKinnon, Stephen R. “The Defense of the Central Yangtze.” In The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945, edited by Mark R. Peattie, Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven, 181–206. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.
  • ——, with Diana Lary, and Ezra F. Vogel, eds. China at War: Regions of China, 1937–45. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007.
  • ——. Wuhan, 1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.
  • Macri, Franco David. Clash of Empires in South China: The Allied Nations’ Proxy War with Japan, 1935–1941 . Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2015.
  • Martin, Bernd. “The Role of German Military Advisers on the Chinese Defense Efforts Against the Japanese, 1937–1938.” In Resisting Japan: Mobilizing for War in Modern China, 1935–1945, edited by David Pong, 55–78. Norwalk: EastBridge, 2008.
  • Mitter, Rana. Forgotten Ally: China ’s World War II, 1937 –1945 . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.
  • Peattie, Mark R., Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven, eds. The Battle for China:Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945 Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.
  • Phillips, Steve. “A Selected Bibliography of English Language Sources.” In The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945 , edited by Mark R.Peattie, Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011, pp 371–76.
  • Spector, Ronald. “The Sino-Japanese War in the Context of World History.” In The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945, edited by Mark R. Peattie, Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011, pp. 467–81.
  • Takeshi, Hara. “The Ichigō Offensive.” In The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945, edited by Mark R. Peattie, Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011, pp, 392– 402
  • Tow, Edna. “The Great Bombing of Chongqing and the Anti-Japanese War, 1937– 1945.” In The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945, edited by Mark R. Peattie, Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven, 237–55. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011, pp. 237–55.
  • Van de Ven, Hans. “The Sino-Japanese War in History.” In The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945 , edited by Mark R. Peattie, Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven, 446–66. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.
  • ——. China at War: Triumph and Tragedy in the Emergence of the New China, 1937 – 1952 . London: Profile Books, 2017; Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 2018.
  • van Slyke, Lyman P. “The Battle of the Hundred Regiments: Problems of Coordination and Control during the Sino-Japanese War.” Modern Asian Studies 4 (1996): 979–1005.
  • Wang, Qisheng. “Battle of Hunan and The Chinese Military's Response to Operation Ichigō.” In The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945 , edited by Mark R. Peattie, Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011, pp. 403–18.
  • Yang, Kuisong. “Nationalist and Communist Guerilla Warfare in North China.” In The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937 –1945 , edited by Mark R. Peattie, Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011, pp 308–27.
  • Yang, Tianshi. “Chiang Kai-shek and the Battles of Shanghai and Nanjing.” In The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945, edited by Mark R. Peattie, Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011, pp. 143–158.
  • Yu, Maochun. The Dragon's War: Allied Operations and the Fate of China, 1937 –1947. New York: Naval Institute Press, 2013.
  • Zang, Yunhu. “Chinese Operations in Yunnan and Central Burma.” In The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937 –1945, edited by Mark R. Peattie, Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011, pp. 386–91.
  • Zhang, Baijia. “China's Quest for Foreign Military Aid.” In The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945, edited by Mark R. Peattie, Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven, 283– 307. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.

Civil War 1945–1949

  • Tanner, Harold Miles. "Guerrilla, mobile, and base warfare in Communist military operations in Manchuria, 1945–1947." Journal of Military History 67.4 (2003): 1177–1222 online.
  • Tanner, Harold M. Where Chiang Kai-Shek Lost China: The Liao-Shen Campaign, 1948 (Indiana University Press, 2015).
  • Jowett, Philip (2005). The Chinese Army 1937-49 World War II and Civil War (PDF). Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-84176-904-5.

After 1949

  • O'Dowd, Edward C. Chinese Military Strategy in the Third Indochina War: The Last Maoist War (Routledge, 2007).
  • Ryan, Mark A., David Michael Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt. Chinese Warfighting: the PLA experience since 1949 (ME Sharpe, 2003).
  • Wortzel, Larry M. The dragon extends its reach: Chinese military power goes global (Potomac Books, 2013).
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