Peiyang Militarists

or Northern Militarists, a feudal proimperialist group that ruled in China from 1912 to 1927. Its founder was Yuan Shih-k’ai. Relying on the Peiyang (Northern) Army, which he had created, he seized power in northern China in 1912, during the Hsinhai Revolution. After the defeat of the so-called Second Revolution in 1913, the Peiyang military clique extended its hegemony to central and southern China. After the death of Yuan Shih-k’ai (1916), the Peiyang group disintegrated into the Anhwei faction and the Chihli faction. The Fengt’ien faction also entered the sphere of Peiyang militarism in 1918. During the Northern Campaign of 1926-27, the troops of the Peiyang militarists were beaten by the National Revolutionary Army, soon after which the Peiyang militarists departed from the political arena. Their hegemony was replaced by the power of Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang.