1881 2 13 The Demon King of the Mixed World Zhang Zongchang

Among the warlords of **.

There is a very special warlord.

Now he is the most uploaded on the Internet.

It's those "soul" limericks of his.

But in fact. He's done a lot of bastard things.

But those poems are not necessarily the best authors he wroteFebruary 13, 1881

Zhang Zongchang was born

On February 13, 1881, Zhang Zongchang was born in Ye County, Shandong.

This day is the fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar calendar, which is the "Shangyuan Festival". There is a local folk saying: "The fifteenth official of the first year of junior high school", so Zhang Zongchang was nicknamed "Lamp Official" - the family naturally hopes that he can become a big official in the future.

But at least Zhang Zongchang's family environment does not create many good conditions for him: his father Zhang Wenfu usually can't make money from farming, so he can only subsidize the family by blowing the trumpet for some red and white things. Soon after her biological mother, Hou, gave birth to him, she "jumped ship" (in fact, she ran away) and went to live at a man's house in a neighboring township.

The ancient city tower of Ye County. Ye County was withdrawn from the county in 1988 to build Laizhou City, which is a county-level city and is managed by Yantai City.

Under such circumstances, Zhang Zongchang began to work part-time at the age of 13, farming, herding cattle, being a man, and doing any job. But in troubled times, life was still too poor to survive, and in the end, he could only go to Kanto like many poor Shandong villagers at that time.

"Crossing the Guandong", like "going to the South Seas", is a famous population migration in modern Chinese history. Countless people who "broke through the Kanto" were actually just begging for a bite to eat, and their fate did not change much, but Zhang Zongchang was one of the lucky ones - this step he took made a decisive change in his life.

A few years later, the villagers sent the news that Zhang Zongchang "really became a big official outside" back to the township, although he gave his son the nickname of "lamp official", but Zhang Zongchang's father Zhang Wenfu still didn't believe it:

He has that life, can he be a big official? I still have to live on the 'big pole' (blowing the trumpet)! ”

What Dad Zhang said was also right and wrong.

From a secular point of view, his son Zhang Zongchang really became a big official, and he is still a big one.

But later generations did not focus on this "official" in their evaluation.

Many people's evaluation of Zhang Zongchang is often just four words:

The Demon King of the World".

The first word of "Demon King of the Mixed World" is very important - to be able to "mix". When Zhang Zongchang's mother, Hou, was in the village, she was famous for her "height and strength", and she could easily carry a bag of grain with one hand. Zhang Zongchang obviously got his mother's genes, he grew tall since he was a child, and his height exceeded 1 when he became an adult9 meters, one station in the crowd, often stands out from the crowd.

People are tall, but willing to bow their heads. When he first broke into the eastern part of the country, crossing the sea from Yantai to Yingkou, Zhang Zongchang didn't even have the money for the ferry ticket, but he immediately helped people carry a big bag on the dock for three months and made up enough for the boat fare. After that, he wandered in Yingkou, Shenyang, Harbin, Changchun and other places in the northeast, panning for gold in gold mines, turning gates on railways, doing a lot of business, and mixing with bandits.

Zhang Zongchang has a strong body, strong arm strength, and a good brain, and he is proficient in a technology after learning a technology, so he has been a foreman on the railway, and a chief foreman in a gold mine. During the Russo-Japanese War, Zhang Zongchang relied on the "pidgin" Russian he learned to help the Russian army transport baggage, and he also got in touch with the best people.

Chinese workers on the construction site in Vladivostok in 1919

But this level is far from reaching the level of the "Demon King of the Mixed World", at most he is a rogue leader who runs rampant in the place, Zhang Zongchang also knows this, so he has always wanted to "do a big deal".

What made him stunned was not "The Art of War", but a newspaper message.

At the end of October 1911, Zhang Zongchang received a shocking piece of news from a local Russian-language newspaper

The "Xinhai Revolution" broke out in China, and the sky changed overnight, and the Manchu Dynasty was in danger and wanted a republic!

Zhang Zongchang, who had just entered the year of establishment, was immediately keenly aware that this was likely to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him.

He immediately asked someone to introduce him, got to know the local revolutionaries, and expressed his willingness to return to China to "drive out the Tartars and restore China" together.

Zhang Zongchang obviously had his own advantages: he used the prestige and power he had built up over the years to pull up a team of more than 400 people at once, most of whom had guns.

Soon, under the arrangement of the revolutionaries, Zhang Zongchang's armed team set off from Vladivostok and went straight to Shanghai by boat via Nagasaki, Japan.

This Shandong man, who is nearly 2 meters tall, officially started his road to the "Demon King of the Mixed World".

In the first step, Zhang Zongchang actually stepped into the void.

According to the plan, he initially voted for Hu Ying, the governor of Shandong appointed by Sun Yat-sen, but Hu Ying could not get real power in Shandong at that time, so he turned to the powerful Shanghai governor Chen Qimei - but by the time he arrived in Shanghai, Shanghai had already been recovered.

However, after all, Zhang Zongchang was a "leader in the group" and was known for his bravery, so he was soon appointed as the head of the cavalry regiment of the Shanghai Liberation Army, stationed in the Zhabei area to be responsible for maintaining local security.

After the founding of China, the north and the south soon broke up, and the "second revolution" broke out. At this time, Zhang Zongchang was already the commander of the Third Division of the Jiangsu Army, and he was sent to Xuzhou to meet Feng Guozhang's division of the Beiyang Army going south.

Feng Guozhang was Yuan Shikai's confidant, and the Beiyang Army led by him was also an elite division, and Zhang Zongchang's troops were quickly beaten to the ground. At the time of the defeat, Zhang Zongchang sacrificed a "mixed" word according to the situation he had observed before, and immediately surrendered to Zhang Xun under Feng Guozhang, and through Zhang Xun's recommendation, he saw Feng Guozhang, who had wanted to lure him down, and immediately expressed his allegiance.

In this way, Zhang Zongchang changed from a revolutionary army to the Beiyang Army, and became a thug of a direct warlord.

The picture shows Feng Gong playing his great-grandfather Feng Guozhang in "The Great Cause of the Founding of the Party".

Although Feng Guozhang later rose all the way and achieved **big**, Zhang Zongchang actually did not win a few battles for him. As soon as Feng Guozhang died, he immediately lost his backer, and coupled with the repeated defeats of the army, the foundation he had saved in Jiangsu was also lost.

In desperation, Zhang Zongchang decided to take refuge in Cao Kun, a powerful faction that had risen in the Beiyang system at that time, Cao Kun didn't mind, but a large number of his generals, including Wu Peifu, were resolutely opposed

This person was born in a bandit, greedy for money and lustful, and the military discipline of the army is extremely poor, what are you going to do?

According to the general public, Zhang Zongchang had already entered the age of not being confused at that time, and when he got mixed up to this point, he would accept it when he saw it, take the little belongings he had saved before, and go home to live a good life.

But Zhang Zongchang categorically refused, and he soon locked in a new direction: his "second hometown" Northeast.

Zhang Zuolin, the "King of the Northeast" there, is not only his own family, but also has a background with him.

This "return to the horse gun", Zhang Zongchang really killed the right one.

Zhang Zuolin did take Zhang Zongchang in, but at first he only made him a military police battalion commander.

Zhang Zongchang came over with the title of "division commander" and gave others a "low-allocation" battalion commander, which is no wonder Zhang Zuolin. In the warlord melee era of "someone with a gun is the king", Zhang Zongchang had basically exhausted his family funds at that time, and he couldn't bring anything to Zhang Zuolin, who was already "well-off".

But not long after Zhang Zongchang defected to Zhang Zuolin, luck came: at that time, Zhang Zuolin was defeated in the Second Zhifeng War and retreated outside the Guan, and before he could catch his breath, a brigade commander in Jilin rebelled with a gang of bandits. Zhang Zuolin was nervous about the soldiers in his hands at that time, so he sent Zhang Zongchang to quell the rebellion.

Zhang Zongchang took the little soldiers at hand and went over to take a look: Good guy! The big and small leaders in this group of bandits are either brothers who "broke into the eastern part of the country" together back then, or they are their fellow villagers in Shandong, all of whom are acquaintances! And this group of bandits has always known about the famous "long-legged" Zhang Zongchang, and immediately expressed their willingness to accept "Zhao'an".

As a result, Zhang Zongchang did not spend a single soldier or a single bullet and incorporated three regiments of bandits.

What's more, not long after, Zhang Zongchang incorporated a "white army" that was defeated in the Soviet Union, and on this basis, a pure "sub-army" was established.

Zhang Zongchang's "White Russian Army" later became an important part of his armed forces, and he also purchased armored trains on this basis, which was once imitated by other warlords

After having his own territory, Zhang Zongchang's ** illness was committed again: he began to eat, drink and enjoy himself, and connived at his subordinates to do mischief. In order to maintain his own expenses and military salaries, he actually allowed his troops to grow opium in his defense area.

Zhang Zongchang's various behaviors, even Zhang Zuolin, who used "Mom Labazi" as a punctuation mark, felt disgusted, not to mention other generals. In 1923, Zhang Zuolin sent his confidant Guo Songling as a special envoy, nominally saying that he would review the exercises of Zhang Zongchang's troops, but in fact instructed Guo Songling to disband the troops if necessary.

The lines of Li Xuejian, who played Zhang Zuolin in the TV series "Young Marshal".

In any case, facts have proved that Zhang Zuolin's decision not to dismantle Zhang Zongchang's troops was correct.

In September 1924, the Second Zhifeng War broke out, Zhang Zongchang, as Zhang Zuolin's die-hard loyalist, fought all the way to the front, and his "** sub-army" fought cruelly and bloody, which left a deep impression on the direct army. The final outcome of this war was Feng Yuxiang's coup d'état and the launch of the "Beijing Incident", which completely collapsed overnight and won a complete victory for the Feng family. (For details, see [5.17] Cao Kun).

Zhang Zongchang, who had made great achievements, knew that he had the weight to ask for a reward, and he obviously could not escape one of the biggest complexes of the warlords at that time: sealing a piece of his own territory and building a "small kingdom" of his own.

In April 1925, Zhang Zongchang, with the support of Zhang Zuolin and the acquiescence of Duan Qirui, waved his army into Shandong.

The title of 44-year-old Zhang Zongchang at this time is "Shandong Provincial Governor and Provincial Chairman", which can be described as returning to his hometown in fine clothes and being extremely honorable.

So, what is the effect of Lu people governing Lu?

Zhang Zongchang was most criticized in his life for the things he did during his tenure in Shandong.

As a son of Shandong, Zhang Zongchang's most important thing after taking control of the real power in Shandong is not to benefit his hometown fathers and elders, but to loot the people's fat and ointment.

Before Zhang Zongchang supervised Lu, Shandong's land per mu was added up to a total of 2 yuan and 2 jiao, and Zhang Zongchang immediately doubled it after he came, and then doubled it again; The tobacco and alcohol tax was originally levied at 600,000 yuan throughout the year, but Zhang Zongchang also ordered it to be doubled; The road tax was originally 1 million yuan, but Zhang Zongchang ordered it to be tripled.

In addition, in order to set up a clever name to collect all kinds of harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes, Zhang Zongchang also set up three major organs, namely the "Financial Clean-up Office," the "Provincial Inspection and Collection Bureau," and the "Tax Supervision Office," in addition to the Department of Finance, and there were more than 600 people in the Supervision Office alone, all of which added up to more than 1,000 people, and specially collected various taxes such as housing donation tax, stamp duty, landing tax, and production and marketing tax for Zhang Zongchang.

Rao is like this, Zhang Zongchang's ** is still unable to make ends meet - he has expanded his team vigorously, and as long as someone comes to defect, he will be given an official position. Originally, Shandong Province's annual military expenditure was more than 5 million yuan, but as soon as Zhang Zongchang arrived, the expenditure immediately doubled. For this reason, Zhang Zongchang simply opened a machine to print money and issued so-called "military bills" indiscriminately, which led to the rapid collapse of Shandong's finances, soaring prices, and the people's livelihood.

The complacent Zhang Zongchang

Zhang Zongchang was not soft in making money, and the suppression was also very bloody. He tortured the people at will, killing people without blinking. Soon after he came to Shandong, the people of Shandong said: "Cut open and bright" - cut the head directly; "Listen" hung the severed head on a telephone pole.

In 1925, Qingdao workers went on strike to resist the exploitation and oppression of Japanese factory owners, and Zhang Zongchang ordered the military police to rush into the factory and shoot directly at the unarmed workers, killing 8 people on the spot and seriously injuring 17 people, creating a "Qingdao **" that shocked the whole country

In this context, Zhang Zongchang soon became the most notorious of the Beiyang warlords.

All kinds of jokes about him are popular all over the country.

Generally, the most ridiculed by later generations is Zhang Zongchang's limerick poem.

In fact, those brain-opening poems such as "the wind is blowing and the mother is blowing" or "the top is thin and the bottom is thick" should not have been done by him, but by others. But his famous title of "Three Unknown Generals" cannot be escaped.

The first is "I don't know how much money I have".

This has been described before, Zhang Zongchang's means of collecting money are first-class, and spending money is like flowing water, the common people last a few yuan for a month, and he casually buys a dog for his aunt and wife for a few thousand yuan. According to statistics, from Zhang Zongchang's supervision of Lu to his departure, the personal wealth looted reached hundreds of millions of yuan.

Zhang Zongchang

Constantly expanding his own troops was a common problem of warlords in that era, and Zhang Zongchang was just more obsessed. At that time, he claimed to have 400,000 troops, but in fact there were 200,000 - which was indeed not a small number among the warlords of the time.

But the problem was that Zhang Zongchang lacked the ability to manage the army and the financial support, which led to the lack of discipline in his troops, which ultimately endangered the people. This can be seen from the popular sayings of the people in Shandong at that time: Zhang Zongchang's troops were described as having many numbers and miscellaneous soldiers, such as "commanders walking all over the streets, and many staff officers like dogs", reflecting that his army oppressed the people, "the head melon seed is a passport, and the Malabazi is a ticket", and the officers and soldiers under Zhang Zongchang included "** soldiers", who often bought and sold forcibly on the streets in broad daylight, drank too much to cause trouble, and even raped women.

The third is "I don't know how many aunts I have".

Zhang Zongchang has a name and surname, and the recorded aunt and wife have 23 rooms, and there are countless others in the open and in the dark. But to be honest, many of Zhang Zongchang's aunts and wives are Qinglou women, and he is happy to redeem others as his aunt's wife, and he doesn't care about it. And some of his aunts and wives later left him to find a new life, and he did not deliberately stop him.

Zhang Zongchang's height can indeed make him stand out from the crowd and naturally occupy the C position. In the picture, 1 is Zhang Zuolin, 2 is Zhang Zongchang, 3 is Wu Peifu, and 4 is Zhang Xueliang.

Zhang Zongchang also did not hesitate to spend a lot of money to establish Shandong University, and invited Wang Shoupeng, the champion of Guangxu in the 29th year, to be the president. However, this new-style university was different from Peking University, Nankai University, and Northeastern University at that time, paying attention to respecting Confucius and retro, and students in the school had to bend down and even kneel down when they saw the teacher, and many of the subjects studied were the contents of the Four Books and Five Classics. Therefore, at that time, many students in Shandong Province would rather be admitted to universities outside the province than study at Shandong University, and jokingly called this school "Alexander" - Shandong University in Licheng County, Asia. (For the story of the warlord's university, see [10.]24] The warlords of those years actually ran so many universities? ）

In 1926, the gate of Shandong University was established

But in the troubled times of China at that time, few people could be lucky all the time.

On July 9, 1927, the National Revolutionary Army swore in the Northern Expedition, targeting warlords large and small.

At that time, the main targets of the Northern Expeditionary Army were Wu Peifu, Zhang Zuolin, and Sun Chuanfang, commander-in-chief of the "Five Provinces Alliance". At this time, the warlords from all walks of life, who had been awkward before, were forced to join forces against the Northern Expeditionary Army, and Zhang Zongchang, who was the commander-in-chief of the "Zhilu Coalition Army", became the vanguard.

In October 1927, Zhang Zongchang led the army and Feng Yuxiang's troops, who had joined the Northern Expedition, fought fiercely in the area of Lankao, Henan. The proud Zhang Zongchang ignored the dissuasion of his generals and shot Zheng Jinsheng, and by the way, confiscated all his family property in Jinan.

In 1925, Zhang Zongchang's troops fought fiercely with Sun Chuanfang's troops, and Shi Congbin, the former enemy commander-in-chief appointed by Zhang Zongchang, was captured. Ten years later, Sun Chuanfang was shot and killed by Shi Congbin's daughter Shi Jianqiao for revenge.

Zhang Zongchang still had 50,000 remnants in his hands at this time, and he wanted to go out of the customs to join Zhang Xueliang, but all the generals of the Feng army were wary of him and politely declined. Zhang Zongchang, who was trapped in Shandong, was surrounded by the Northern Expeditionary Army, and finally had to throw away his troops and flee to Japan alone, where he became a duke in Tokyo.

If the 47-year-old Zhang Zongchang is willing to choose to quit the stage at this time, then he should be able to enjoy his old age like Cao Kun, Duan Qirui, and Zhang Xun, at least enjoy his old age and have a good death. But he felt that he still had a lot of "residual heat" to play, so on the one hand, he exchanged letters frequently with the "Emperor Xun" Pu Yi, hoping to get financial help, and on the other hand, he sneaked back to Beijing with the remnants and frequently contacted various forces, hoping to make a comeback.

What he hoped most was to return to his hometown of Shandong and continue to be his "soil emperor" - this idea finally changed the outcome of his life.

At that time, it was already Han Fuyu who was in charge of Shandong. Although Han Fuyu has a good relationship with Zhang Zongchang on the surface, and the two even married brothers, in fact, Han Fuyu, who also has a strong "sense of territory", is very wary of Zhang Zongchang. Once Han Fuyu invited Zhang Zongchang to a banquet, Zhang Zongchang said a sentence when he was drunk:

Many of my old subordinates are now scattered all over Shandong, and I only need to go and say hello, and I can immediately merge into a team! ”

Zhang Zongchang's original intention may have been to lose sincerity, but this sentence made Han Fuyu smart.

At the end of August 1932, Zhang Zongchang, who was in Beiping, received a letter from Han Fuyu, inviting him to go to Jinan to "conspire for great things".

Not only Zhang Zongchang's subordinates, but his mother and Zhang Xueliang persuaded him not to go to Jinan, but Zhang Zongchang was eager for "rejuvenation" and decided to go to Jinan.

And this time, he embarked on a path of no return.

After Zhang Zongchang arrived in Jinan, he was warmly received by Han Fuyu.

Although he was quite moved, Zhang Zongchang had no bottom in his heart: Han Fuyu never talked about what "big things" he wanted to conspire with, but just hospitted him warmly every day. For this, even a person like Zhang Zongchang who is very arrogant will inevitably be suspicious.

On the morning of September 3, 1932, Zhang Zongchang suddenly said goodbye to Han Fuyu, saying that his mother was seriously ill and needed to rush back to Beiping immediately.

There are two versions of this resignation. One theory is that Zhang Xueliang borrowed the name of Zhang Zongchang's aunt and wife to say that his mother was critically ill and urged him to leave Jinan. Another theory is that Zhang Zongchang was wandering in Han Fuyu's mansion before a banquet, and saw a photo of Han Fuyu and Zheng Jinsheng in a room, and immediately broke out in a cold sweat - Zheng Jinsheng was the one he ordered to be shot. So, in the end, he found his own excuse to leave.

Hearing that Zhang Zongchang was going to resign, Han Fuyu did not forcibly keep him, but held an afternoon banquet for him to solemnly practice, but he just shirked that he had important matters and could not go to the train station to see Zhang Zongchang off.

Han Fuju was later executed by Chiang Kai-shek's order during the Anti-Japanese War (see [11.] for details24] Shot Han Fuyu).

Seeing this, Zhang Zongchang shouted, "Not good! Turn around and run.

Zhang Zongchang always carried a number of pistols with him, but one was given to Shi Yousan, who was the matchmaker for him and Han Fuyu, at the banquet, and the other were locked in a small carry-on bag (which contained various confidential documents and passwords), and he couldn't open them for a while, so he could only run with his bare hands and run along the railway for his life.

The two Assassins gave hot pursuit, and finally managed to catch up with Zhang Zongchang, who was already outnumbered in physical strength, and a bullet hit him in the head, and then the two of them each shot him in the head a few more times until he was beaten to the head.

A generation of "demon kings of the mixed world" was shot and killed by the railway in his hometown of Shandong.

After killing Zhang Zongchang, the two Assassins did not flee, but calmly surrendered.

As soon as their identities were revealed, there was an uproar: one was named Zheng Jicheng, who was Zheng Jinsheng's nephew, and was later considered to be his stepson, and the other was Chen Fengshan, who was Zheng Jinshan's guard.

Zheng Jicheng said frankly that killing Zhang Thief was to "eliminate harm for the people and avenge his father".

And Zheng Jicheng's other identity is Han Fuyu's ** senator of Shandong Province, when his stepfather was killed and his family property was confiscated, he could only live in the Tianjin concession, and it was Han Fuyu who took his family back to Jinan and settled down.

After the news of Zheng Jicheng's "avenging his father" came out, the whole country was pleading for him, thinking that he was "seeking justice", and that Zhang Zongchang himself was listed as a "wanted criminal" by the people, and he did not need to pay for his life to kill him.

This matter was operated by Feng Yuxiang and others behind the scenes, forming a huge **, and finally Zheng Jicheng was announced to be pardoned a month later, and became a hero after being released from prison.

After Zhang Zongchang died at that time, his secretary general who came later shouted to 50 oceans, but no one was willing to carry his body. And the coffin shops in Jinan are also unwilling to ** the coffin to let Zhang Zongchang be buried. Zhang Zongchang's subordinates finally bought a coffin to be buried, and the coffin was temporarily parked in the Anhui Township Ancestral Hall in Jinan, which caused the Anhui Township Collective in Jinan to claim to burn Zhang's coffin.

In the end, it was Zhang Xueliang and other old people of the Fengjun who operated, and Zhang Zongchang's body was transported back to Beiping and buried in Xishan. And his huge family business also dissipated, and after receiving a small inheritance from his aunt and wife, he went his own way.

After a mixed life and three years of supervision, Zhang Zongchang finally bid farewell to the historical stage with such an ending.

End of this article).This article mainly refers to **:

1. "Bandit General Zhang Zongchang" (edited by the Literature, History and Study Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, China Literature and History Publishing House, January 1, 2016).

2. "Killing ** to Avenge Father" (Zheng Jicheng, "Bandit General Zhang Zongchang", edited by the Literature, History and Study Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, China Literature and History Publishing House, January 1, 2016).

3. "Zhang Zongchang and His White Russian Mercenaries" (Lu An, "Literature and History World", Issue 01, 2021).

4. "Zhang Zongchang's End and Death" (Guo Xuyin, "Together in the Boat", October 2016).

5. "Zhang Zongchang Case - * Assassination Case Series No. 10" (Weizi, "People's Public Security", November 2015).

6, "Zhang Zongchang: The Beginning and End of Jinan" (Lu An, Spring and Autumn, 2022 Issue 01).

7. "Zhang Zongchang and Shandong Education and Cultural Undertakings" (Zhang Aihong, Lantai World, No. 13, 2006).