At the peak of the Warlord Era in China, how many warlords were there/were estimated to be active?

by Victor_Starffin

I’ve been looking deep into Chinese history from about the 1890’s to 1949, and I find it hard to get a scope on how many warlords there were during the Warlord Era. I can reliably find info on most cliques (ie; the ones in the major provinces) but I’m assuming there have to be some more “minor” warlords that weren’t totally lost to history.

Drdickles

This is a pretty tough question is answer, and really there is no "correct" answer. This is mainly due to the fact that what the definition of a "warlord" in 1910-30s China was, is debated. Most people wouldn't call Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek warlords, but there are many historians who consider them to be (mainly Chiang). And I think this is fair because the Nationalist government was slow to be recognized globally as the legitimate government of China (the first recognized government post-Yuan Shikai is what we call the Beiyang Government, lasting until 1928). We can safely say that men like Zhang Zuolin and Cao Kun, for example, were warlords however, who often allied, betrayed, and then allied again with each other multiple times.

If what you're looking for is exactly how many generals were running around claiming to be warlords, then you're looking at probably around 100 to be safe, maybe more ambitious estimates being 150-200 if you count those who died or were exiled and had their children/subordinates rise to fill the vacancy. I'm assuming this is the part you're interested in mostly, but the information known about most of these subordinate and lower-ranking warlord generals is slim, and many of the valuable resources are primary resources which I don't have access to right now, and have not been translated into English. You'll notice that the Wiki page for "Warlord China" is actually very well sourced and informative, and I can vouch that many of the sources references are up to date, and recognized as stellar works. But if you click on lesser powerful/known warlords, let's use Cao Kun for example, the page is lacking in substance. The aforementioned reasons are why. Many of these generals led very average lives before the 1910s and there is very little to be written about them. In fact if the Qing had never fallen, then 90% of these men would probably only be mentioned off-hand in esoteric primary sources. This was one of the things my adviser warned me about the warlord period before I decided that was the period I wanted to get into. There is a possibility someone on this subreddit can answer more in-depth about these low ranking warlords, but its doubtful as I rarely ever see any questions being answered about this period.

Using what we have available to us though, I think the lists on Wiki are more or less accurate. Most of the men who played a small role were either assassinated or disenfranchised before given the chance to make any political move. The 'cliques' accurately describe to us what the political landscape of China looked like both pre-KMT and after. It was very common for Chinese generals to band together instead of being left out to die individually. A few warlords, defecting to the KMT during the Northern Expedition (1926), would later rebel against Chiang, the largest being the Central Plains War (1929-30). And keep in mind that the Northern Expedition did not unify all of China, Zhang Zuolin/Xueliang would still rule over Manchuria. In 1933 Sheng Shicai began his rule over Xinjiang that would last until 1944

In conclusion this isn't really an answer, but I wanted to let you know that what you've found is most likely the best you'll get for a non-historian on the subject. I'm very glad that the Warlord period piques a lot of interest, but it is also very chaotic and it is increasingly hard to find primary resources on the period. Many of these generals will probably remain shrouded in mystery.