THE WARLORD (THE THIRD REVOLUTION Book 4)

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Monday 17 September UK News feed. The valiant English hero of modern legend, as depicted in the BBC One children's series, Merlin, bears no resemblance to the historical reality. Dr Simon Young, a historian and expert in Celtic studies, claims in The Celtic Revolution that Arthur was a hero of a very different kind for the Celts. Warlords in the fifth and sixth centuries lived in an age which was extremely unpleasant and very violent.

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But the sword in the stone, the lady in the lake, the suit of armour — these were all added to the legend by English writers centuries later. He was not this wonderful, chivalric individual. Two sixth-century warlords, one called Arthur and another named Artur, are the likely inspiration for the legend, according to Dr Young, while a Roman general named Artorius who served in Britain in the second or third centuries has also been suggested as a contender.

It warns that Arthur will return from the dead and wage a bloodthirsty war against the English, wiping out so many that there will be "cadavers standing, holding each other up" because there is no room for the corpses to fall. The poem imagines a battlefield where "the Englishman does not know where to travel, where to run and where he should stay. The British Celts will run into battle, mountain bears, determined to avenge their kin. He intervened and took control of China's northernmost province, Heilongjiang , after a rebellion there forced the local governor to flee.

The Third Revolution

Because the governor of Jilin had been linked to the attempt to restore the monarchy, Zhang had allies from Jilin successfully agitate for the governor's dismissal in Beijing. By Zhang's control of Manchuria was complete, except for the small areas held by the Japanese Empire. A Tianjin-based honghuzi leader negotiated with Zhang Zuolin. In Zhang was the supreme ruler of Manchuria. The central government acknowledged this by appointing him Governor-General of the Three Eastern Provinces. He began to surround himself in luxury, building a chateau-style home near Shenyang, and had at least five wives an accepted practice of any powerful or wealthy Chinese at the time.

His power rested on the Fengtian Army , which was composed of about , men in and almost triple that number by the end of the decade. It had obtained large stocks of weapons left over from World War I and included naval units, an air force and an armaments industry. Zhang integrated a large number of local militias into his army, and thus prevented Manchuria from falling into the chaos which reigned in China proper at the time. Jilin province was ruled by a military governor, who was said to be a cousin of Zhang; Heilongjiang had its own regional warlord, who never displayed any ambitions outside the province.

Although Manchuria officially remained a part of the Republic of China , it became more or less an independent kingdom isolated from China by its geography and protected by the Fengtian Army. The only pass at Shanhaiguan , where the Great Wall meets the sea, could easily be closed. In a time when the central government was barely able to pay the salaries of its civil servants, no more revenues were forwarded to Beijing. In Zhang took control of the only rail link, the Beijing-Shenyang Railway , north of the Great Wall and also kept these revenues.

Only postal and customs revenues were continued to be sent to Beijing, because they had been pledged to the victorious foreign powers after the failed Boxer rebellion of , and Zhang feared their intervention. Manchuria shared a long border with Russia , which had been weakened militarily after the October Revolution.

The line of the Chinese Eastern Railway , which was under Russian control, ran through northern Manchuria and the land immediately on either side of the tracks was considered to be Russian territory. From to about the new Communist government in Moscow was having such difficulties establishing itself in Siberia that often it was not clear who was in charge of operating the railway on the Russian side. Still, Zhang avoided a showdown and after the Soviets re-established their dominance over the railroad.

The precariousness of the situation was demonstrated by an outbreak of pneumonic plague in Hailar , a town at the western end of the Chinese Eastern Railway, in October Chinese troops were present in great number and turned railway quarantine into a farce. The soldiers freed some of their comrades who had been imprisoned as contacts, and they escaped to the mining town of Dalainor on the Amur River, where a quarter of the population died. In the other direction, all of the towns along the Chinese Eastern Railway as far as Vladivostok were infected.

Around 9, died, while only a few contacts were able to reach south Manchuria. The Japanese posed more of a problem. After the Russo-Japanese war of they had gained two important outposts in south Manchuria: It included the ice-free port of Dairen known as Dalian in Chinese , which became the main link to Japan. Reaching northward from the colony, the South Manchurian Railway passed through Shenyang referred to as Mukden by the Japanese , linking up with the Chinese Eastern Railway in Changchun. The land on either side of the railway tracks remained extraterritorial, now being controlled by the Japanese Kwantung Army.

This army maintained 7,, men in Manchuria, tolerating and being tolerated by the Fengtian Army, although Zhang kept up a war of words, playing on anti-Japanese sentiments in the Chinese public. At the beginning of the s Zhang transformed Manchuria from an unimportant frontier region to one of the most prosperous parts of China.

He had inherited a financially weak provincial government--in Fengtian faced ten outstanding loans from foreign-controlled consortia and banks totaling over 12 million yuan. Zhang chose Wang Yongjiang , who had served as head of a regional tax office, for the task of solving Fengtian's financial problems.

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He was appointed Director of the Bureau of Finance. A number of currencies were circulating in the province, as was the custom in China, and the paper notes issued by the provincial government had experienced a steady depreciation in value. Wang decided to switch to a silver standard and set the initial value of the new silver yuan equal to the Japanese gold yen , which was accepted throughout Korea and Manchuria.


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Much to the surprise of the Chinese the new currency even gained in value against the gold yen, although Japanese businessmen claimed that it was not backed up by sufficient silver reserves. Wang then used the newly gained credibility to introduce another note, the Fengtian dollar , which was not convertible into silver anymore. However, it was accepted by the government for the payment of taxes, a sign of faith in its own currency.


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    6. Next Wang turned to the chaotic tax collecting system. Because of his former job, he was well acquainted with the abuses of the system and introduced a number of controls. The provincial government had also invested government funds in various enterprises, many of which were poorly managed. Wang ordered a review of government-sponsored firms.

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    From revenues rose steadily, and by all outstanding loans had been repaid and there was even a budget surplus. Wang was rewarded by being appointed Civil Governor of Fengtian province while remaining Director of the Bureau of Finance. He retained the title of Military Governor of Fengtian.

    Still, more than two-thirds of the budget was allocated to the military. In the summer of Zhang made a foray into north China on the other side of the Great Wall, trying to topple Duan Qirui, the leading warlord of Beijing. He did this by supporting another warlord, Cao Kun , with troops and they successfully ousted Duan. As a reward, Zhang was granted control over most of inner Mongolia to the west of Manchuria. He had become a figure of national prominence, but he was confronted by Wu Peifu , a divisional commander of the North China Zhili clique , which was based in the province of Zhili that surrounded Beijing.

    In the spring of Zhang personally took the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Fengtian Army, and on 19 April his forces entered China proper. Fighting started three days later, and on 4 May they were seriously defeated by the Zhili Army in what came to be known as the First Zhili-Fengtian War. Three thousand troops had been killed and 7, wounded, and Zhang's units retreated to Shanhaiguan Pass.

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    Zhili forces were in control of Beijing, Zhang's image as a national leader had been destroyed and he reacted by declaring Manchuria independent from Beijing in May On 22 June Wang left Shenyang for Japanese-controlled Dalian, allegedly for treatment of an eye infection. From there he challenged Zhang by demanding restrictions to military spending and complete control over civil affairs. Zhang gave in, lifted martial law and agreed to a separation of civil and military administration in all of the three provinces.

    Wang returned on 6 August, thereby ensuring Manchuria's continued stability. In the following years Wang realised a far-reaching development plan. He tried to bring more workers into the booming Manchurian economy. Most had come on a temporary basis, returning to their homes in north China in winter. The Manchurian government now encouraged them to bring women and children, and settle permanently. As an incentive, they were made eligible for reduced fares on all Chinese-owned railways in Manchuria, received funds to build a dwelling and were promised total ownership after five years of continuous occupation.

    Rent for the land was canceled for the first years. Most were sent to the interior of Manchuria, where they reclaimed land for agriculture, or worked in forestry or mines. Manchuria's economy boomed while chaos and uncertainty reigned in the rest of China. An especially ambitious project was to break the Japanese monopoly on cotton textiles by creating a large mill, which, much to Japan's sorrow, succeeded. The government also invested in other enterprises, among them quite a number of Sino-Japanese companies.

    During this time the Fengtian Army successfully kept a lid on Manchuria's many bandits.

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    Various railway lines were built, among them the Shenyang- Hailong line, which opened in By this he tried to create a development bank and at the same time keep accurate records of military spending. After the disastrous defeat of , Zhang had reorganized his Fengtian Army, started a training program and bought new equipment, including mobile radios and machine guns. In the autumn of fighting broke out again in central China.


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      7. Zhang saw an opportunity to capture north China and Beijing and become head of the central government. While most other warlord armies fought along the Yangtze River , Zhang attacked north China. The Second Zhili—Fengtian War had begun. He shared power with Zhang and both appointed the same Duan Qirui he had ousted in One unit even marched as far south as the city of Shanghai. However, the military situation was so unstable that Sun Chuanfang , a Zhili clique warlord whose sphere of influence extended along the Yangtze, managed to push back the Fengtian Army again.

      By November Zhang held only a small corner of north China, including a corridor connecting Beijing with Manchuria. Attacks on Beijing continued into the spring of Manchuria was placed under martial law again, while its economy disintegrated under the burden of the insatiable war machine. Old taxes were increased and new taxes invented.