Warlords

Japanese: 軍閥 - ぐんばつ（英語表記）warlords

It refers to a political or military organization or group in which military personnel, beyond their official official authority, join forces with colleagues or subordinates for personal gain, and use their military power to participate in or take control of government, or to monopolize government in a particular region. Warlords have appeared in various eras and countries, but they were typically formed and developed in China from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the era of the Republic of China.

The warlords in China began in the second half of the 19th century when Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and others organized volunteer armies (the Xiang Army and the Huai Army) in their hometowns of Hunan and Anhui provinces, mainly with landlords and local gentry, who were based on their master-disciple relationships and local and blood ties, in order to suppress the Taiping Rebellion. These were later reorganized into the regular Qing army, and as they also served as loyal bureaucrats and became pillars of the reorganization of the Qing dynasty's autocratic rule, their warlord-like nature did not become apparent. The warlords were formed in earnest after Yuan Shikai, who was appointed by Li Hongzhang, organized the Beiyang Army after the Sino-Japanese War. Yuan placed graduates of the Tianjin Military Preparation School and the Beiyang Military Preparation School, which he had built and trained, in the core of this army, and as the authority of the Qing dynasty declined, he effectively placed them under his personal control. In particular, during the Xinhai Revolution (1911), he used this military force to force the Qing emperor to abdicate, while forcing the revolutionaries to make concessions, and became the first president of the Republic of China, seizing central power. To protect this power, he strengthened his military power by borrowing heavily from the great powers, including Great Britain, in exchange for the provision of concessions, and monopolized finance, banking, and transportation, and placed Confucian ethics at the center of school education. After Yuan's downfall and failure to restore the monarchy, the Beiyang warlords split into the Zhili faction (Wu Peifu) and the Anhui faction (Duan Qirui), and the Fengtian faction (Zhang Zuolin) and various large and small local warlords that seized local taxation and administrative power intensified the melee between the warlords over central and local power. The imperialist powers provided loans and weapons to these factions in an attempt to protect and expand their respective spheres of influence and interests. This unique phenomenon was caused by China's semi-feudal character, where capitalism had not yet developed to form a national economy that linked each region closely and inseparably, and by the fact that China was not a colony monopolized by a single powerful country, but rather a semi-colony in which multiple imperialist countries fought over control of China, with the semi-feudal ruling forces within China as their pillars of support. As the Kuomintang's armed unification progressed after 1926 (the Northern Expedition), the local warlords were gradually weakened, and in the process the Nationalist government in Nanjing itself came to take on the character of a new warlord, relying on the military power, landlord power, and bureaucratic capitalist power under the command of Chiang Kai-shek.

The land reform and other anti-feudal reforms carried out by the Government of the People's Republic of China decisively weakened the foundation for the establishment of warlord rule, but further modernization of the economy and democratization of society are believed to be the conditions for putting an end to the warlords' rule.

[Shinji Kojima]

Japan

In Japan, this corresponds to the situation in Kagoshima Prefecture from the breakdown of the Seikanron (Seikanron) debate to the Seinan War. The prefectural government was dominated by the Private School Party led by Saigo Takamori, and the prefecture was in a state similar to that of an independent country, without implementing any reforms by the central government or paying taxes. Under the Meiji government, the military, in which people from Satsuma and Choshu held real power, maintained a privileged position through the independence of command and the system of military ministers being active military officers. However, from the end of the Meiji period, when political parties began to gain power against the clan factions, the military's political independence began to be demonstrated in opposition, and these military forces came to be called military factions. During the Taisho democracy period, the military's political voice seemed to have temporarily declined, but with the Naval Disarmament Treaty and the Manchurian Incident as a turning point, and the February 26 Incident as a turning point, the military's political voice became absolute. The military's political control was completed from the Second Sino-Japanese War to the Pacific War. As various ruling forces, including monopoly capital, joined forces with the military, a system that appeared on the surface to be a military dictatorship was established, and it came to be known as warlordism.

[Shigeo Hayashi]

"Study of Modern Chinese Warlords" by Hatano Zendai (1973, Kawade Shobo Shinsha) " "The Rise and Fall of Chinese Warlords" by Lai Xinxia, translated by Iwasaki Fukuo (1969, Togensha)

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

Japanese:

軍人が本来の公的な職権を越えて、同僚や部下と私的に結合し、その軍事力を背景に政権に関与ないし掌握したり、特定地域の政権を独占した場合の政治・軍事機構またはその集団をいう。軍閥はさまざまな時代、また国々に発生したが、とくに中国で、清(しん)末以降、中華民国の時代に典型的に形成され発展した。

　中国における軍閥は、19世紀後半、太平天国運動を鎮圧するために、曽国藩(そうこくはん)、李鴻章(りこうしょう)らがその故郷湖南省・安徽(あんき)省で彼らとの師弟関係や地縁・血縁関係を軸に地主・郷紳を中心として組織した義勇軍（湘軍(しょうぐん)・淮軍(わいぐん)）に芽生えた。それらはのちに清の正規軍に改編され、彼らも清朝の忠実な官僚として清朝の専制支配再編の支柱となったため、軍閥的性格は顕在化しなかった。軍閥は、李鴻章に登用された袁世凱(えんせいがい)が日清戦争後編成した北洋陸軍以降本格的に形成された。袁はこの軍の中枢に、彼が建設し養成した天津(てんしん)武備学堂、北洋武備学堂などの卒業生を配し、清朝の権威が衰退するなかで、これらを事実上私的な支配下に置いた。とくに辛亥(しんがい)革命（1911）に際して、彼はこの武力を背景に清帝を退位させ、他方で革命派に譲歩を強いて、中華民国の初代大総統に就任して中央権力を奪取した。この権力を守るために、彼は利権供与と引き換えにイギリスなど列強から多額の借款をして軍事力を強化し、財政、金融、交通運輸を独占支配下に置き、儒教道徳を学校教育の中心に置いた。袁が帝政復活に失敗して没落したのち、北洋系軍閥は直隷(ちょくれい)派（呉佩孚(ごはいふ／ウーペイフー)）、安徽派（段祺瑞(だんきずい／トワンチールイ)）などに分裂し、奉天軍閥（張作霖(ちょうさくりん／チャンツオリン)）や、地方の徴税権・行政権を奪って割拠した大小の地方軍閥を含めて、中央・地方の権力をめぐる軍閥間の混戦が激化した。各帝国主義列強はそれらに借款や武器を与えてそれぞれの勢力範囲と権益を守り、拡大しようとした。この特異な現象は、資本主義の発展が微弱で、各地方を密接不可分に結び付ける国民経済が成立しなかったという中国の半封建的性格と、一強国が独占する植民地ではなく、複数の帝国主義国が中国内部の半封建的な支配勢力を支柱としながら中国支配をめぐって対立抗争した半植民地であったことなどによって起こった。1926年以降の国民党の武力統一の進行（北伐(ほくばつ)）によって地方軍閥はしだいに弱体化したが、この過程で南京(ナンキン)の国民政府自身も、蒋介石(しょうかいせき／チヤンチエシー)麾下(きか)の軍事力と地主勢力、官僚資本勢力に依拠する新軍閥的性格をもつようになった。

　中華人民共和国政府が進めた土地改革をはじめとする反封建的改革は、軍閥支配成立の基礎を決定的に弱めたが、経済のいっそうの近代化と、社会の民主化が軍閥の息の根をとめる条件だと考えられる。

［小島晋治］

日本

日本では征韓論決裂後から西南戦争に至る鹿児島県の状況があたる。県政を西郷隆盛(たかもり)の率いる私学校党が支配、中央政府の諸改革を実行せず税金も上納せずに独立国のような状態にあった。また、明治政府のもとで、薩長(さっちょう)出身者が実権を握る軍部は、統帥権の独立と軍部大臣現役武官制などによって特権的地位を保っていたが、藩閥勢力に対して政党勢力が台頭してきた明治末年ごろから、軍部の政治的独自性が対抗的に発揮されるようになり、この軍部勢力を軍閥とよぶようになった。大正デモクラシーの時期、軍部の政治的発言権は一時後退したかのようにみえたが、海軍軍縮条約、満州事変を契機に、さらに二・二六事件を画期として軍部の政治的発言権は絶対的になった。軍部による政治支配は日中戦争から太平洋戦争に至って完成。独占資本を含む諸支配勢力が軍部と結合したことによって、表面軍部独裁のようにみえる体制が確立され、軍閥政治ともいわれるようになった。

［林　茂夫］

『波多野善大著『中国近代軍閥の研究』（1973・河出書房新社）』▽『来新夏著、岩崎富久男訳『中国軍閥の興亡』（1969・桃源社）』

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