Read on Twitter
The Chinese warlord era was a pretty cool time to be alive
For example, a converted Christian warlord and martiaI artist named Feng Yuixang was known for baptizing his soldiers with a firehose before battles as a way to "Shield" them against death.
Ma Hongkui was a Chinese Muslim who ran his territory as if it were his own mini caliphate, beheading criminals, Communists, and Japanese. Many considered him to be one of China's best generals. He also loved icecream and his many, many wives.
When asked what he thought of Communists he responded "I kill them all."
Another character was Ma Fuxiang a Mongolian Muslim who styled himself as a Khan. He held a monopoly over the opium trade using the funds to fund his large military. Interestingly, he banned opium a few years later upon learning that Islam prohibited it.
One of the more well-known actors in this conflict was Mao Zedong, a country bumpkin teacher and landowner who opportunistically converted to communism and becoming somewhat fanatic, everyone knows where he ended up so I'II Ieave it at that.
Moishe "2 gun" Cohen was a Polish Jew, and spymaster famed for selling weapons to Chang Kei Chek and his KMT nationalist forces during the civiI war, he later became Chang Kai Shek's personal bodyguard and even a general in the KMT army
Zhang Zuolin, an illiterate warlord who controlled wealthy Manchuria thought that printing money would make him rich, it blew up in his face when it caused hyperinflation and ruined the economy. In response, he blamed the leading merchants in his domain and had them all shot.
Zhang Zongchang the "dogmeat general" was a man with a large appetite. He was known to keep 30 to 50 concubines of different nationalities, including Koreans, Japanese, white Russians, French, and Americans. All given numbers since he could not remember their names.
He also obtained the world's largest pearl somehow.He loved food. Always keeping a retinue of 70 chefs close by and often threw enormous 40 course meals for him and his guests handing out French brandy while his people starved. Visitors described his excess as "sinful"
Zhang was also known as the "Three Don’t Knows" since he could never keep count of how much money, soldiers, or concubines he had.
His army was made up of ex Russian soldiers who fought for the whites dressed up in White Russian army uniforms, even had Russian armored trains.
His army was made up of ex Russian soldiers who fought for the whites dressed up in White Russian army uniforms, even had Russian armored trains.
Wu Peifu, the "Philosopher General" billed himself as the protector of Confucian values, usually appearing in photographs with the scholar's brush (a symbol of Confucian culture) Wu preferred to appear in photos taken in his office with a portrait of his hero, George Washington.
Israel Epstein was a Polish-born Chinese journalist and author. He was one of the few foreign-born Chinese citizens of non-Chinese origin to become a member of the Communist Party of China.
Konstantin Petrovich was a former Imperial Russian soldier and White émigré who fought for the dogmeat general. He and his men drove armored trains through China shooting and looting all that they saw for years. His rampage was stopped only when the train tracks were removed.
His Chinese rivals had pulled up the rail and took the opportunity to massacre almost all his mercenaries on board his train. Nechaev managed to survive the incident but lost a part of his leg in the battle, during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria he was captured and executed.
Ma Bufang was another Hui Muslim warlord, one of the "Four Ma's". For unknown reasons he had a disdain for Tibetans and took every opportunity to slaughter them
When he wasn't committing genocide he worked to improve education, infrastructure, and women's rights in his homeland.
When he wasn't committing genocide he worked to improve education, infrastructure, and women's rights in his homeland.
He proved to be an effective general against the Japanese handing them multiple defeats, but it seemed he couldn't handle defeat as after losing a single battle he just fIed China altogether. He later became the Republic of China's ambassador to Egypt.
Arthur "one arm" Sutton was an ANZAC who lost his arm at Gallipoli. After the war, he became a gold miner and acquired the rights to produce the Stokes Mortar, he sold his services all across China, including to the dogmeat general. In his later years he became a famous goIfer
The 4th "Ma" was Ma Fuxing, a former convict who had once fought as a General during the boxer rebellion. He had a harem of Uyghur wives and demanded that people refer to him as "Padishah" the Persian word for king.
Ma hoarded money and had a hay cutting machine used to cut people’s limbs off, which then he hung on city walls with a note about why they had been executed. Feeling that Ma’s excesses were too great, he was later removed from power and executed by his men, which was photographed
Probably one of the most well-known people of the era was Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, a minor Russian aristocrat who went from a cavalry commander in the Great war to a Mongol warlord. He aspired to restore the Mongol empire to its former glory
His infatuation with Vajrayana Buddhism and his eccentric personality mixed with brutal and often violent treatment of enemies and his own men earned him the moniker "The Mad Baron". He preferred to call himself “The incarnated God of War and Khan of grateful Mongolia".
In the years before World War I, A Montana cowboy named Fred Barton was employed by Czar Nicholas to help establish a ranch, the largest in the world in Siberia to supply the Russian military with Horses, after the Czar fell he did the same but for the Soviet military.
Soon he'd left the Soviets and assembled a group of American rodeo stars to drive horses across Mongolia for the warlords of northern China, creating a 250,000-acre ranch in Shanxi province. In the process, he also became an unofficial US intelligence asset.
And who was Fred's mysterious benefactor? Of course, it was the Dogmeat general himself, Zhang Zongchang
Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln, also known as Chao Kung was a Hungarian Jew, Protestant missionary, Anglican priest, British MP, German right-wing politician and spy, Nazi, an agent of the Japanese empire, and a Buddhist abbot in China.
He also claimed to be the 14th Dalai lama.
He also claimed to be the 14th Dalai lama.
