Duan Qirui

Beiyang government and warlords Counter-revolutionary forces 1865–1936 ○ Died of illness

Last leader of the Beiyang Army and founder of the Anhui clique, the premier who dominated the Beijing government in the late 1910s

From Hefei in Anhui, he graduated from the Tianjin Military Academy, studied military science in Germany and became an artillery commander in the New Army under Yuan Shikai. At the Battle of Yangxia in 1911 he led the Qing Second Army and retook Hankou and Hanyang, but in early 1912 he fronted the Beiyang generals’ telegrams demanding the emperor’s abdication. He served as Yuan’s minister of war and premier and opposed Yuan’s monarchy. After Yuan’s death he controlled north China as premier, crushed Zhang Xun’s restoration in 1917, led China into the First World War and built up the Anhui clique with Japanese loans. His secret 1918 military agreement with Japan and the Shandong question helped provoke the May Fourth Movement, and he fell after the Zhili–Anhui War of 1920. He was provisional chief executive in 1924–26 and died in Shanghai in 1936.

Also known as: Tuan Ch'i-jui