Tell me, what are the characters worth mentioning in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China?

I think it is Wu Peifu.

Beiyang warlord Wu Peifu (1874-1939) has been characterized as a villain in history textbooks. However, his life history is very complicated, and sometimes... With some legendary flair.

He is a native of Penglai, Shandong. He was originally a scholar. He was admitted as a scholar at the age of 22. However, he was expelled and wanted for offending officials and gentry in his hometown the next year. His dream of becoming a successful person through the imperial examination was shattered. . He fled to Beijing and lived in poverty, relying on fortune telling to make a living. In 1898, he surrendered to the army in Tianjin and put on military uniform ever since.

In 1904, a war broke out between Japanese and Russian imperialists to seize control of Northeast my country. He was assigned as a Japanese spy, disguised as a shoulder hawker, and ventured into the Russian army's territory to spy on intelligence. He established a Because of his daring actions, he was spotted by Cao Kun, the leader of the Beiyang warlord, and became a commander (battalion commander) two years later. After that, he actively participated in the warlord melee and made great achievements. He was quickly promoted to regiment, brigade, and division commander. Within a few years, he had hundreds of thousands of troops. He was named "General Fuwei". He was entrenched in Luoyang and controlled Hebei and Henan. , Shandong, Hubei, Hunan and other provinces, and also controlled the Cao Kun government in Beijing, becoming the most powerful warlord. Because he could write poems, paintings, and calligraphy quite well, he was known as a "Confucian general" and he was often proud of it.

However, this "Confucian general" lacked the "benevolence" preached by Confucianism. In order to realize his personal ambitions, he did not hesitate to "cut the bloody ocean with the Longquan Sword", showed no mercy to other warlords, and had no mercy on the fate of all living beings. Even more dismissive. During the war with the Hunan Army in 1921, he actually ordered the digging of the Yangtze River embankment in Yanzhou, resulting in the death of many innocent people; in February 1923, when Beijing-Hankow Railway workers held a general strike in order to fight for freedom and human rights, he brutally suppressed it and created The famous "February 7th Massacre" wrote the darkest page in its history.

When he celebrated his 50th birthday, it was the day when his power was at its peak. Military and political dignitaries and cultural celebrities from all over the country, as well as military attachés stationed in China from various countries gathered in Luoyang. Puyi, the deposed emperor of the Qing Dynasty, also sent his "regent" "Come and congratulate. Even Kang Youwei, the leader of the reformists and a famous scholar who was once famous in both the government and the public, also flattered him and offered a birthday couplet: "The eagle in Makino is only half the meritorious service at the age of 100; the tiger in Luoyang is watching, and the wind and rain from all directions will come to Zhongzhou." This shows the all-powerful character of this "general commander". spirit, and touted his even more spectacular future.

But the prospects for this "eagle" and "tiger" are not wonderful. Although this man was shrewd and ruthless, he was defeated because he went against the trend of the times. In August 1926, the National Revolutionary Army launched a large-scale Northern Expedition. He gathered the main force to guard the Tingsi Bridge in Xianning, Hubei Province and went into battle to supervise the battle. He personally shot several retreating officers and soldiers, but he could not withstand the torrent of revolution. Two months later, the Northern Expeditionary Army captured Wuchang, and he was defeated. However, unlike other warlords and politicians who had resigned from power, he did not go abroad for "inspections" or go to the concession to seek protection from foreigners. Instead, he was in exile in China.

On May 27, 1927, when he led the guards to escape to Sichuan and passed Goolinguan in Deng County, Henan, he was warmly received by the local leaders. Faced with a table full of wine and meat, he said: "Forget it. The war is going on and the people have no food and clothing. Why do we need so many dishes?" Only four side dishes were left, and the rest were removed. He was scheduled to set off early the next morning, but local gentlemen came to ask for words and poems one after another. He was so "elegant" that he readily agreed and wrote many (sub)poems on the spur of the moment. In the poem given to the squire Yang Xingru, there is a sentence: "When the sky sheds tears, people shed tears, and the cry is high and the singing is loud. The world is full of hardships and people's livelihood is miserable, and it is you who suffers and harms the people." It shows the feeling of compassion for heaven and humanity. He politely condemned the sins of the landlords and gentry, which was impressive. The "Yaxing" of writing and dancing saved his life. That morning, its leading troops were ambushed by the gangster Suo Jinwa and were in a state of embarrassment. Even the secretary-general Zhang Huangyan was shot dead indiscriminately, but he was unharmed because of his delayed departure.

Later, he lived in Fengjie, Dazu, Daxian and other places in Sichuan. His guards and attachés were scattered and he relied on local warlords to make a living. When I visited Zhaojue Temple in Chengdu in July 1931, I put on a cassock to take pictures and composed two poems.

The first song is:

Heroes do not avoid death, let alone the Buddhist Lao Brahma Palace.

Some love threads are hard to break, and blood and tears are sprinkled in the autumn wind.

Both "Buddhist Temple" and "Brahma Palace" refer to Buddhist temples. The poetic meaning is: I have always ignored life and death, so how can I be afraid of dying in a temple? However, because the "threads of love" (thousands of connections to worldly affairs) are difficult to cut off, I cannot convert to Buddhism. At this time, he still regarded himself as a "hero", but he knew that he could not make a comeback, so he had no choice but to "sprinkle the autumn wind with two lines of blood and tears", exuding the desolation of the "end of the road".

The content of the second song is relatively simple. It just says that although he is no longer a monk, he "will live with the Buddha in the mountains from now on", indicating that he will no longer be involved in worldly affairs, which means that the relevant people can rest assured.

However, after he left Chengdu in October 1932, he did not choose the mountains as his destination. Instead, he settled in the Assorted Garden in Beijing, mainly relying on the "subsidy" given by his "nephew" Zhang Xueliang. , and also wrote a couplet:

When you are proud, your heart is pure, you don’t keep concubines, you don’t accumulate money, you drink and compose poems, you are still a scholar;

You are stubborn to the end after failure, Don't go abroad, don't go to the concessions, cultivate the garden and enjoy the nature, and really get rid of your armor and return to the fields.

Although there is no "irrigating the garden" or "returning to the fields", the couplet is generally true. Although this person is covered in blood, he still knows how to stick to his national stance. During the 1919 "Japanese Movement", he expressed his opposition to the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty that was harmful to China's interests; in 1935, the Japanese invaders proposed "North China Autonomy" in order to split China and asked him to come to power as a puppet, but he resolutely refused; in 1938 In June, the puppet "North China Provisional Government" merged with the puppet "Reformation Government" in Nanjing and asked him to become an official, but he refused. However, he accepted the invitation of Qi Xieyuan, the puppet garrison commander of Beijing and Tianjin, and became a "super-high consultant" in name only, receiving thousands of yuan in "carriage and horse fees" every month. Qi Xieyuan was originally his subordinate. He accepted this care because of his "friendship", but it had to be this way, because Zhang Xueliang had become a prisoner at that time and could no longer provide "subsidy".

His attitude will naturally not make the Japanese invaders happy. On December 4 of the following year, he injured his teeth due to bone fragments while eating mutton dumplings. Japanese spy Yoshitaro introduced a Japanese doctor to treat him, but he contracted septicemia and ended his life bizarrely.