Chapter 14: Reassessing Zhang Xun: Reflections on the Restoration and Afterthoughts

Zhang Xun (1854–1923) has been vilified by the officially sanctioned historians of both the Communist Party and the Kuomintang, portrayed as worse than worthless. Zhang Xun’s restoration of the Qing emperor, going against the tide of history, was indeed reactionary. However, compared with Mao Zedong’s restoration of bandit-style jungle warfare and mass slaughter, Zhang Xun’s historical crimes are insignificant by comparison. Zhang Xun’s guilt amounts to less than one percent—indeed, not even one thousandth—of Mao’s crimes.

I. Guard to Empress Dowager Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor

Zhang Xun was born in 1854 into a poor peasant family in Jiangxi. Orphaned at an early age, he endured hardship from childhood. He was straightforward in character, bold in action, and willing to take risks. At age thirty, he enlisted as a soldier in Changsha. During the Sino-French War of 1884, Zhang followed the army into Guangxi to fight. When the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1894, Zhang was transferred with his unit to the Northeast. In 1895, he came under Yuan Shikai’s command and served as commander of an engineering battalion. In 1901, he was transferred to Beijing as an imperial bodyguard and repeatedly served as personal guard to Empress Dowager Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor.

II. Xinhai Revolution: Retreat to Xuzhou

In 1911, during the Xinhai Revolution, Zhang Xun was ordered to defend Jiangning against the revolutionary forces. Leading more than 6,000 Qing troops, he advanced to attack Nanjing. In 1912, he was defeated by revolutionary forces in Anhui and retreated to Xuzhou and Yanzhou in Shandong.

In 1913, when Yuan Shikai proclaimed himself emperor, Zhang Xun was ordered by Yuan to suppress revolutionary forces. Even so, Zhang remained steadfast in maintaining the Qing dynasty and loyal to the Qing emperor.

III. After Yuan’s Death, Zhang Xun Forms a Thirteen-Province Alliance

After Yuan Shikai’s death in 1916, Zhang Xun established a seven-province Beiyang alliance in Xuzhou and served as Military Governor of Anhui. This alliance soon expanded into a thirteen-province coalition.

In 1917, President Li Yuanhong in Beijing and Premier Duan Qirui clashed over whether China should enter World War I. Duan advocated declaring war on Germany, while Li opposed it. This conflict became known as the “Presidency–Cabinet Dispute.” In May, President Li ordered Duan’s dismissal, but Beiyang generals and public opinion opposed the move. Li’s position became unstable, and he invited Zhang Xun to Beijing to mediate.

IV. Five Thousand Queue-Wearing Troops Enter Beijing to Restore the Throne

In June 1917, Zhang Xun led 5,000 queue-wearing troops from Xuzhou into Beijing. (Zhang’s soldiers continued to wear queues to demonstrate loyalty to the Qing dynasty.) Zhang utterly despised President Li, who had betrayed the Qing and opportunistically joined the revolution. Seizing the opportunity to enter Beijing with troops, Zhang forced Li to step down, and Li fled into the Japanese legation.

At 1:00 a.m. on July 1, Zhang Xun led Kang Youwei, Wang Shizhen, and more than fifty queue-wearing military commanders into the Forbidden City. At 3:00 a.m., they paid homage to Emperor Puyi in the Hall of Mental Cultivation. Puyi issued an “Edict of Restoration,” formally proclaiming the restoration of the Qing dynasty.

V. Duan Qirui Opposes the Restoration

Zhang Xun’s restoration was immediately opposed by Beiyang military leader Duan Qirui and others. On July 12, Zhang Xun was defeated by the punitive forces, fled into the Dutch Legation in Beijing, was placed on a wanted list, and later escaped to Tianjin.

Zhang Xun’s forces confronted the punitive army for less than ten days. The two sides never engaged in actual combat, merely firing symbolic shots in each other’s direction, with very few casualties. Zhang’s troops disintegrated, were disarmed, and more than 20,000 troops stationed in Xuzhou were absorbed into other forces.

VI. Amnesty for Zhang Xun: “The Times Are Difficult, Talent Is Rare,” and Reappointment to Office

In 1918, Beijing announced a general amnesty for Zhang Xun, stating that “the times are difficult, and talent is rare.” In 1920, President Xu Shichang conferred upon Zhang Xun the title of “National Director of Forestry and Land Reclamation,” though Zhang never took up the post.

After retiring to Tianjin, Zhang no longer involved himself in military or political affairs and devoted himself to industrial and commercial investment. He owned more than seventy businesses, including pawnshops, banks, money houses, gold shops, retail stores, factories, and a film company, with assets exceeding 50 million yuan. His mansion in Tianjin had police guards and over a hundred servants of various kinds.

Zhang Xun’s mansion, covering 10,000 square meters, is now occupied by the Tianjin Municipal Commodity Inspection Bureau of the Communist Party. Because Zhang is regarded as a “negative figure,” no memorial has been established. Zhang Xun’s accumulation of enormous wealth was not unusual for a warlord commanding tens of thousands of troops. He received vast military salaries annually, and skimming off a portion at will still yielded a large fortune. By contrast, Marshal Wu Peifu commanded 300,000 troops yet left no private property or wealth—a rare and admirable exception.

VII. The Empress Dowager Confers Rank on His Wife; Zhang Zuolin Seeks Marriage Ties

Zhang Xun had one wife and ten concubines. His principal wife endured ten years of poverty with him in her youth and was later granted the rank of First-Class Lady by Empress Dowager Longyu. Zhang treated his wife “as one would treat one’s mother; no matter how large or small a family matter was, he would always consult her.”

Zhang Xun had nine sons and five daughters, about half of whom died young. His eldest son, Mengchao, became Zhang Zuolin’s son-in-law. Zhang Xun and Zhang Zuolin were similar in temperament and disposition. Zhang Zuolin once strongly wished to become related by marriage and sent photos of his four daughters for Zhang Xun to choose from. The fourth daughter was selected. By the time of the marriage, both elders had already passed away.

VIII. Building Brick Houses for Every Household in His Home Village

Zhang Xun had deep affection for his hometown. For every household in his native village in Jiangxi, he donated one large brick house. He established a Jiangxi Guild Hall in Beijing and supported Jiangxi students and impoverished compatriots living in the capital. Shao Shiping, the first governor of Jiangxi, as well as Zhang Guotao, Fang Zhimin, and Xu Deheng, all received his assistance.

IX. His Own Words: “Powerless to Reverse Heaven, I Preserve Myself; As Long as My Queue Remains, I Am a Qing Subject”

In his later years, Zhang Xun lived quietly in Tianjin. One day, a visitor urged him to recognize the times and cut off his queue. Zhang replied: “I am powerless to reverse Heaven, but I can still preserve myself. As long as my head remains and my queue is not cut off, I am truly a subject of the Great Qing.”

Zhang Xun died of illness in September 1923 at the age of sixty-nine.

Sun Yat-sen said: “Zhang Xun’s forced restoration was foolish loyalty. Treason merits execution; though he was my enemy, he was not without my respect.”

X. Loyalty as the Foundation; Unchanging Purpose Makes a Hero

Ouyang Wu said: “Wearing his hair to demonstrate solitary loyalty, his crimson heart shines through the ages.”
Zhang Shizhao said: “Though party steles differ, I share the same sorrow—what, after all, has become of democracy?”
Xiong Xiling said: “Loyalty as the foundation, unwavering in purpose—that is a hero.”
Wang Yuchen said: “Which is better—life under the Qing dynasty or life in the Republic? It is hard to say.”

XI. Beijing Residents Voluntarily Hang the Dragon Flag

During Zhang Xun’s restoration in 1917, Beijing residents, upon hearing the news, voluntarily hung the dragon flag throughout the city. A single leaf foretells autumn: the people disliked the chaos and instability following the establishment of the Republic and found it inferior to the peaceful Qing dynasty. Public sentiment leaned toward the Qing, and the restoration was welcomed.

However, history cannot be reversed. Once the republic had been established, it could not revert to imperial court rule. Kang Youwei failed to recognize the times and clung to monarchism, and was eliminated by history. Liang Qichao followed the tide of history, opposed restoration, and also opposed Yuan Shikai’s imperial ambitions, representing the direction of history by moving with the current. Although the Republic was indeed inferior to the Qing, there was no choice but to move forward and seek improvement. Once the temple is torn down and the monks dispersed, restoration is impossible.

XII. Communism Is Worse Than the Republic; the Republic Is Worse Than the Qing

Few could have anticipated that shortly after Zhang Xun’s failed restoration, Lenin’s communists would overthrow the Russian Empire, and within a few years Lenin’s and Stalin’s claws would reach into China. Sun Yat-sen was bought off into allying with Russia and the Communists to seize power by force. Mao Zedong donned a red-star cap and went into the mountains as a foreign bandit, reviving pre–Ming-dynasty Water Margin–style bandit rebellions.

Mao openly declared that he wanted to recruit figures such as Chao Gai and Lu Zhishen into the Communist Party. After twenty years of rebellion, Mao seized all of China and then fanatically imposed thirty years of communist catastrophe, killing countless people. Compared with Mao Zedong’s bandit-style restoration of Water Margin chaos, Zhang Xun’s harmless restoration can hardly be considered treasonous or disastrous.

Zhang Xun’s restoration proclaimed that “the Republic is inferior to the Qing.” In modern times, this declaration has increasingly become the consensus of many fair-minded historians.