Chapter 17: Reassessing Cao Kun: One Year of Presidential Addiction That Ruined the Grand Cause of Unifying China with Wu Peifu

Cao Kun (1862–1938) was the leader of the Zhili clique of the Beiyang Army and became president through bribery in an election. Wu Peifu was Cao Kun’s foremost general. He was the first Chinese person to appear on the cover of Time magazine in the United States and was widely regarded as the figure most likely to unify China. Unfortunately, Wu Peifu was misled and hindered by Cao Kun’s bribery-fueled quest for the presidency. Wu repeatedly urged Cao Kun not to indulge in his “presidential addiction,” but Cao refused to listen. Thus, the opportunity to unify China was squandered, and both men saw their promising futures destroyed—an outcome deeply regrettable.

Chiang Kai-shek, moved by Wu Peifu’s integrity and martial spirit as a “modern Yue Fei,” personally sent funeral couplets twice and granted him a state funeral, demonstrating how deeply Wu Peifu’s upright character, heroic temperament, and national spirit impressed later generations.

I. Selling Cloth and Joining the Army: Honest, Hardy, and Appreciated by Yuan Shikai

Cao Kun was born in 1862 in Tanggu, Tianjin. His father was a wooden boat craftsman, and the family was poor. Cao Kun attended a private school for only a few years. At the age of sixteen, he pushed a handcart selling cloth on the streets. At twenty, he joined the army and entered the Tianjin Military Academy, later graduating and serving as a platoon officer.

In 1894, he followed the army to fight in Korea. The following year, he went to Xiaozhan to serve under Yuan Shikai as a battalion assistant. Cao Kun was simple, honest, and hardworking, gradually gaining Yuan Shikai’s appreciation. By establishing distant kinship ties, he became part of Yuan’s core group in training the Xiaozhan New Army.

In 1907, he was appointed commander of the Third Division. After the founding of the Republic of China, he served as commander of the 3rd Division. In 1915, Cao Kun supported Yuan Shikai’s bid to become emperor and was awarded the title “General of Tiger Might.” After Yuan Shikai’s death, Cao was appointed Military Governor of Zhili Province in September 1916, maneuvering between the Zhili and Anhui cliques of the Beiyang Army.

After Feng Guozhang’s death in 1919, Cao Kun became leader of the Zhili clique. In the 1920 Zhili–Anhui War, Cao defeated the Anhui clique and jointly controlled the Beijing government with the Fengtian clique. In 1922, during the First Zhili–Fengtian War, Cao defeated the Fengtian forces and gained sole control of the Beijing government.

II. Indulging in Presidential Ambition: Forcing Out Xu Shichang, Then Li Yuanhong

Cao Kun first forced President Xu Shichang to step down, then welcomed former president Li Yuanhong back into office, turning Li into a puppet to pave the way for his own presidency. Cao also instructed officers under Feng Yuxiang to demand military pay from Li Yuanhong daily and to surround the presidential palace. Unable to endure the constant pressure, Li was forced to leave Beijing.

Within the Zhili clique, Wu Peifu opposed Cao Kun becoming president, but Cao stubbornly insisted. In June 1923, Cao Kun sent men to threaten Li Yuanhong, forcing him to flee to Tianjin. Cao then had Li’s train detained near Tianjin, compelling Li to surrender the presidential seal and sign a resignation letter before allowing him to proceed.

In October 1923, Cao Kun bribed legislators on a large scale, giving each five taels of gold to vote for him, thereby securing election as president. He was ridiculed as the “Bribery-Elected President.” During his presidency, he oversaw the passage of the Constitution of the Republic of China, the country’s first formal constitution.

After Cao became president, real power within the Zhili clique shifted to Wu Peifu, whose headquarters were in Luoyang, hence known as the “Luoyang faction.” Although Cao Kun held the presidency, he lost all prestige, and his rule became increasingly unstable.

III. Imprisoned by Feng Yuxiang’s Coup and Permanently Losing Power

In October 1924, the Second Zhili–Fengtian War broke out. Feng Yuxiang defected at the front, returned to Beijing, and launched a coup. Cao Kun was completely unaware beforehand and was suddenly arrested and placed under house arrest in Zhongnanhai—an event known as Feng Yuxiang’s “Beijing Coup.”

As a result, the Fengtian forces decisively defeated Wu Peifu’s Zhili clique and took control of Beijing. Political power in Beijing fell into Fengtian hands, and Duan Qirui assumed the position of provisional chief executive.

In April 1926, Feng Yuxiang’s subordinate Lu Zhonglin launched another mutiny, surrounding the provisional government. Duan Qirui fled, and Lu Zhonglin released the imprisoned Cao Kun. After his release, Cao went to Henan to seek refuge with Wu Peifu. In 1927, he moved to Tianjin and lived in the foreign concessions.

IV. Refusing to Serve Japan

After 1931, following Japan’s invasion of China, the Japanese invited Cao Kun to come out of retirement and serve them. Cao was unmoved by money or status and refused to cooperate, maintaining his national integrity.

In his later years, Cao Kun became a devout Buddhist. He worshiped daily, practiced meditation and qigong, practiced calligraphy, painted traditional Chinese paintings, and kept caged birds. In 1938, he died of pneumonia following a cold at the age of seventy-six. Several hundred people attended his funeral.

V. Bribing Legislators with Five Taels of Gold: A Presidency Turned into a Joke

Cao Kun has been criticized by later generations as the “Bribery-Elected President.” Holding real military power, he had no real need to become president, yet he refused to heed Wu Peifu’s advice and insisted on indulging his presidential obsession.

He gave each legislator 5,000 yuan to secure their votes and won by majority. Some legislators took the money but did not vote for him, yet Cao Kun did not pursue the matter.

By contrast, in 1949, Mao Zedong lost one vote in the CPPCC chairman election and ordered secret agents to investigate who failed to vote for him. The culprit was found to be Zhang Dongsun, who thereafter suffered relentless persecution. During the Cultural Revolution, Zhang was driven to ruin, his family destroyed, and he died in prison.

VI. A Rough Man Who Respected Intellectuals

Cao Kun was a rough, unrefined man, but he respected intellectuals and experts. When he was president, one of his confidants sought to appoint his own associate as ambassador to Britain and pressured Foreign Minister Wellington Koo (Gu Weijun). Upon hearing this, Cao Kun summoned the confidant and angrily rebuked him:

“When did you start learning diplomacy? It is precisely because we do not understand diplomacy that we invited Mr. Gu to serve as foreign minister. Mr. Gu has diplomatic experience—what qualifications do you have to interfere?”

In his memoirs, Wellington Koo sincerely wrote that although Cao Kun had never received formal schooling, he was a natural-born leader.

Born a cloth peddler pushing a cart, Cao Kun acknowledged that he understood little, yet he had his own admirable qualities. He valued education and founded Hebei University, insisting that universities should be run by professors. Whenever he visited the school, he waited in the professors’ lounge to greet them after class. Professors’ salaries were wrapped in red paper and presented on trays as a sign of respect.

Compared to Mao Zedong, who labeled countless professors as “rightists,” sent them to labor reform, tortured and persecuted them, the difference could not be greater.

VII. One Year of Presidential Addiction, a Lifetime of Regret: Destroying a True Presidency

Because of his obsession with being president, Cao Kun was forever branded with the stigma of a “bribery-elected president.” Fairly speaking, Cao Kun was not a bad man; he was a well-meaning fool whose future was ruined by the presidency.

Forcing Xu Shichang to resign was his first and greatest mistake. Xu was the most senior, morally upright, and politically cultivated statesman of the late Qing, and arguably the best president of the Republic of China. Cao ignored Wu Peifu’s earnest advice and stubbornly pursued the presidency.

Had Cao Kun possessed Wu Peifu’s vision, with support from the United States and Britain, they could have cooperated to unify China. Wu could have led a large army south to pacify the revolutionary forces, occupying Guangzhou, Guangxi, and Yunnan and bringing them into submission, while Xu Shichang remained president. Cao Kun and Wu Peifu, holding overwhelming military power in Hebei and Henan, could have securely ruled as the “King of Baoding” and “King of Luoyang,” becoming great heroes in the unification of China and sparing the country from the later calamity of communism.

Regrettably, Cao Kun lacked such foresight and thus destroyed his own great future.