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'''Feng Yuxiang''' ([[Wade-Giles]]: Feng Yu-hsiang) (1882-1948) was a Chinese warlord most powerful in the 1920s. He was known as the 'Christian General' early in his career, having joined the [[Methodist]] church in 1914; an apochyphal but much repeated story recounts how he baptised a contingent of his troops using a fire hose. As his political sympathies moved leftwards, and he formed links with the [[Soviet Union]], he became better known as the 'Red General'.
'''Feng Yuxiang''' ([[Wade-Giles]]: Feng Yu-hsiang) (1882-1948) was a Chinese warlord most powerful in the 1920s. He was known as the 'Christian General' early in his career, having joined the [[Methodist]] church in 1914; an apochyphal but much repeated story recounts how he baptised a contingent of his troops using a fire hose. As his political sympathies moved leftwards, and he formed links with the [[Soviet Union]], he became better known as the 'Red General'.
Feng was the dominant figure in the [[Beijing]] region in 1924, overthrowing the government and expelling the former emperor Pu Yi, who fled to the Japanese concession of [[Tianjin]]. Forced out of the capital the following year by [[Zhang Zuolin]], he retreated behind the Nankou pass to the north-west, where he established a base and lines of communication across [[Mongolia]] to the [[Soviet Union]]; he spent some months in Moscow in 1926, and returned to lend support to the [[Northern Expedition]] of the [[Guomindang]]. In 1928 he supported [[Chiang Kai-shek]] when the latter was in conflict with the Left-[[KMT]], and exopelled the Soviet advisers he had brought back with him from Moscow. However, in 1929 he broke with Chiang, rebelling against him in association with [[Yan Xishan]]. The failure of this rebellion led to the clipse of Feng as a major figure in Chinese politics, although he saught a role for his army in the fight against Japan. In 1948, while on a world tour, he died in a fire on a Soviet ship in the [[Black Sea]].
[[Category:Chinese Warlords]]
[[Category:Chinese Warlords]]