Wu Peifu - Northern Expedition

Northern Expedition

Wu maintained a power base in Hubei and Henan in central China until he was confronted by the Kuomintang army during the Northern Expedition in 1927. With armies detained by Kuomintang allies in the Northwest, Wu was forced to withdraw to Zhengzhou in Henan.

In 1923, Wu ruthlessly broke a strike at the important Hankou-Beijing railway by sending in troops to violently suppress the workers and their leaders. The soldiers killed thirty-five workers and injured many more. Wu's reputation with the Chinese people suffered significantly because of this event, though he gained the favor of British and American commercial interests operating in China.

Wu Peifu hung a portrait of George Washington in his office. He was a nationalist, and refused to enter foreign concessions because he viewed them as an afront to China, not even to treat a tooth infection which led to his death.

As Wu Peifu's armies were being overrun by the Kuomintang forces of Chiang Kaishek, during a breakfast interview with a westerner, Wu Peifu was carrying an old book, the interviewer asked him the title, Wu said "The Military Campaigns of the Kingdom of Wu...They didn't have any machine guns or airplanes then." Wu never held a political office during his years as a warlord.

After the second Sino-Japanese War broke out, Wu refused to cooperate with the Japanese. In 1939, when the Japanese invited him to be the leader of the puppet government in North China, Wu made a speech saying that he was willing to become the leader of North China again on behalf of the New Order in Asia, if every Japanese soldier on China's soil gave up his post and went back to Japan. He then went back into retirement, dying later under what some people considered suspicious circumstances. He was a national hero before he died, a status he had never before achieved.