Toward the Minjiu Incident

This article analyzes the struggle that occurred from 1911 to 1921 between two militarists in Guizhou province, Liu Xianshi and his nephew Wang Wenhua, to shed light on the diversity of China's warlords and the complexity of their relationships. Although members of the same family, Liu and Wang represented two different generations of militarists, one from the 1911 era and one from the May Fourth era; as a result they became embroiled in a power struggle and a violent coup known as the Minjiu (1920) Incident. The article also examines the various methods and tactics that Guizhou militarists employed in their power struggle, paying particular attention to militarist attempts to control the student movement to serve their own needs. An understanding of these various methods of struggle enhances our insight into the varied nature of warlordism and militarist competition in China during the early twentieth century.