The Warlord Wars of China

20th Century

by Mike Huskey

I have had a real fascination with Chinese military history for the last decade or so. I love reading all sorts of books about their wars and collecting and painting armies for games. When I was a kid, I read everything I could on the Civil War in the good ol' USA, but never got into it for wargaming (though I have played a few of friend's civil war battles). Maybe my interest in gaming Chinese history is that it is more new to me.

I started with ancient Chinese armies and at one time, it was my biggest collection at 2,000 plus figures though I have sold some off. We still use the figures in some of our more recent affairs, a Japanese-Korean campaign in the 1590's and a DBA Central Asian campaign.

My biggest 25mm range is Wargames Foundry Taipings - the bloodiest rebellion in history during the 1850-60's. I love the figures and the games are unique with everything from breechloading cannon to repeating crossbows to the primitive but still very common spear.

Well, this last fall I was looking on the Internet and came across a set of quick and bloody rules for the Russian Civil War by Matthew Sparks through Mark Hannam's Gauntlet website. I thought with modifications this would be an excellent set for almost any early 20th century wargame. Around that same time I happened to be reading an Osprey book of Chinese Civil Wars of the 20th century (excellent source by the way). My new project was born - I was going to do the Chinese in yet another century!

At first I thought of doing the long Reds-Nationalist struggle but then I decided the many warlord battles and campaigns would be easier and more novel to try. There were lots of warlord 'characters' in their history and that is always important to me. Multiple sides is fun as well! Part of the challenge would be to find materials to read up on for the warlords and their armies. They sure had lots of wars - there was one southwestern province which was estimated to have had over 200 wars in one decade! Granted not all of these were serious or large scale, but it is a myth that the warlords really didn't use their armies to fight except in a 'comic-opera' style. Some of the wars were extremely bloody with major battles. Some richer warlords had their own arms industries; they had air forces with bombers and fighters, some armored vehicles, armored trains, and machine guns which were popular with all armies. While some armies were mere ineffective mobs, foreign observers such as Joe Stillwell of later WWII fame believed some armies had units the equal of any in the western world for combat ability.

My point is the Chinese warlords could and did fight - it is basically WWI technology but not the stalemated trench warfare. China is far too large and most of the wars were short and fluid with decisive battles. Another thing popular with wargamers is that there are lots of opportunities for double-crossing and making deals for those political type players.

The rest of the article I am going to keep to basically wargaming as to how I have organized my warlord armies and just throw in some bits of history here and there as I think most MWANers want wargaming articles and not history articles! My units are set up according to the rules we use so I will be mentioning them in passing. I have also sent a copy to Hal so hopefully he can publish them in the same issue to better follow along. Anyway, here goes!

I opted for 15mm figures simply because I prefer 15mm's for the look on the table - the weapon ranges somehow seem to look more realistic and 15mm's are cheaper as well! Also, the rules set is designed for 15mm figures. Peter Pig out of the UK and also available from Brookhurst Hobbies here in the USA have Russian Civil War figures in that scale plus lots of early WWI figures too. Their figures are my favorites - variety and good positions plus no flash but crisp detail.

The Peter Pig figures come in infantry packs of eight and cavalry packs of four. The rules specify units of 16 infantry so two packs will make a wargame unit (call it a company, battalion, or regiment, whatever you wish). For cavalry I use three stands of four horseman with an officer. Officers do play a role in the game so each unit of foot or horse should have one.

In theory the Chinese Republic of 1911-25 had one army but in reality the various warlords and regions of China spawned a variety of uniforms. All are very WWI like - I use 15mm British WWI infantry in peaked hats, not helmets; the WWI Russian infantry with Red/White Guards plus Red Army types. The Red Army soldiers have those long pointy hats with ear flaps (I don't recall the Russian name for them right now) but if you just simply take a knife and file down the point top they look like the typical fur caps many northern Chinese troops wore right through the Civil Wars all the way to the Korean War. My units are in Khaki and bluish-gray plus an occasional odd shade of tannish brown - all colors of warlord troops. I used the Spanish Civil War International Brigade figures from Peter Pig's Spanish Civil War line because they are in the French Adrian helmet. It turns out only one major unit China wore helmets and there were Adians purchased from Russia. They were called the 'Tin-Hat' brigade by the Chinese.

My cavalry so far consists of one unit in British 1914 cavalry uniforms and another unit in Russian WWI uniforms plus I'm working on a Cossack unit that with subtle painting differences can be adapted into Mongol cavalry. The Mongol cavalry fought in the Civil Wars but weren't too impressive - guess they lost their edge since Genghis Khan. Oh, I should mention I have one unit of Russian infantry painted as White Russians, not Chinese, and one White Russian cavalry unit too. A couple of northern Chinese warlords made fairly extensive use of White Russian/Cossack exiles from the Russian troubles. Supposedly they made good combat troops but terrible garrison forces as they were extremely brutal and ill-behaved, even by warlord standards (and an oft low standard it was too!).

Heavy machine guns are two man stands with a MG and can be attached to infantry units are independent. Artillery stands have one gun with two to four crewmen on them. I have a couple of little mountain howitzers with two-man crews which could double as early anti-tank guns (although the Chinese had the mountain guns, I can not find any real evidence that they had any anti-tank guns). My field artillery includes Krupp 77mm gun, French 75mm, Krupp 1905, Russian Putilov 76mm; all available from Peter Pig. I also have heavy mortars with two man crews.

For 'armored support' I use a couple of Russian Putilov armored cars - big honking things with two turrets for MG's and a Belgian 1914 armored car. That version just has a machinegunner plying his trade from an open-topped armor plated car. I have one Renault FT- 17 French tank (and the Chinese really used some!) And a friend of mine has another I hope to someday get in a trade. I've got a 1/1 00th scale plastic airplane of a British between war biplane that could have appeared in China as they bought all their planes from Europe. A friend rigged it up on a stand so it flies over the battlefield rather than just sitting on the ground.

And then there is the armored train! Yes, Peter Pig makes one for the WWI era and it has the engine, coal car, gun car with two turrets with carmon in them and an open topped car. I had painted it plain old gray over all the armor figuring since there was so little air force around the Chinese probably didn't use camoflauge patterns. No sooner had I finished them when I found a photo of an actual 1922 armored train in China with the WWII looking cammo paint job. So I groaned and painted it over again!

I depart from the original rules of Mathew Sparkes over commanders - mine are on two man stands with one painted like a General. His rules really didn't have them do much at all, but my Generals at least have some value. Just a short break with the wargaming for a little anecdotal history.

Chinese warlords were often colorful and certainly varied. One, Wu Pei-Fu, was called the Jade Marshal and was considered an excellent tactical commander if not a very good politician. He was defeated only when he was betrayed by a subordinate and undercut by the Japanese whom he didn't like. Another is a little more well known, Feng Yu-hsiang, the so-called Christian General who legend has it baptized his men with a firehose. He himself denied that story in an interview with a Western journalist. He was one of the warlords who treated his soldiers very well and was extremely popular. Another capable man was Yen Hsi-shan, the "model Governor", who rules one province from 1912 to 1949 and had all sorts of schemes to improve the condition of the people and insisted that his soldiers learn to read and write and serve the people, not loot them.

Then there was the prototype thug, Chang Tsung-chang, the "Dog Meat General" who was also referred to by the press as the "I don't know" General because he always said he didn't know how many men he had; how much money he had; or how many concubines he kept. He was a six foot and a half brute who drank heavily and executed anyone who disagreed with him (including unfortunate newspaper editors). However, two historians said on the battlefield he was an excellent commander of troops, no doubt his methods provided for motivation. Do as you are told or get shot!

In the bigger warlord wars, the warlords fought in alliances or cliques which continually juggled players. A warlord might be an ally one war and enemy the next. With my troops several different uniform variations, I can do alliance battles too. I even painted up one unit of militia as many cities had their own militia too for local defense against 'bandits'. I used a variety of Peter Pig figures from Wild West Mexicans with machetes to odds and ends of other ranges to a few scratch built ones where I took the heads of Peter Pig Vietnam civilians with those flat conetopped sun hats an Old Minifig WWI British and probably Russian figures would work fairly well with Peter Pig as another source of figures. I'm just not sure of any other companies out there which do suitable figures; maybe Irregular Miniatures from the UK but I've never actually seen any of their figures.

With sixteen battalions of foot and two of cavalry so far, plus five or six artillery batteries, three armored vehicles, an armored train, and a plane, we've been able to fight a few good battles, all finished in one evening. The rules are seemingly long, but only because they have lots of sections on special weapons like tanks, trains, and airplanes. The basics are learned fast. The fighting is dice heavy, meaning you get to throw lots of them and luck is important. Like FIRE AND FURY, the morale system is incorporated into movement and I think it works well.

More Chinese Warlords

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