The Prolonged"Telegraph War"and the Rapid"Military War":The Public Opinion Drive for Power Shift between the Zhili and Anhui Warlords around the May 4th Movement
The Chinese society changed rapidly during the May 4th Movement.Public opinion promoted and even influenced political changes.The power shift between the Zhili and Anhui warlords was a typical case.Be-fore May 4th,the Zhili warlords employed public opinion to attack the Anhui sect for their international subordination to the Japanese and waging domestic war,thus breaking the political balance within the Beiyang Group.After the May 4th Movement,the Zhili sect actively used telegrams to"speak for the peo-ple".While gaining popular support,they controlled the public opinion and gained political advantages over the Anhui sect.On the eve of the Zhili and Anhui war in Anhui Province,the Zhili party held high the banner of"public opinion"and received support from the public,but the"consolidation of discipline"poli-cy of the Anhui sect was criticized in the public opinion,so that the outcome of the"military war"be-tween the two sides was rapid to show and almost doomed.Behind the prolonged"telegraph war"and the rapid"military war"were the public opinions that dominated the political situation.This new political mo-mentum not only drove the power shift between warlords,but also would dissolve the whole warlord politics.
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