Chinese Warlord Armies 1911–30Defeated in the Sino Japanese War 189495 and the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, Imperial China collapsed into revolution and a republic was proclaimed in 1912. From the death of the first president in 1916 to the rise of the Nationalist Kuomintang government in 1926, the differing regions of this vast country were ruled by endlessly forming, breaking, and re forming alliances of regional generals who ruled as 'warlords'. These warlords acted essentially as