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Beiyang Army

20th-century Chinese army

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 12, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

The Beiyang Army, named after Yuan Shikai, who became Beiyang Minister in 1901, was a military force established in the late Qing dynasty. Under the command of Yuan, it formed the core of the Qing government's military modernization following the First Sino-Japanese War and became the most powerful component of the New Army. The army played a major role in the 1911 Revolution against both the Qing government and Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary forces. After Yuan's death in 1916, its commanders divided into rival factions known collectively as the Beiyang warlords, whose struggles for power ushered in the Warlord Era.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Beiyang Army” as 20th-century Chinese army. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1901, 1911, 1916—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Beiyang, Army and 20th-century can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as 20th-century Chinese army. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1901, 1911 and 1916.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Beiyang Army”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Beiyang Army primary sources, Beiyang Army archive and Beiyang research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Beiyang Army”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Beiyang Army” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.