清季“湘人江督格局”的终结与“北洋下南洋”的形成

The End of“Hunan People Serving as the Governor-General of Liangjiang”and the Formation of the“Southward Movement of the Beiyang Faction”in the Late Qing Dynasty

两江总督为清朝东南第一要缺,重要性不言而喻。尤其是当湘、淮军削平太平天国,驻兵江南后,江督例兼南洋大臣,人选更为重大敏感。至迟到19世纪80年代,形成一个不成文的"湘人江督格局",即江督非湘人不可。1902年湘军领袖刘坤一去世后,江督陷入群雄逐鹿的境地,湘人江督格局难以为继,东南湘军随之衰落。究其原因,除湘系自身老化外,实与辛丑回銮后清廷的集权政策和袁世凯的北洋势力强势南下密不可分。张之洞、魏光焘、李兴锐和周馥相继担任江督,均可在这一脉络中得到解释。1904年,有北洋和淮系背景的山东巡抚周馥,受到慈禧太后、奕劻和袁世凯支持,出人意外地南下署理江督。随后两年,周馥大力裁撤湘军、将南洋海军交由北洋统一指挥、汲取南洋资源支持北洋练兵、利用北洋模式和北洋官员推进南洋新政的一系列举措,不仅终结了湘人江督格局,而且加速了"北洋下南洋"的形成。这一历史进程反映了清季权力格局和南北关系的演变,其深远影响一直持续到北洋政府时期。

In the Qing dynasty,the Governor-general of Liangjiang(Jiangsu, Anhui, and Jiangxi) was the most critical position in southeast China,whose importance was self-evident,especially after the Hunan and Huai armies pacified the Taiping Rebellion and stationed troops in the southeast regions in the 1860 s.After that,the Governor-general of Liangjiang also served as the Southern Superintendent of Trade.Hence,the candidate for this position became more critical and sensitive.By no later than 1880,there emerged an unwritten pattern of "Hunan people serving as the Governor-general of Liangjiang" in Chinese politics,namely,the Governor-general of Liangjiang had to be Hunan people.But with the death of Liu Kunyi,the leader of the Hunan army in 1902,the position of the Liangjiang Governorgeneral was fiercely contested by the leaders of the Hunan army and other political powers, the old pattern of "Hunan people serving as the Governor-general of Liangjiang" became unsustainable, and the Hunan army in the southeast henceforth declined.In addition to the aging of the Hunan faction itself, the reasons for this phenomenon are inextricably linked to the centralization policy of the Qing court after returning from Xi’an in 1901 and the southward movement of Yuan Shikai’s Beiyang faction.It can be explained by the fact that Zhang Zhidong,Wei Guangtao,Li Xingrui and Zhou Fu successively served as the Governors-general of Liangjiang.In 1904,Zhou Fu,the governor of Shandong province with a strong background in the Beiyang and Huai factions, unexpectedly went south to act as the Governor-general of Liangjiang,with the support of the Empress Dowager Cixi, Yi Kuang and Yuan Shikai.In the following two years,Zhou Fu vigorously cut down the Hunan army,and conducted a series of initiatives,such as placing the Nanyang fleet under Beiyang’s unified command,drawing Nanyang resources to support the Beiyang army,and using the Beiyang model and the Beiyang officials to promote the reform of Nanyang,which not only ended the pattern of "Hunan people serving as the Governor-general of Liangjiang," but also accelerated the "Southward Movement of the Beiyang Faction." This historical process reflected the evolution of the power pattern and the North-South relations in the late Qing dynasty,and its far-reaching influence lasted until the Beiyang period.