I understand that the Anfu Club was the political party associated with the Anhui Clique (皖系)in the early days of the Republic of China. I also believe that it was quite successful in the 1918 election, if only because of large scale vote rigging. More than this I do not know. Can anyone tell me how this group defined itself, and what its major policies were?

Hi William. I'd like to know more myself. Only have brief information. Hard to get good English language information on details. As far as I know they were associated with Duan Qirui's Beiyang government and were controlled by Duan. They were accused by detractors of being Japanese collaborators and favoured hostile military policies against Southern forces. Xu Shichang installed as President of ROC 1918-22 was a member of the Anfu Club but lost any real influence after the Anhui/Zhilli clique spat in 1920. By co-incidence I posted an antique calligraphy fan painting today for translation which I bought recently and told as having belonged to Xu Shichang.

I think I need to do a basic course in early Republic of China history to make sense of all the factions. I don't think any of them are well documented, just as the warlords are not well documented. For someone living in a vaguely ordered society, it is difficult to even understand how life could have been so tumultuous.

Wellington Koo was not ware of the massive fraud as reported.

China's parliament was split at the time. There was a southern parliament in Canton, and a northern parliament.

Because not enough parliament memberes were present in Peking, some financial inducement was given to lure them away from Canton, hence the claim of voting fraud.

The truth was Duan Qirui's faction successfully obtained the backing of Political Science Faction, and Transportation Clique in controlling the parliament, while the majority of KMT factions stayed in Canton and did not participate in the election.

The warlord period is becoming a new interest of mine. Can anyone recommend any good books that can explain all the chaos and personalities around at the time?

try Lucian Pye's "Warlord politics. Conflict and Coalition in the Modernization of Republican China" and James E. Sheridan's "Chinese Warlord: The Career of Feng Yu-Hsiang"