After political conflict with the Beiyang government in Beijing, Sun Yat-sen began organizing southern opposition around the idea of protecting the 1912 Provisional Constitution. This opening step set the Constitutional Protection Movement in motion and made Guangzhou the main base for a rival government claim.
Naval Minister Cheng Biguang arrived in Guangzhou with a fleet to support Sun’s plan to establish a southern government. The ships gave the movement military leverage and helped the Guangzhou leadership resist pressure from the north.
An extraordinary conference of former parliament members in Guangzhou passed a resolution to create a military government to “protect” the constitution. This decision created an alternative center of power and formally split political authority between north and south.
Members of the Guangzhou assembly elected Sun Yat-sen as generalissimo (top military-political leader) of the new military government. The leadership structure also included major southwestern warlords, showing that the movement depended on coalition politics as much as constitutional ideas.
Power struggles inside the southern coalition reduced Sun’s authority, and he resigned from the Guangzhou military government. The change highlighted a key weakness of the movement: it relied on warlords whose priorities often conflicted with Sun’s national program.
Cen Chunxuan became chairman of the governing committee that ran the Guangzhou military government. Under Cen, the southern regime continued, but factional bargaining and uneven military control made it hard to build a stable constitutional order.
A short but decisive war in the north destroyed the Anhui clique’s dominance in Beijing politics. The shift changed bargaining conditions for the south and helped set up the next stage of the Constitutional Protection Movement by weakening some northern pressure.
In the Guangdong–Guangxi War, Chen Jiongming’s forces took Guangzhou and pushed the Old Guangxi clique out of Guangdong. This military change reopened space for Sun Yat-sen to return and restart a southern government effort under new leadership.
After Chen’s victory, Sun returned to Guangzhou and reorganized the southern political center. This marked the transition from the first to the second Constitutional Protection effort, now more directly shaped by Sun’s plans and Chen’s local power base.
The Guangzhou legislature dissolved the earlier military-junta structure and announced a new “Government of the Republic of China” in Guangzhou. This was meant to strengthen legitimacy, but it also created debates because the southern parliament lacked a full constitutional quorum.
Sun was elected “extraordinary president” by the Guangzhou parliament, and he took office soon after. The title reflected an attempt to claim constitutional continuity while admitting that normal constitutional procedures could not be fully met in wartime politics.
Fighting between the Zhili and Fengtian cliques broke out for control of Beijing’s government. The widening northern conflict shaped Sun and Chen’s calculations about whether to negotiate national reunification or pursue a new military campaign from the south.
As northern leaders pushed a reunification plan tied to the 1912 constitution, Li Yuanhong resumed the Beijing presidency. This development gave Chen Jiongming a reason to argue that the constitutional goal was being met without further war, while Sun remained skeptical of the north’s intentions.
Guangdong Army commanders aligned with Chen Jiongming moved against Sun’s government, surrounding and shelling the presidential palace. Sun escaped to the warship Yongfeng, and the Guangzhou-based government collapsed, effectively ending the 1921–1922 phase of the movement.
Constitutional Protection Movement and Guangzhou Military Government (1917–1922)