ABSTRACT
Although the militarization that occurred at all levels of Chinese society during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is easily identified, a more complicated issue arises when one tries to understand how the militarization of one level of society may have affected another. The limited scholarship on this subject has largely focused on the effect of local militarization on changes in higher-level politics and government. Almost no attention has been paid to how, or even whether, the militarization of provincial and national elites affected the configuration of power at local levels. This essay seeks to remedy this oversight through a case study of how several military professionals, who attained high military office in the Republican period, influenced the structure of power and politics in their native county in the Hunan province.
