Fengtian clique
At the time of the assassination, the Kwantung Army was already in the process of grooming Yang Yuting, a senior general in the Fengtian clique, to be Zhang's successor. However, the actual assassination apparently took even the Kwantung Army leadership off guard since troops were not mobilized and the Kwantung Army could not take any advantage by blaming Zhang's Chinese enemies and using the incident as a "casus belli" for a Japanese military intervention. Instead, the incident was soundly condemned by the international community and by both military and civilian authorities in Tokyo itself. The emergence of Zhang's son Zhang Xueliang as successor and leader of the Fengtian clique also came as a surprise.