Duan Qirui
In January 1917, Prime Minister Terauchi sent a personal envoy, a private businessman named Nishihara Kamezo (1873–1954) to negotiate a series of eight loans totaling 145 million yen to the leader of one of the splinter groups of the former Beiyang Army, Duan Qirui. Nishihara was backed by Finance Minister Shoda Kazue, formerly the president of the Bank of Chosen in Korea. The loans were ostensibly private loans made by private banks as investments in the development of China; however, in reality the loans were underwritten by the Japanese government in assisting Duan Qirui in his civil war to overcome his rivals for control of northern China.