Given the question: Information: - Cao Kun (Courtesy name: Zhongshan ()) (December 12, 1862 May 15, 1938) was a President of Republic China and military leader of the Zhili clique in the Beiyang Army; he also served as trustee of the Catholic University of Peking. - The Central Plains War was a civil war within the factionalised Kuomintang (KMT) that broke out in 1930. It was fought between the forces of Chiang Kai-shek and the coalition of three military commanders who were previously allied with Chiang: Yan Xishan, Feng Yuxiang, and Li Zongren. The war was fought across the Central Plains, a core region of China on the lower reaches of the Yellow River and the cradle of Chinese civilization. - Feng Yuxiang (6 November 1882 1 September 1948) was a warlord and leader in Republican China from Chaohu, Anhui. He served as Vice Premier of the Republic of China from 1928 to 1930. He was also known as the "Christian General" for his zeal to convert his troops and the "Betrayal General" for his penchant to break with the establishment. In 1911, he was an officer in the ranks of Yuan Shikai's Beiyang Army but joined forces with revolutionaries against the Qing Dynasty. He rose to high rank within Wu Peifu's Zhili warlord faction but launched the Beijing coup in 1924 that knocked Zhili out of power and brought Sun Yat-sen to Beijing. He joined the Nationalist Party (KMT), supported the Northern Expedition and became blood brothers with Chiang Kai-shek, but resisted Chiang's consolidation of power in the Central Plains War, and broke with Chiang again in resisting Japanese incursions in 1933. He spent his later years supporting the Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang. - The Beiyang Army (Pei-yang Army) was a powerful, Western-style Imperial Chinese Army established by the Qing Dynasty government in the late 19th century. It was the centerpiece of a general reconstruction of Qing China's military system. The Beiyang Army played a major role in Chinese politics for at least three decades and arguably right up to 1949. It made the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 possible, and, by dividing into warlord factions known as the Beiyang Clique (Pei-yang Clique), ushered in a period of regional division. - Japan ("Nippon" or "Nihon" ; formally "" or "Nihon-koku", means "State of Japan") is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, It is lying off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland (east of China, Korea, Russia) and stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and near Taiwan in the southwest. - China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia. With a population of over 1.381billion, it is the world's most populous country. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China, and its capital is Beijing. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau), and claims sovereignty over Taiwan. The country's major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a great power and a major regional power within Asia, and has been characterized as a potential superpower. - The Zhili clique was one of several mutually hostile cliques or factions that split from the Beiyang clique during the Republic of China's warlord era. This fragmentation followed the death of Yuan Shikai, who was the only person capable of keeping the Beiyang Army together. It was named for the general region of the clique's base of power, Zhili Province, now Hebei. - The Guominjun, a.k.a. Nationalist Army, KMC, or Northwest Army (), refers to the military faction founded by Feng Yuxiang, Hu Jingyi and Sun Yue during China's Warlord Era. It was formed when Feng betrayed the Zhili clique during the Second Zhili-Fengtian War with the Fengtian clique in 1924. The Guominjun occupied Beijing, captured Zhili leader Cao Kun and expelled former Qing Dynasty emperor Puyi from the Forbidden City. - Hao Mengling ( 1892 -- 1937 ) was a Chinese general who distinguished himself first in the Northern Expedition and then in the Battle of Xinkou . Born on 18 February 1892 into a family of poor farmers , Hao ran away from his apprenticeship at a grocery shop to join the army when he was just a child . After he graduated from Baoding Military Academy , he joined Feng Yuxiang ' Guominjun along with his mentor Wei Yisan ( ) in 1921 . In 1926 , he participated in the Northern Expedition as commanding officer of 26th Bde 4th Army , and his outstanding command earned him a promotion to CO of 2nd Division and then 54th Division . After the Central Plains War he was promoted to CO of 9th Army . Hao relinquished his command in 1937 after battling communist forces for decades , but returned after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident . By the time he got back to the front line from Sichuan , the IJA had already broken through Yanmen Pass and were converging on Xinkou . Under Wei Lihuang 's 14th Army Group , Hao led his 9th Army and Shanxi clique 's 19th , 35th and 61st Armies in the defense of Xinkou . During the battle , Hao 's staff suggested to him to change to ordinary soldier 's uniform for safety reasons , but Hao refused , a refusal that caused his death in the following battle . After five days of intense battle that saw horrific casualties on both sides , Hao , who personally led a counter offensive , decided to survey the front , during which he had to reach another isolated section of Chinese controlled mountain ridge . There were two trails , one was shorter and direct , but a stretch of 20 metres of this trail located at the front line and thus was exposed to the enemy fire . Another trail was completely in Chinese control and out of reach of the enemy fire , but it would take much longer time to reach the destination if this path was taken . Refusing his staff 's suggestion for the same reason of boosting morale just like the way he had refused to change to ordinary soldier 's uniform , Hao made a fateful... - The Qing dynasty, officially the Great Qing, also called the Qing Empire or the Manchu dynasty, was the last imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the territorial base for the modern Chinese state. - Chiang Kai-shek (October 31, 1887 April 5, 1975), also romanized as Jiang Jieshi and known as Jiang Zhongzheng, was a Chinese political and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China between 1928 and 1975. Chiang was an influential member of the Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist Party, and was a close ally of Sun Yat-sen's. He became the Commandant of the Kuomintang's Whampoa Military Academy and took Sun's place as leader of the KMT, following the Canton Coup in early 1926. Having neutralized the party's left wing, Chiang then led Sun's long-postponed Northern Expedition, conquering or reaching accommodations with China's many warlords. - Baoding is a city in Hebei province, China, approximately southwest of the national capital, Beijing. At the 2010 census, Baoding City had 11,194,372 inhabitants out of which 2,176,857 lived in the built-up ("or metro") area made of 3 urban districts and Qingyuan and Mancheng counties largely being conurbated, on . Baoding is among 13 Chinese cities with a population of over 10 million, ranking seventh. - The Northern Expedition, was a Kuomintang (KMT) military campaign, led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, from 192628. Its main objective was to unify China under its own control by ending the rule of the Beiyang government as well as the local warlords. It led to the end of the Warlord Era, the reunification of China in 1928 and the establishment of the Nanjing government. - The Battle of Xinkou was the second of the 22 major engagements between the National Revolutionary Army and Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. - Li Zongren or Li Tsung-jen (13 August 1890 30 January 1969), courtesy name Delin (Te-lin; ), was a prominent Guangxi warlord and Kuomintang (KMT) military commander during the Northern Expedition, Second Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War. He served as vice-president and acting president of the Republic of China under the 1947 Chinese Constitution. - Yan Xishan (or Yen Hsi-shan, ; 8 October 1883 22 July 1960) was a Chinese warlord who served in the government of the Republic of China. Yan effectively controlled the province of Shanxi from the 1911 Xinhai Revolution to the 1949 Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War. As the leader of a relatively small, poor, remote province, Yan Xishan survived the machinations of Yuan Shikai, the Warlord Era, the Nationalist Era, the Japanese invasion of China, and the subsequent civil war, being forced from office only when the Nationalist armies with which he was aligned had completely lost control of the Chinese mainland, isolating Shanxi from any source of economic or military supply. Yan has been viewed by Western biographers as a transitional figure who advocated using Western technology to protect Chinese traditions, while at the same time reforming older political, social, and economic conditions in a way that paved the way for the radical changes that would occur after his rule. - A civil war, also known as an intrastate war in polemology, is a war between organized groups within the same state or country, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly united state. The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region or to change government policies. The term is a calque of the Latin "bellum civile" which was used to refer to the various civil wars of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. - Baoding Military Academy was a military academy based in Baoding, Republican China, in the first two decades of the 20th century. For a time, it was the most important military academy in China, and its cadets played prominent roles in the political and military history of the Republic of China. The Baoding Military Academy closed in 1923, but served as a model for the Whampoa Military Academy, which was founded in Guangzhou in 1924. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, half of 300 divisions in China's armed forces were commanded by Whampoa graduates and one-third were Baoding cadets. - A warlord is a leader able to exercise military, economic, and political control over a subnational territory within a sovereign state due to his ability to mobilize loyal armed forces. These armed forces, usually considered militias, are loyal to the warlord rather than to the state regime. Warlords have existed throughout much of history, albeit in a variety of different capacities within the political, economic, and social structure of states or ungoverned territories. - The Yellow River or Huang He is the second-longest river in Asia, following the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai province of western China, it flows through nine provinces, and it empties into the Bohai Sea near the city of Dongying in Shandong province. The Yellow River basin has an eastwest extent of about and a northsouth extent of about . Its total basin area is about . - The Beijing coup refers to the October 1924 "coup d'etat" by Feng Yuxiang against Chinese President Cao Kun, leader of the Zhili warlord faction. Feng called it the Capital Revolution. The coup occurred at a crucial moment in the Second ZhiliFengtian War and allowed the pro-Japanese Fengtian clique to defeat the previously dominant Zhili clique. Followed by a brief period of liberalization under Huang Fu, on November 23 this government was replaced by a conservative, pro-Japanese government led by Duan Qirui. The coup alienated many liberal Chinese from the Beijing government. - The Kuomintang (or ; KMT), often translated as the Nationalist Party of China or Chinese Nationalist Party, also spelled as Guomindang (GMD) by its Pinyin transliteration, is a major political party in the Republic of China, currently the second-largest in the country. - Yuan Shikai (16 September 1859 6 June 1916) was a Chinese general, politician and warlord, famous for his influence during the late Qing Dynasty, his role in the events leading up to the abdication of the last Qing Emperor, his autocratic rule as the first formal President of the Republic of China, and his short-lived attempt to restore monarchy in China, with himself as the Hongxian Emperor. - Anhui is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China located in the eastern region of the country. Located across the basins of the Yangtze River and the Huai River, it borders Jiangsu to the east, Zhejiang to the southeast, Jiangxi to the south, Hubei to the southwest, Henan to the northwest, and Shandong for a short section in the north. The provincial capital is Hefei. - Wu Peifu or Wu P'ei-fu (April 22, 1874 December 4, 1939), was a major figure in the struggles between the warlords who dominated Republican China from 1916 to 1927. - The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynastythe years 1420 to 1912. It is located in the centre of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. It served as the home of emperors and their households as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government for almost 500 years. - The National Revolutionary Army (NRA), sometimes shortened to Revolutionary Army () before 1928, and as National Army () after 1928, was the military arm of the Kuomintang (KMT, or the Chinese Nationalist Party) from 1925 until 1947 in the Republic of China. It also became the regular army of the ROC during the KMT's period of party rule beginning in 1928. It was renamed the Republic of China Armed Forces' () after the 1947 Constitution, which instituted civilian control of the military. - Puyi (7 February 190617 October 1967), of the Manchu Aisin Gioro clan, commonly known as Henry Pu Yi, was the last Emperor of China and the twelfth and final ruler of the Qing dynasty. When a child, he ruled as the Xuantong Emperor from 1908 until his forced abdication on 12 February 1912, after the successful Xinhai Revolution. From 1 to 12 July 1917, he was briefly restored to the throne as emperor by the warlord Zhang Xun. In 1932, after the occupation of Manchuria the state of Manchukuo was established by Japan, and he was chosen to become 'Chief Executive' of the new state using the era-name of Datong (Ta-tung). In 1934, he was declared the Kangde Emperor (or Kang-te Emperor) of Manchukuo and ruled until the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1945. After the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, Puyi was imprisoned as a war criminal for 10 years, wrote his memoirs and became a titular member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the National People's Congress. - Hu Jingyi (18921925), Chinese general, warlord and military governor of Henan (192425) during the Warlord Era of China. - The Fengtian Clique was one of several mutually hostile cliques or factions that split from the Beiyang Clique in the Republic of China's Warlord Era. It was named for Fengtian Province (now Liaoning) and operated from a territorial base comprising the three northeastern provinces that made up Manchuria. It was led by warlord Zhang Zuolin, known as the "Grand Marshall;" it was supported by Japan. Between 1920 and 1921 it exercised control of Beijing jointly with the Zhili clique. However, tensions soon began building between the two cliques, and the Fengtian clique clashed with the Zhili clique for control of Beijing, which caused the First Zhili-Fengtian War (1922) and the Second Zhili-Fengtian War (1924). The power of the Fengtian Clique began to decrease in the midst of the Kuomintang's Northern Expedition. While retreating North Zhang Zuolin's Japanese sponsors blew up his train, killing him. After the assassination of Zhang Zuolin in 1928 by the Japanese, his son, Zhang Xueliang took over the leadership of the clique. Zhang Xueliang then went on to pledge himself and his army to the Kuomintang government in Nanking. - Chaohu was formerly a prefecture-level city and is now a county-level city in central Anhui province, People's Republic of China. Embracing the Lake Chao, from which the city was named, Chaohu borders the provincial capital of Hefei to the northwest, Lu'an to the west, Anqing to the southwest, Tongling to the south, Wuhu to the southeast, and Ma'anshan and the province of Jiangsu to the east. - Guangzhou , traditionally romanised as Canton, is the capital and largest city of the Province of Guangdong in southeastern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kong and north of Macau, Guangzhou was a major terminus of the maritime Silk Road and continues to serve as a major port and transportation hub. - Sun Yat-sen (12 November 1866 12 March 1925) was a Chinese physician, writer, philosopher, calligrapher and revolutionary, the first president and founding father of the Republic of China. As the foremost pioneer of the Republic of China, Sun is referred to as the "Father of the Nation" in the Republic of China (ROC), Hong Kong, Macau and the "forerunner of democratic revolution" in People's Republic of China (PRC). Sun played an instrumental role in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty during the years leading up to the Xinhai Revolution. He was appointed to serve as Provisional President of the Republic of China when it was founded in 1912. He later co-founded the Nationalist Party of China, serving as its first leader. Sun was a uniting figure in post-Imperial China, and he remains unique among 20th-century Chinese politicians for being widely revered amongst the people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait. - The , literally "Army of the Greater Japanese Empire", was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan, from 1871 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of War, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor of Japan as supreme commander of the army and the navy. Later an Inspectorate General of Military (Army) Aviation became the third agency with oversight of the army. During wartime or national emergencies, the nominal command functions of the emperor would be centralized in an Imperial General Headquarters (IGHQ), an ad-hoc body consisting of the chief and vice chief of the Army General Staff, the minister of war, the chief and vice chief of the Naval General Staff, the inspector general of military aviation, and the inspector general of military training. - The Second Sino-Japanese War (September 18, 1931 September 9, 1945) was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from 1931 to 1945. The First Sino-Japanese War happened in 189495. In January 2017, the Chinese Government extended their official definition of the Second Sino-Japanese War back to September 18, 1931 the Invasion of Manchuria by Japan as opposed to the traditional 1937 start date, defined by the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. China fought Japan, with some economic help from Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war would merge into the greater conflict of World War II as a major front of what is broadly known as the Pacific War. One could call the Second Sino-Japanese War part of World War II, but the latter conflict is still mainly considered to have started in 1939 when France and the British Empire declared war on Nazi Germany following the invasion of Poland. The Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. It accounted for the majority of civilian and military casualties in the Pacific War, with anywhere between 10 and 25 million Chinese civilians and over 4 million Chinese and Japanese military personnel dying from war-related violence, famine, and other causes. What entity does 'hao mengling' has the relation 'place of birth' with?
The answer is:
hebei