Baoding Military Academy

Baoding Military Academy or Paoting Military Academy (Chinese: 保定軍校; pinyin: Bǎodìng Jūnxiào; Wade–Giles: Pao-ting Chün-hsiao) was a military academy based in Baoding, during the late Qing dynasty and early Republic of 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. It, along with the Yunnan Military Academy and the Whampoa Military Academy, was one of the "three major strategist cradles in modern China". 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.