The Beiyang clique, also called the Beiyang Army, was a powerful group of Chinese officers in the late Qing Dynasty and the subsequent Republic of China. They had received training in Western countries, and Beiyang Army troops were drilled in Western-style, making it the most advanced army in China. It gradually gained more power in the 1900s than the Imperial Faction, led by Manchu nobles and Empress Dowager Cixi. It was originally established by the Qing government as its new professional military, but it later betrayed the dynasty under Yuan Shikai and made the Xinhai Revolution possible. Members of the clique came to dominate Chinese politics during the early republican period, and were known as the Beiyang government.