disapproval If you describe a leader of a country or organization as a warlord, you are critical of them because they have achieved power by behaving in an aggressive and violent way. He had been a dictator and a warlord who had oppressed and degraded the people of the South. a drug warlord. the leader of an unofficial military group fighting against a government, king, or different group. In China, an independent military commander in the early 20th century. Warlords, supported by provincial military interests or foreign powers, ruled various parts of China following the death of Yuan Shikai, first president of the Republic of China. In southeastern China Sun Yat-sen and the Nationalist Party gained the backing of a warlord based in Guangzhou (Canton). In northern China three leading warlords emerged: Zhang Zuolin, a Japanese-backed bandit in Manchuria; Wu Peifu, a traditionally educated officer in central China; and Feng Yuxiang, who seized Beijing in 1924. The Nationalist Party consolidated its control in the south and, under Chiang Kai-shek, swept northward, reuniting the country in 1928. Numerous local warlords continued to exert de facto power over their own domains until the Japanese invasion during what became World War II. See also Northern Expedition
{i} military leader who has authority over an area (either as a delegate of the ruling government or as a member of a rebelling force)
supreme military leader exercising civil power in a region especially one accountable to nobody when the central government is weak
Responsible for training and practices for the local fighters In Marinus, the Warlord prepares our heavy weapons personnel for battle and leads them during the battles