The Red Spear Society (Hongqiang Hui) began as a rural self-defense movement in Henan, Hebei, and Shandong in northern China during the Warlord Era in the 1920s . These were local groups of small-holders and tenant farmers organized to defend villages against roaming bandits, warlords, tax collectors or later Chinese communists or Japanese. For most of the Republic of China period in China the Red Spear Society posed a challenge to government control in North China. They were similar in nature to the Big Swords Society