By 1926, China was still split between warlords after the 1911 revolution. The Guomindang, led by Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek), decided it was time to reunite the country by force.
Jiang had been the founding commandant (head) of the Whampoa Military Academy and taken control of the GMD after Sun Yixian's death in 1925. He launched the Northern Expedition in 1926 — a military campaign to smash the northern warlords and unify China under GMD rule.
Cause and consequence: how the Expedition succeeded: The GMD army marched north from Guangzhou, defeating warlord armies through a mix of fighting and negotiated defections — many warlords simply switched sides once they saw which way the wind was blowing. Crucially, the GMD was still allied with the CCP at this stage, so communist organisers helped mobilise peasants and workers along the route. By 1928, Jiang's forces had taken Beijing and nominal national unification was declared.
Nominal is the key word. Many northern warlords kept real local power in exchange for loyalty to Nanjing — China was unified on paper more than in practice.
- The Nanjing Decade (1927–37) — Jiang made Nanjing his capital and ruled through the GMD one-party state, claiming this was a stage of 'political tutelage' before eventual democracy.
- Economic achievements — new currency (the fabi, 1935), some infrastructure (roads, railways) and industrial growth in coastal cities, especially Shanghai.
- New Life Movement (1934) — Jiang's campaign blending Confucian values with discipline, aimed at building a modern, morally 'clean' citizenry loyal to the GMD.
- Limits of control — Jiang never controlled the whole country; regional warlords, foreign concessions, and the rural interior remained largely outside effective Nanjing rule.
The debate: was the Nanjing Decade a success?: This is a genuine Paper-3 argument, not just a fact list. Case for success: real modernisation began — banking reform, new legal codes, growth of a modern urban middle class, some progress against foreign extraterritoriality. Case against: the GMD state was corrupt and reliant on Shanghai bankers and gangster allies (the Green Gang), it failed to reform the countryside where 80% of Chinese lived, and it never built the mass political base or land reform that might have secured long-term loyalty. Both sides matter for a 'to what extent' judgement.
| Strength of the Nanjing regime | Weakness of the Nanjing regime |
|---|---|
| New currency (fabi) stabilised trade | Peasant poverty and landlordism untouched |
| Growth of industry in treaty-port cities | Corruption and reliance on Shanghai gangsters |
| New Life Movement built ideology | No genuine democracy, still one-party rule |
| Whampoa-trained officer corps loyal to Jiang | Warlords in the interior kept real power |
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Japan had long eyed Manchuria, China's resource-rich northeastern region, as vital to its empire. Japan already held railway and mining rights there from earlier treaties, and the Japanese army stationed to guard them — the Kwantung Army — acted increasingly on its own initiative.
The Mukden Incident, September 1931: Kwantung Army officers secretly blew up a small section of Japanese-owned railway near Mukden (Shenyang) and blamed Chinese saboteurs. Using this staged excuse, the army launched a full invasion, and within months had conquered all of Manchuria — without authorisation from the civilian government in Tokyo.
In 1932, Japan set up the puppet state of Manchukuo, installing the last Qing emperor, Puyi, as a figurehead ruler with no real power.
1. Jiang's response
Jiang chose NOT to fight Japan directly. He believed China's army was too weak and disorganised, and that the greater threat was internal — the communists.
2. 'First internal pacification, then external resistance'
This was Jiang's stated policy: crush the CCP first, deal with Japan later. He appealed instead to the League of Nations.
3. The League's failure
The League of Nations condemned the invasion (the Lytton Report, 1932) but took no real action. Japan simply left the League in 1933. Manchuria stayed lost.
Mukden staged → Manchuria seized → Manchukuo puppet state → League condemns but does nothing.
The debate: was Jiang right to appease Japan?: In Jiang's defence: China's army, still full of ex-warlord units, stood little chance against modern Japanese forces in 1931 — fighting then risked a quicker, worse defeat, and the CCP was a real and growing threat to GMD survival. Against Jiang: his policy of non-resistance let Japan seize territory and Chinese lives with impunity, badly damaged his nationalist credibility, and fuelled the perception (which the CCP exploited) that the GMD cared more about power than about defending China. This tension — internal enemy vs external enemy — runs through the whole period and will resurface with the Xi'an Incident of 1936.
- Significance for national identity — Manchuria's loss became a rallying symbol; student protests demanded resistance, showing rising Chinese nationalism the GMD could not ignore forever.
- Significance for the GMD–CCP struggle — Jiang's refusal to fight Japan gave the CCP a propaganda opening: they could present themselves as the true patriots wanting to resist Japan, while the GMD was 'selling out' China.
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During the Northern Expedition, the GMD and CCP were allies in the First United Front, formed in 1923 with Soviet encouragement. But Jiang distrusted the communists and their growing influence among workers, especially in Shanghai.
The Shanghai Massacre, April 1927: As GMD troops approached Shanghai, Jiang struck first. Working with the Green Gang criminal syndicate, his forces turned on their communist allies, killing thousands of CCP members, trade unionists and suspected sympathisers in a few brutal days. This ended the First United Front for good and drove the CCP underground and into the countryside.
The massacre was a turning point: it showed Jiang saw communism, not warlordism, as the deeper long-term threat to GMD rule — and it radicalised the CCP, which now had to rebuild as a rural, armed movement rather than an urban labour organisation.
- Jiangxi Soviet (1931–34) — after Shanghai, surviving communists regrouped in rural base areas, most famously the Jiangxi Soviet, where Mao Zedong built peasant support through land redistribution.
- Mao's rise to influence — Mao argued communism in China should be built on the peasantry, not just urban workers as classic Marxist theory expected — a major adaptation to Chinese conditions.
- Jiang's Encirclement Campaigns — Jiang launched repeated military campaigns (the fifth, in 1934, used blockhouses and blockades) to destroy the Jiangxi Soviet, eventually forcing the communists to flee.
The Long March, 1934–35: Facing encirclement, around 86,000 communist fighters and officials broke out and began a retreat of roughly 9,000 km, walking from Jiangxi in the southeast to a new base at Yan'an in the northwest. Fewer than 10,000 survived the year-long march, crossing mountains, rivers and hostile territory under constant attack.
At the Zunyi Conference in January 1935, held during the march, Mao Zedong won a decisive power struggle within the CCP leadership, sidelining rivals who had followed Soviet-style conventional tactics. From this point, Mao was effectively the CCP's leading figure.
Long March as GMD near-victory
- CCP forces reduced from ~86,000 to under 10,000
- Communists driven from their productive Jiangxi base
- Militarily, the march looks like a desperate retreat/defeat
Long March as CCP triumph
- Survival itself became a powerful myth of endurance and sacrifice
- Produced a hardened, loyal core of leaders and soldiers around Mao
- Yan'an became a secure base from which the CCP later expanded hugely
The debate: was the Long March a defeat or a foundation for victory?: A strong Paper-3 essay recognises both readings. In the short term (military and human cost) it was close to a disaster. In the longer term (leadership, mythology, strategic base, Mao's consolidation of power) it is usually judged the event that made the CCP's later 1949 victory possible — significance is judged differently depending on the time frame you apply.