Northern Expedition

• 1. Origins And Prelude

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  On the 30th of May 1925, Chinese students in Shanghai gathered at the International Settlement to protest foreign interference. They called for a boycott of foreign goods and an end to the British and American governed settlement. The Shanghai Municipal Police opened fire on the crowd of demonstrators. This incident sparked outrage throughout China and culminated in the Canton, Hong Kong strike that began on the 18th of June 1925. The strike proved a fertile recruiting ground for the Communist Party. Chiang Kai-shek had been vying for the position of KMT leader since Sun Yat-sen died in March 1925. He launched a bloodless purge of hardline communists from the Guangzhou administration on the 20th of March 1926. This move was known as the Canton Coup. Chiang then negotiated a compromise where rightist members like Wu Tiecheng were removed from their posts. Soviet aid to the KMT government continued despite these tensions. A fragile coalition between KMT factions and the CCP managed to hold together. In 1926, three major coalitions of warlords existed across China hostile to the KMT government in Guangzhou. Wu Peifu occupied northern Hunan, Hubei, and Henan provinces. Sun Chuanfang controlled Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, and Jiangxi provinces. Zhang Zuolin led the most powerful coalition controlling Manchuria, Shandong, and Zhili.

• 2. First Phase Campaigns

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  Chiang Kai-shek accepted his post as commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army in a ceremony on the 9th of July 1926. This marked the formal start of the Northern Expedition although military clashes had already been ongoing. The initial strategy devised by Soviet advisors Mikhail Borodin and Vasily Blyukher focused on defeating Wu Peifu while appeasing Sun Chuanfang. KMT forces quickly advanced from Guangdong into Wu-controlled Hunan province capturing Changsha on the 11th of July. By the 28th of August, Li Zongren and his Guangxi NRA Seventh Army had taken Xianning about south of Wuchang. Wu Peifu launched a counterattack against KMT forces to the south on the 29th of August but lost 8,000 troops within that short period. At least 5,000 of these were taken prisoner along with their rifles. By the 2nd of September, the NRA had nearly surrounded Wuchang. Wu Peifu fled north to Henan province leaving his remaining troops to hold out for over a month. On the 4th of September 1926, Chiang Kai-shek launched an attack across the Jiangxi border targeting Jiujiang and Nanchang. By the 19th of September, both cities came under KMT control hastened by the defection of Lai Shih-huang. Sun retook most territory he had lost after arriving from Nanjing with reinforcements on the 21st of September. He brutally reasserted authority by killing hundreds of students and teachers whose severed heads he displayed on spikes in public places.

• 3. The Shanghai Massacre

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  Between 12 and the 14th of April 1927, hundreds of communists in Shanghai were arrested and killed on the orders of Chiang Kai-shek. This disturbance became known as the Shanghai massacre effectively ending the alliance between nationalists and communists. Chiang engaged the Green Gang underworld group to kill all trade unionists and communists within the city. The purge was condemned by Wang Jingwei who was now leader of the Wuhan government. This formalized the split between KMT leftists based in Wuhan and KMT rightists who established their own government in Nanjing. At ceremonies held to commemorate the city's elevation to capital of China, warlord Zhang Zongchang's artillery bombarded the city's waterfront from across the Yangtze. The precariousness of the NRA position in Nanjing was clear during these events. On the 23rd of March 1927, Bai Chongxi's forces marched into Shanghai victorious following intense fighting at Songjiang just outside the city. The general disorder caused by the strike resulted in the deaths of 322 people with 2,000 wounded. These casualties contributed to KMT feelings of unease with its wayward communist allies. The nationalist government had moved from Guangzhou to the new city of Wuhan which was formed from a merger of Wuchang and two other nearby cities.

• 4. Second Phase Resumption

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  The resumption of the Northern Expedition was officially launched by Chiang Kai-shek on the 7th of April 1928. The NRA First Collective Army rushed into Shandong along the Tianjin, Pukou railway capturing Tengzhou by the 16th of April. Meanwhile, Feng's forces advanced into Shandong from the west capturing Jiaxiang on the 15th. By the 29th of April 1928, the NRA had nearly encircled Jinan where there were already 3,000 Japanese troops guarding 2,000 Japanese civilians. Chiang Kai-shek arrived on the 2nd of May 1928 and attempted to negotiate a Japanese withdrawal from Jinan issuing safety guarantees for Japanese civilians to local Kwantung Army commander Hikosuke Fukuda. Early the next morning conflict broke out between Chinese and Japanese troops starting what came to be called the Jinan incident. What began as a minor armed altercation escalated on the 8th of May into a full-scale Japanese attack on the city. During the course of the incident, the Japanese killed KMT foreign affairs commissioner Cai Gongshi several diplomats and about five thousand Chinese civilians. On the 6th of June 1928, the NRA Third Collective Army marched into Beijing ending the Beiyang government.

  On the 4th of June 1928,

• 5. Jinan Incident And Beijing

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  a bomb planted by the Japanese Kwantung Army exploded under Zhang Zuolin's train killing him in the so-called Huanggutun incident. His remaining forces even further demoralised crumpled under the pressure of the NRA advance. Sun Chuanfang unleashed the final blow to the NPA when he withdrew his troops from the defensive line and fled to Japanese-controlled Dairen on the 4th of June. Zhang Xueliang succeeded Zhang Zuolin as leader of the Fengtian clique and decided to end the war and to co-operate with the nationalists. The Shandong, Zhili Army led by Zhang Zongchang and Chu Yupu refused to surrender despite defeats suffered still numbering about 60,000 to 70,000 soldiers. Supported by Japan, the Shandong, Zhili Army moved from its base at Tangshan on the 2nd of August 1928 crossing the Luan River and invading Manchuria. After six days of fighting however the defiant warlord army was trapped by KMT and Zhang Xueliang-aligned forces. Many of Zhang Zongchang's troops including White Russian mercenaries defected or deserted while those who refused to surrender were killed.

  In July 1928 Chiang and leaders of four collective armies met at Beijing to discuss demobilisation

• 6. Zhang Zuolin Assassination

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  and disarmament of roughly 2.2 million troops that had come to be part of the NRA. Chiang desired to reduce the size of the army by half so as to free up government monies for domestic development. The new peacetime Nanjing government was launched on the 10th of October 1928 the seventeenth anniversary of the start of the Xinhai Revolution with Chiang at its head. The country however remained de facto divided into five realms controlled by military leaders. The Nanjing faction controlled area around Nanjing and Shanghai while Guangxi clique controlled Hubei Hunan and Guangxi. Feng Yuxiang's Guominjun continued to control Shaanxi Henan and parts of Shantung and Zhili. Yan Xishan controlled Shanxi Beijing and area around Tianjin. Zhang Xueliang continued to control Manchuria as a quasi-independent state. Local warlords in Sichuan Yunnan and Guizhou remained as they were before the Northern Expedition. Regionalism and warlordism would continue weakening the country and laying groundwork for the Second Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War.