Rise of China - The Generalissimo

1925. 13 years after the abdication of China's last emperor, the country remains in turmoil. It is being torn apart by warring factions, with around 1.5 million men under arms. In the capital, Peking, millions mourn the death of revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen, who had seemed to many to offer a brighter future. But his plan to defeat the warlords and unite the country under Kuomintang rule lives on in his successor, a 37-year-old Party official Jiang Jiechi, better known in the West as Chiang Kai-shek. As commander of the Kuomintang's Wampu Military Academy, Chiang has earned a reputation as a charismatic, effective and ambitious leader. He attended military school in Japan, where he first met Sun Yat-sen, and joined the revolutionary cause in 1908. At the time of Sun's death, much of China is dominated by warlords – an assortment of ambitious generals and regional leaders who command their own private armies, and whose first loyalty is to themselves. The Kuomintang, also referred to as the Nationalists, control only the southern provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong, and its capital, Canton. To strengthen its position, they've made an uneasy alliance with the Communist Party to form the First United Front. This means they now receive support from the Soviet Union. But many Kuomintang members, including Chiang, are distrustful of Soviet intentions. His own recent visit to Russia has convinced him that communism is not suitable for China. Yet there is a widespread hunger for change in China. The people are fed up with the chaos, the warlords, and foreign interference. 1925 sees a rise in labour and anti-imperialist movements. When the multinational Shanghai police open fire on protesters, there are large-scale strikes in southern cities. The ranks of both the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party swell with new recruits. But the suspicion between these two unnatural allies lingers, and in 1926, Chiang decides to strike first. Alleging an imminent Communist plot, he launches his own pre-emptive coup. He declares martial law in Canton, and has political rivals and Soviet advisors arrested or expelled. He also expels Communists from the Wampoo military academy, including a rising star of the party, 28-year-old political commissar Zhou Enlai. Chiang's decisive action strengthens his grip on both the Kuomintang military and Nationalist Party. What's more, the Soviets, desperate to maintain any kind of influence in China, agree to continue their military support. The First United Front is just about intact. Chiang will now set out to fulfil Sun Yat-sen's dying aspiration – a northern expedition to defeat China's warlords, and unite the country under Kuomintang rule. The most powerful warlord in the north is Chiang Zuolin. He controls the Beiyang government in Peking, which remains the internationally recognised government of China. In central China, the dominant figure is Wu Peifu, the Jade Marshal. His ally, Sun Quanfang, controls several eastern provinces, and the cities of Nanking and Shanghai. In the south, Chiang's forces, known as the National Revolutionary Army, are 100,000 strong. He knows that when he marches north, his men will be heavily outnumbered. But his troops are better trained, have some modern Soviet equipment, plus their own warlord allies, Li Zongren, Feng Yuxiang, and Yan Shishan. Chiang plans to take on the hostile warlords with a methodical northern advance. In the first months of the war, his northern expedition makes rapid advances. By April, the Kuomintang control southern China's most important cities, including Wuhan, Shanghai, and Nanking. First Wu Peifu, then Sun Quanfang, are driven from their strongholds. Chiang Zuolin alone holds out in the north. Many warlord troops switch sides, swelling Chiang's National Revolutionary Army to a gigantic force, some 700,000 strong. Victory, and a unified China, seem within reach. As National Revolutionary Army troops advance on Peking, tensions between its Kuomintang and Communist factions resurface. Chiang Kai-shek is increasingly distrustful of his Soviet advisors, and concerned at the Communists' growing confidence. His suspicions appear to be confirmed as NRA troops approach Shanghai. A few days before their arrival, Zhou Enlai and other Communists use a workers' uprising to seize control of the city. But Chiang has his own powerful connections in Shanghai. Du Yuexiang, aka Big Ear Du, triad leader and kingpin of the Shanghai underworld, and a personal ally of Chiang Kai-shek. In the early hours of 12th April 1927, Du orders his Green Gang to attack the Communists and trade unionists who've taken over the city. Thousands of Shanghai workers take to the streets in protest. Chiang's Kuomintang troops open fire on them. Over the next days and weeks, some 12,000 Communists are killed or disappeared in Shanghai alone. The First United Front has ended in blood and betrayal. The Shanghai Massacre is just the first of many purges in which the Kuomintang hunts down Communists in territory they control. The Communists react by orchestrating uprisings across the country. Zhou Enlai, who is lucky to escape Shanghai alive, leads an armed uprising against Kuomintang rule in Nanchang. The following month, Mao Zedong leads the Autumn Harvest Uprising in Hunan and Jiangxi provinces. In December, a third uprising takes place in Canton. All three are swiftly crushed by Kuomintang forces. But there is no doubt that a brutal new front has opened in China's revolutionary struggles. As the Communists fight for survival, Chiang's northern expedition resumes its advance. He now targets the last hostile warlord standing – Jiang Zuolin. On 6th June 1928, in a moment of great symbolism, Kuomintang troops enter Peking, the old imperial capital. Jiang retreats across the Great Wall into Beijing. A region under heavy Japanese political and economic influence, there is also a large Japanese military presence here – the Guangdong Army. The Japanese have supported Jiang for several years, but now decide he has outlived his usefulness. As Jiang travels north by train, his carriage is destroyed by a massive bomb. It had been planted by a Japanese officer. The Japanese military hope for better results from Jiang's 27-year-old son, Jiang Shuiliang, but the young marshal, as he becomes known, has his own ideas. In July, Jiang Junior opens negotiations with the Kuomintang. In return for pledging allegiance to Jiang, he will hold on to his father's old power base in northeast China. Finally, after a decade of internal struggle, China is unified, with a single flag, a single capital, and a single leader, Chiang Kai-shek. But it won't be long before he faces his first major revolt. In 1929, Jiang proposes a major reorganisation of the National Revolutionary Army. He wants to halve its size from around 1.5 million men to 715,000, and split its troops into 65 divisions of 11,000 men. His generals, many of whom had previously served China's warlords, correctly see this as an attempt to undermine their power. A group of them form an anti-Chiang coalition, and plunge China back into civil war. The Central Plains War, as it is known, pits Kuomintang forces against their former warlord allies. Around a million soldiers take part in the fighting. Chiang Kai-shek suffers a series of early setbacks, but eventually regains control, thanks to support from Jiang, the young marshal. Victory comes at huge human and economic cost. And after a generation of revolution and war, Chiang Kai-shek has once more stamped his military authority on the country. Now he faces the next daunting challenge – to transform the Republic of China into a united, prosperous, independent state. Chiang establishes his one-party government in Nanking, a former capital of the Ming Dynasty. These years are known as the Nanking Decade, a period of sustained Kuomintang governance, across eastern China at least. In fact, the country's unity is paper-thin. Only Nanking and its surrounding area are under direct Kuomintang control. Most of the country is still governed by warlords, more or less loyal to Chiang's government. The Communists, meanwhile, are down but not out, and form pockets of resistance throughout the country. In power, Chiang Kai-shek is referred to as the Commander-in-Chief, or Generalissimo, and becomes increasingly authoritarian. To unite the country around a homegrown alternative to Communism, he launches the New Life Movement, reviving Confucian ideas to fit the times. Chiang's wife, Song Mei-ling, US-educated and from a prominent Chinese Christian family, plays a leading role. The impact of the New Life Movement is limited, but by the early 30s, parts of China are rapidly modernising. New laws promote gender equality, and protect women's rights in marriage and property ownership. Education continues to spread. Newspapers, magazines and journals proliferate. New cinemas and theatres open. Infrastructure projects help the Chinese economy to industrialise. And there is huge foreign investment, especially from Japan, though there are complaints of widespread corruption within Chiang's inner circle. And yet, 85% of China's population are peasants. Their lot has not improved since the time of the Qing. They remain desperately poor, and benefit little from developments in cities like Nanking and Shanghai. Instead, many face a perfect storm of soil exhaustion, erosion, and rising rents. They are largely ignored by the Kuomintang government, but not by the Communists, who are actively spreading their message across the countryside. To add to the woes of the rural poor, in 1931, catastrophic flooding devastates Central and Eastern China. The scale of death and destruction is almost unimaginable. Estimates range from 1 to 4 million lives lost. It's one of the worst natural disasters in human history. While the Republic of China struggles with its many challenges, foreign rivals look to take advantage. For decades, Japan has been extending its territory and influence, at the expense of neighbours. Now, against a backdrop of heightened militarism and nationalism, some in Japan see China as the obvious target for further imperial expansion. Japan already has enormous influence in northeast China, and owns railways, factories and mines in the region. Now their sights are set on the conquest of all Manchuria, rich in resources that Japan lacks. On the night of 18th September 1931, outside the city of Mukden, an explosion destroys a section of the Japanese-controlled South Manchurian Railway. But it's a false flag operation. The bomb has been planted by rogue officers from the Japanese Guangdong Army, to provide a pretext for the conquest of Manchuria. Ignoring Chinese and international protests, Japanese forces attack. Within three months, their troops control most of northeastern China, driving back local Chinese forces, commanded by Zhang, the young marshal. All of China is outraged, but Chiang Kai-shek will not be lured into a general war with Japan. Internal pacification before external resistance, he insists. His strategy will be to trade space for time, and he orders Chiang to retreat. Japan creates its own puppet state in northeast China, named Manchukuo. On the throne, the Japanese place China's deposed Qing Emperor, Puyi. Now 26 years old. As far as Chiang Kai-shek is concerned, it is the Communists, not the Japanese, who pose the greatest threat to Kuomintang rule. Just 10,000 Communist Party members escaped the purges of 1927. Now they have regrouped in the Chinese countryside. Several Chinese Soviets, or regional governments, have formed in remote, rural pockets across China. The most successful is the Jiangxi Soviet. Its chairman is Mao Zedong. The son of a wealthy farmer, Mao was a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party. Now he presides over the Jiangxi Soviet, where the Communist leadership is based. It controls a total population of more than 3 million, with its own bank, currency, and tax system. But Mao is criticised by other party leaders for his ruthless purges of Communist forces, and loses influence. Zhou Enlai takes over his role in the military leadership. The Jiangxi Soviet is the blueprint for a Chinese Communist revolution. For the Kuomintang government, it is an existential threat. Chiang Kai-shek plans a series of encirclement campaigns, to isolate and eradicate the Communists. His troops face determined resistance from the Communist Red Army. The first, second, third, and fourth encirclement campaigns all fail. The war between these two sides is brutal, and leads to suffering on a vast scale. Civilians, mostly peasants, find themselves caught between two ruthless forces, who do not hesitate to carry out mass executions, and torture and shoot anyone suspected of disloyalty. Victims include Mao's own wife, shot by the Kuomintang for refusing to denounce her husband. The death toll from this phase of China's civil war will never be known, but may be as high as half a million. Finally, in September 1934, Chiang Kai-shek musters nearly 1 million men to surround, blockade, and destroy the Jiangxi Soviet. This time, the weakened Communists cannot hold the line. They gradually lose ground, until around 100,000 soldiers and civilians remain, in a small area around Ruijin. The Communist leadership takes the fateful decision to abandon Jiangxi, and live to fight another day. Many are killed trying to break out of the Kuomintang trap. The survivors embark on an epic, year-long march, led by Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong. They cross some of China's most forbidding terrain, battling enemy forces, hunger and exhaustion along the way. Fewer than one in ten of the Jiangxi Communists complete the 6,000 mile march to Yan'an, where they meet up with Communist comrades from around the country. This astonishing feat becomes a founding legend of the Chinese Communist Party – the Long March. Mao's leadership secures his place at the top of the party, at the expense of his Soviet-backed rivals. From now on, the party will follow Mao's vision, not Moscow's. For the moment, Communist prospects look bleak. They have been decimated, and are on the run. But their fortunes are about to take a dramatic turn. December 1936. Chiang travels to Xi'an, in northern China, to visit Zhang, the young marshal. His troops are leading the fight against the Communists in their new northern base. It's eight years since Zhang's father had been assassinated by the Japanese. Three years later, they'd driven his army out of Manchuria. He is infuriated by Chiang's refusal to challenge the Japanese, and he's come up with a bold plan. Chiang kidnaps Chiang Kai-shek, and forces him to negotiate face-to-face with the Communists, represented by Zhou Enlai. After two weeks of talks, Chiang Kai-shek gives in. Having promised to end the internal fighting, and confront the Japanese, he is released. As soon as Chiang's safely back in Nanking, he has Zhang placed under house arrest. But on the crucial point, he keeps his word. Chiang agrees to form an alliance with his Communist enemies, a Second United Front, to take on Japan. On the night of 7th July 1937, a small detachment of Japanese soldiers demands to enter the walled town of Wanping, close to Peking, to search for a missing soldier. The Chinese garrison refuses. Tensions rise. A shot rings out from a Chinese position. 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