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The Chinese Revolution

The Northern Expedition

Season 1, Ep. 47
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The Nationalists' Northern Expedition began with doubts by their Communist allies.


But it was a military success and quickly Henan and then Hebei provinces were captured. Mikhail Borodin then wanted the armies to move north along the Hankou-Beijing railway line. Instead, Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) preferred to follow the Yangzi River downstream and take the rich provinces controlled by the warlord Sun Chuanfang. That was slower going and the new KMT administration in Wuhan was threatening Chiang's funding and role as Commander-in-Chief.


Chiang supported a purge of Communists in his territories and the crackdown on Communism in Shanghai and other cities caused a split in the Guomindang. Two rival capitals and governments were set up. One in Wuhan was allied with the Communists and Soviets. Chiang's in Nanjing was anti-Communist.


Warlords joined in and the Manchurian General had Li Dazhao killed when the Soviet Embassy was raided. Zhou Enlai barely escaped Shanghai.


The Wuhan administration pushed the military campaign north towards Beijing while trying to stop the peasants from "excesses" in the countryside. Then Wuhan and the Soviet's ally, the Christian Warlord Feng Yuxiang, turned on the Communists and insisted that the Wuhan government purge itself of Communists. The first United Front was over and the split in the Guomindang ended. The crackdown on Communists and the social revolution intensified.


Chiang and his allies were then able to push north and capture Beijing. The Northern Expedition had been a military success. The Nationalists had achieved their long held goal of forming a national government.


Mao Zedong was a survivor of the anti-communist violence and led a small group of rebels in the countryside. They would need to relocate to a mountain hideout. Mao learned a few things during the Northern Expedition. "Political power is obtained from the barrel of the gun." He also realized that taking land from independent cultivators who neither paid rent nor received rent, was a mistake. They were the "swing voters" of the rural revolution. By 1928, he realized he needed those middle peasants as allies.


Chiang Kai-shek had won the battles of the Northern Expedition. But would he win the peace?


Image: "Chiang Kai-shek in 1927" by quinet is licensed under CC BY 2.0.


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