CKS+and+the+Northern+Expedition

**CHIANG KAI-SHEK and THE NORTHERN EXPEDITION** Historiography: David Curtis Wright, The History of China 1921
 * Chiang Kai-Shek was one of Sun's key generals and took over the GMD, National Revolutionary Army in 1925 (Sun's death)
 * Having established working political and military ties with the Soviets, Sun was eager to launch his Northern Expedition, a military campaign against warlords, and destroy their power
 * Sun died on March 1925
 * Chiang began the Northern Expedition on July 27, 1926 and went smoothly
 * By September, Nationalists and CCP allies had already captured Wuhan (centrally located and strategically important city where Revolution of 1911 broke out)
 * Chiang then marked on to Shanghai and Nanjing, in March 1927 entered Shanghai unopposed and captured Nanjing
 * Chiang set up up right-wing government in Nanjing
 * End of the Northern Expedition Chiang turns his vengeance on generally pro-CCP labor unions in Shanghai
 * April 12, 1927, brutal and bloody anti-communist campaign
 * Northern Expedition was still underway at the time
 * 1929 Chiang marched into Beijing and expelled Zhang Zuolin and renamed the city Beiping
 * By 1929, Chiang emerged as China's new strongman and his forces had broken the warlords' power, nominally united China under the control of Nanjing based government and expelled the communists from major cities