Quick questions on The Northern Expedition and Chiang Kai-shek's consolidation 1926-1928: HSC Modern History National Study China

After Yuan Shikai's death in 1916, China fragmented into warlord fiefdoms. By 1926 perhaps a dozen major militarists controlled regions: Wu Peifu in the central Yangtze, Sun Chuanfang in the lower Yangtze, Zhang Zuolin in Manchuria. The KMT, refounded by Sun Yat-sen in 1919, held only Guangdong province.

Whampoa opened on 1 May 1924 on an island ten miles below Guangzhou. Chiang Kai-shek, freshly returned from Moscow, was commandant. Zhou Enlai directed political instruction. By 1926 the Academy had produced four classes totalling around 5,000 cadets, the officer corps of the new National Revolutionary Army (NRA).

Chiang launched the Expedition on 9 July 1926 with around 100,000 NRA troops. The strategy combined three columns: a left along the Yangtze toward Wuhan, a centre toward Nanchang, and a right toward Fujian and Shanghai.

Anti-foreign violence accompanied the advance. The Hankou incident (3 January 1927) saw Chinese crowds force the British to surrender their concession. The Nanjing incident (24 March 1927) saw NRA soldiers attack foreign consulates and kill six foreigners; British and American gunboats shelled the city. These incidents alarmed both Western powers and Chinese business elites and pushed Chiang toward a settlement with Shanghai capital.

The KMT left, led by Wang Jingwei, set up a government at Wuhan in early 1927 alongside Borodin and the CCP. Chiang based himself at Nanchang, then Shanghai. The April 1927 Shanghai Massacre (treated in the next dot point) shattered the United Front. By July 1927 Wang Jingwei had also expelled the Communists.

The second phase, after a pause, resumed in April 1928. Chiang allied with the northern warlords Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan, who defected to the KMT in return for autonomy. Beijing fell on 8 June 1928 and was renamed Beiping (Northern Peace). The Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin was assassinated by the Japanese Kwantung Army (4 June 1928); his son Zhang Xueliang declared allegiance to Nanjing on 29 December 1928.

The new state took form rapidly. The Five Yuan Constitution (October 1928) created the executive, legislative, judicial, examination, and control branches. Tariff autonomy was recovered by treaty (July 1928). The Central Bank of China was founded (November 1928).

Jay Taylor (The Generalissimo, 2009) presents the Expedition as a real state-building achievement that prefigured the Nanjing Decade, while acknowledging the price paid in the 1927 purge.

CCP-organised peasant and labour unions, plus Soviet weapons and advisers, did much of the work that allowed the NRA to outrun its supply lines.

Manchuria, Communist base areas, and warlord-allied provinces remained outside effective Nanjing control. The Central Plains War of 1930 followed.

Whampoa is the academy (founded 1924); the Expedition is the campaign (1926-1928). Whampoa produced the officer corps that led the Expedition.