Wilbur, C. Martin. "The Nationalist Revolution: from Canton to Nanking, 1923-28". In The Cambridge History of China, Vol.12, Republican China, 1912-1949, Part 1, edited by John K. Fairbank, 527-720. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Wilbur, C. Martin. "The Nationalist Revolution: from Canton to Nanking, 1923-28". In The Cambridge History of China, Vol.12, Republican China, 1912-1949, Part 1, edited by John K. Fairbank, 527-720. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

• Sun Yatsen, the head of the revolutionary movement, had twice established independent governments in Guangdong, once in 1917 in response to the dismissal of parliament by Duan Qirui 段祺瑞, and again in 1920 after refusing to recognize the new parliamentary elections ordered by President Xu Shichang 徐世昌. After the election of a new parliament in Beijing, the remaining representatives of the old parliament elected Sun Yatsen the 'Extraordinary President' to lead a separate government in Guangzhou (527-528).
• In Spring 1922, Sun Yatsen organized a joint military campaign against the Zhili clique with the Fengtian clique. Not only was the war a failure, but on 15 June 1922 Chen Jiongming 陳炯明, a warlord suppossedly allied to President Sun, attacked the presidential residence in Guangzhou and forced President Sun to flee to Shanghai (528).
• Over several months in late 1922, Sun Yatsen directed allied forces in southern China against Chen Jiongming and recaptured Guangzhou in January 1923, where Sun Yatsen returned on 21 February 1923 (528). His government continued to face attacks throughout 1923 from both Shen Hongying 沈鸿英, the military governor of Guangxi, and Chen Jiongming, who now received military support from Wu Peifu 吴佩孚 (529), and threatened to retake Guangzhou in November 1923 (535).
• Sun Yatsen's government was hobbled a number of major problems, including that his Zhongguo Guomindang controlled neither southern military forces nor finances. His armies were poorly trained and equipped, squabled amongst themselves, and every level of government lacked cash (528-529).
• The military forces in Guangdong were a disorganized assemblage of different units whose loyalty had been bought by Guomindang members in Hong Kong. Yunnan was controlled by Yang Ximin 杨希闵, although his commanders often exercised independent control. Guangxi was contested between pro-Guomindang forces under Liu Zhenhuan 刘震寰 and anti-Guomindang forces under Shen Hongying (528-529).
• By the estimation of Soviet military advisors, only Sun Yatsen's personal bodyguard of 200 men was actually loyal to the President (539).
• Most of the financial resources of Sun Yatsen's supporters in Hong Kong and abroad had been exhausted by the efforts to raise money to finance the recapture of Guangzhou in 1923. President Sun tried to secure loans from Hong Kong and British merchants, as well as the Guangzhou Chamber of Commerce, but failed on all accounts (529).
• President Sun's financial base was mainly based on control of Guangzhou, which had a modern and efficient administration under his son, Mayor Sun Ke 孫科. In light of massive losses of revenue from Guangdong following General Chen's coup, the Sun government depended even more heavily on Guangzhou (530).
• In an attempt to bring military commanders under political control, President Sun invited Generals Tan Yankai 譚延闓, military governor of Hunan, and Yang Ximin to join the Central Executive Committee of the Guomindang. He also appointed a number of other important military commanders to roles within the party (539).
• In order ensure that future generations of military commanders were actually under the control of the Guomindang, President Sun, with the assistance of Soviet advisors, established a military academy on Pazhou Island 琶洲岛 near Guongzhou in May 1924 to train patriotic students as military officers. The academy was run by Chiang Kaishek, with its teacher staff either Chinese graduates of Japanese military academies or Russian military advisers (540).
• Soviet foreign policy goals in China were to convince the Beijing government to transfer control of the Chinese Eastern Railway, a Russian-financed line across Manchuria, to the USSR, and to retain control over Outer Mongolia (531). They also sought to support both Communist and non-Communist nationalist groups (532).
• Soviet ideology, as developed at the second congress of the Third Comintern in 1920, dictated that colonialism was an impediment to the development of national bougeosis in colonized states, which in turn retarded communist revolution. The USSR thus sought to aid nationalist movements in colonies and China, as well as build up communist movements in those countries (532).
• The USSR was absolutely unwilling to militarily intervene in China, an act that it feared would bring the ire of Britain and Japan upon it, destabilizing Soviet interests in both Europe and the Far East, particularly weakening it position in Manchuria (572).
• After proposals to Sun Yatsen to join the Guomindang and the Communist Party were rebuffed, under the direction of Netherlandish Comintern agent Hendricus Sneevliet, the membership of the Communist Party of China joined the Guomindang en masse, with the goal of later radicalizing the party (532).
• This mission was mostly undertaken during moments of weakness within the Guomindang, as when General Chen threatened to retake Guangzhou in November 1923, when they unsuccessfully pressured President Sun to issue land reforms as a means of generating popular support (535).
• Communists managed to essentially control the labor and farmers wings of the Guomindang, monopolizing all positions of importance in these parts of the party structure (542-543). They also constituted a majority of the party representative, 'comissars', in the New Revolutionary Army (562).
• As Soviet negotiations with the Beijing government had fallen through and the desperate situation in Guangdong had made Sun Yatsen acquiescent to Soviet support, the USSR decided to actively support President Sun in 1923 and sent Mikhail Borodin -- as well as several military advisors -- as an advisor to the Guomindang (533, 539). Direct shipments of weapons and cash to the Guomindang began by October 1924 (540).
• Mr. Borodin helped draft a new consitution for the Guomindang, modelled off of the Soviet constitution, that subordinated all government organs to the Guomindang and placed all party members under strict hierarchical control and demanded adherence to a common party line (534-535).
• The military was also subordinated to party control in this system, with members of all military units being designated party representatives, and given the duty of both indoctrinating that unit with Guomindang propaganda and policing nonconformity to the party line. Party representatives had rank equal to the unit commander and had to approve all his decisions; they reported to a separate chain of command (561).
• Many major members of the Guangdong Guomindang were strongly opposed to Communist influence and petititoned President Sun to expel Mikhail Borodin and Chen Duxui 陳獨秀, the head of the Communist Party. President Sun ignored the warning, stating that the Guomindang could easily overpower the Communists (535-536).
• These anti-Communist faction still sought to undermine Communist influence, proposing an ammendment to the party constitution at the 1924 Guomindang conference that would ban Guomindang members from holding membership in other political parties. It was ultimately rejected, as President Sun seemed convinced that the Communists would pursue nationalist goals in government (538).
• The issue rose again in June 1924, when members of the Guangzhou and Shanghai party committees confronted President Sun and Mr. Borodin with evidence of Communist plans to infiltrate and dominate the Guomindang. As Soviet assistance would be withdrawn if the Communists were expelled, President Sun elected to keep the party united, but tensions between Communists and non-Communists were heightened (544-545).
• In December 1923, Sun Yatsen sparked a crisis with the Beijing government over control of the revenue from the Maritime Customs Service in Guangzhou, a national institution largely managed by foreigners and upon whose revenue many of China's loans were backed. In response to President Sun's threats to seize the customs house, European gunboats were stationed outside of Guangzhou. The Sun government backed down, but won a public relations coup by opposing foreign control of the Cunstoms Service (536-537).
• Beginning in 1924, the Guomindang actively sent members to build party structures across China, establishing central party committees in Beijing, Sichuan, Shanghai, Hankou, and Harbin. These organization provided the basis for future national control of China (538).
• Seeking to protect themselves from protection rackets of the various armed forces in Guangdong, the merchants of Guangzhou organized their own military force in 1924. When President Sun discovered that this militia imported a larger number of arms in August 1924, he ordered the arms confiscated. After two months of fruitless negotiations, President Sun ordered a force under Chiang Kaishek's military cadets to seize the weapons on 15 October. They succeeded, but destroyed and looted much of Guangzhou's commercial district in the process (545-546).
• On 13 November 1924, Sun Yatsen travelled to Beijing, believing that he might be able to become President of China following the coup of Feng Yuxiang 馮玉祥; he died of cancer in Beijing four months later. In light of Sun Yatsen's absence, and later death, control of the Guomindang army fell to Xu Chongzhi 許崇智, commander of military forces in Guangdong, and Chiang Kaishek (546). Political control fell to senior party officials Hu Hanmin 胡汉民, Liao Zhongkai 廖仲愷, and Wang Jingwei 汪精衛 (551).
• In February 1925, Generals Xu and Chiang launched the First Eastern Expedition against the remaining forces of Chen Jiongming in eastern Guangdong. Although they successfully pushed General Chen out of Guangdong, they were forced to retreat and abandon most of their gains to Chen Jiongming's forces because the 'allied' armies from Yunnan and Guangxi had betrayed them and seized control of Guangzhou in June 1925 (546).
• The experience of the New Revolutionary Army under General Chiang was extremely positive and demonstrated the value of an organized and disciplined armed force. Blending of party and military structures also proved a success, as propaganda encouraged peasants to collaborate with the Guomindang forces (546).
• Guomindang forces attacked the forces of Generals Yang and Liu on 6 June 1925, recapturing Guangzhou on 12 June. Both defeated generals fled to Hong Kong (550). In light of the recapture of Guangzhou, a new government was constituted under direct Guomindang authority and claiming nominal control over all of China (551).
• The Communist-dominated labor unions of China began major agitation against foreign-owned businesses in the aftermath of Sun Yatsen's death in an attempt to demonstrate their continuation of his legacy. In Shanghai this movement targeted Japanese-owned textile mills. A strike turned violent on 15 May 1925, when Japanese guards shot a group of workers who had broke into a closed mill and begun smash machinery. Other Communist agitators were arrested by the Japanese, eventually sparking the May Thirthieth Incident (547-548).
• On 30 May, students gathered in the international concession area of Shanghai to protest for the release of imprisoned Communist strike leaders and demand an end to the 'unequal treaties'. Police tried to disperse the assembly by force, leading to a confrontation in front of a British police station. Fearing the station would be rushed, Inspector Everson ordered his Sikh and Chinese policemen to fire into the crowd, killing 8 protesters (548-549).
• Protests broke out across Shanghai in response to the shooting, developing into a coordinated city-wide strike by 1 June. Rioting last for several days, during which foreign policemen killed 10 Chinamen and over 1,300 marines from the treaty powers were deployed to enforce martial law. Anti-foreign riots also broke out in other Chinese cities, including Hankou, Zhenjiang, and Jiujiang, where the Japanese and British consulates were burnt (549).
• Immense violence was used by the treaty powers to protect private property and disperse protests in foreign concessions. A widely-publcized example of this was the decision on 23 June of British and French troops to fire machine guns into protests near the Shamian concession in Guangzhou (549).
• Guangzhou was initially spared any agitation from the 30 May Movement because its military occupation by Yang Ximin and Liu Zhenhuan, both backed by foreign powers, made any organization extremely dangerous (550).
• The publicity and violence of the 30 May Movement strikes greatly raised the popularity of the Communist Party, which had been responsible for organizing many of the strikes. In its aftermath, party member for both the Communists and the Guomindang surged, and the Communists acquired control of most major labor unions. At the same time, the violence of the strikes convinced many Guomindang leaders that the Communists were dangerous and needed to be countered (549).
• The strike in Hong Kong and the embargo of British goods and commerce in Guangzhou continued into September 1926, when Jiang Jieshi -- convinced that two unrelated encounters with British ships in the Pearl River delta and the Yangtze River indicated that an British attack on Guangzhou was imminent -- ordered that the strikes and boycott be ended. This move inadvertently soften British attitudes towards the Guomindang (595).
• There was a strong anti-Christian movement within China during this time period, as Christianity and missionary activity were often seen as dangerous elements of imperialism, indoctrinating Chinese with foreign beliefs. The Communist Party adopted a strong anti-Christian line, with the movement also receiving the support of the Guomindang in January 1926. This sentiment materialized in the frequent destruction of church property and a number of anti-Christian riots (596).
• Anti-Christian attitudes were troublesome for the Guomindang as many members, including Sun Yatsen and large numbers of foreign Chinese, were Christian. To not antagonize the treaty powers and overseas Chinese, Jiang Jieshi promised to avoid the destruction or seizure of church properties in China and to prevent troops from attacking foreigners or Christians (597).
• By October 1926, following victories against Wu Peifu, Chiang Kaishek changed tune and allowed widespread harassment of Christians and missionaries in Hunan. This was part of a wider field of anti-foreigner activism, including an embargo on British goods (597-598).
• On 20 August 1925, Liao Zhongkai was assassinated by right-wing elements in the Guomindang for his ardent support for the alliance with the USSR. In the aftermath, Mr. Borodin organized an emergence committee of Wang Jingwei, Xu Chongzhi, and Chiang Kaishek (553).
• The triumverate discovered a conspiracy within the Guomindang and the Guangdong army to oust radical elements from party leadership. By September 1925, most conspirators were either imprisoned, executed, or exiled. By October, Chiang Kaishek and Wang Jingwei expelled and arrested Xu Chongzhi and sent opposition leaders Hu Hanmin, Lin Sen 林森, and Zou Lu 邹鲁 on extended diplomatic missions to the USSR and northern China (553).
• In October, the new government of Wang Jingwei and Chiang Kaishek faced a military threat from Chen Jiongming, who threatened to retake Guangzhou with the help of allied warlords in Sichuan and southwestern Guangdong. The Guomindang army managed to defeat General Chen's forces, forcing the general to flee to Hong Kong, recapturing Guangdong and Hainan (555-556).
• Guomindang victories in Guangdong prompted a realignment of alliance in southern China, with the triumverate of Li Zongren 李宗仁, Bai Chongxi 白崇禧, and Huang Xuchu 黄旭初 in Guangxi all becoming party members in early 1926. In Spring 1926, Tang Shengzhi 唐生智, a warlord in southern Hunan, also joined the party (556).
• In late 1925, the Guomindang fell apart over the issue of continued alliance with the Communists. In June 1925, Dai Jitao 戴季陶 published two books claiming that Sun Yatsen had been a traditionalist and that Guomindang goals were not compatable with Communism. The Shanghai chapter of the Guomindang took up his arguments and demanded that all party members take a pledge to abandon the concept of class struggle (556-557).
• A Guomindang Central Committee meeting in October 1925 denounced Dai Jitao's position and reaffirmed the alliance with the Communists. In response, a group of rightwing Guomindang members, including Lin Sen and Zou Lu, met in the Western Hills outside of Beijing in November and declared themselves the legitimate Guomindang leadership. The Shanghai and Hankou party chapters aligned themselves with the Western Hills faction and issued proclamations expelling all Communists from the party, denouncing Mikhail Borodin, and suspending Wang Jingwei's membership (557).
• The Guangzhou faction of the Guomindang leadership responded by reaffirming unity, sending a formal token of thanks to Mikhail Borodin, expelling Zou Lu and Xie Chi 謝持, another Western Hills faction leader, and spending letters of warning to other faction members. Communist calls for wider expulsions were resisted by Wang Jingwei (558).
• By 1926, Chiang Kaishek became convinced that he, like Xu Chongzhi and Hu Hanmin, would be arrested or exiled by Wang Jingwei. Chiang Kaishek believed that Wang Jingwei was conspiring with several Soviet military advisers to exile him and seize control of the Guomindang (573).
• Chiang Kaishek's paranoia was peaked on 18 March 1926, when he observed suspicious activity on the warship Zhongshan docked in Guangzhou, which he believed was preparing to kidnap him. On the morning of 20 March, he ordered the ship be seized, the chief of the Naval Bureau, Li Zhilong 李之龍, be arrested, and Guangzhou placed under martial law. He also disarmed the guards assigned to the Russian advisers and the militia of the Communist-run strike committee (573-574).
• In the aftermath, the Soviets agreed to recall the military advisers that Chiang Kaishek feared had plotted against him, and Wang Jingwei agreed to go into exile in France. After negotiations with Mikhail Borodin, Chiang Kaishek agreed to continue cooperation with the Soviets and Chinese Communists and expel a group of strongly opposed politicians, on the condition of full support for the Northern Expedition (574).
• In return for the muzzling of Communists within the Guomindang, Chiang Kaishek agreed to silence many key voices on the Right. Hu Hanmin was forced to return to exile in Shanghai, Wu Tiecheng 吳鐵城 was arrested, and the right-wing Foreign Minister, Wu Chaoshu 伍朝樞, was replaced with Eugene Chen 陳友仁, a Soviet sympathizer (575).
• Chiang Kaishek also imposed onerous restrictions on the activities of the Communist Party within the Guomindang, prohibiting Communists from criticizing either himself or Sun Yatsen, restricting the number and types of positions they were allowed to hold within the Guomindang, and compiling a full list of Communists so that violators could be identitied and expelled from the party (574).
• Planning for the Northern Expedition began in Spring 1925, with primary battle plans for the capture of Hankou, Wuhan, and Shanghai drawn up by Soviet military adviser Vasily Blyuxer (575-576). The Guomindang faced three primary enemies: a coalition led by Wu Peifu in Henan, Hunan, and Hubei; a coalition under Sun Chuanfang 孙传芳 in Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Zhejiang; and Zhang Zuolin 张作霖, whose forces controlled Manchuria, Shandong, and Zhili (577). 
• As of 1926, Wu Peifu and Zhang Zuolin had joined forces to fight Feng Yuxiang's Soviet-funded army. In response to this threat, Feng Yuxiang abandoned his army to tour the USSR. During this tour he also attempt to forage an alliance with the Guomindang (577).
• Fearing an attack on their eastern and western flanks, the Guomindang attempted to keep General Sun and Yuan Zuming 袁祖銘, the military governor of Guizhou, neutral in the conflict. By 11 July, negotiations had convinced General Yuan to join the campaign on the Guomindang side (582-583).
• In June 1926, Guomindang forces moved from Guangdong and Guangxi to Hengyang in Hunan in preparation for the campaign (581). The Northern Expedition began in Hunan in July 1926, with Changsha being captured on 11 July and heavy engagements with General Wu's forces beginning in mid-July (581-582).
• In August 1926, Chiang Kaishek and his military advisers traveled to the front to develop a new plan. They elected to push towards Wuchang, Hubei (583). By 30 August, General Wu was forced to retreat to Hankou and Wuchang was besieged (583-585). Many of General Wu's subordinate officers defected to the Guomindang, allowing the Guomindang to capture Hankou and Hanyang on 7 September and Wuchang on 10 October, forcing General Wu's forces entirely into Henan (585).
• Despite ongoing peace negotiations, both Chiang Kaishek and Sun Chuanfang massed troops in Jiangxi in September. The first attack against General Sun's coalition began on 19 September with the capture, and subsequent recapture, of Nanchang. Unable to take Nanchang, Chiang Kaishek diverted troops from Hubei to begin another offense in Jiangxi. The newly reinforced offensive captured Jiujiang on 5 November and Nanchang on 8 November (585-586).
• During the campaign, thousands of soldiers defected to the Guomindang, although not in numbers sufficient to make up the tens of thousands of casualties suffered in the fighting (586).
• In late September 1926, another front of conflict opened between Guomindang in Guangdong under General He Yingqin 何应钦 and Zhou Yinren 周荫人, the military governor of Fujian. Taking advantage of Fujianese resentment at being ruled by General Zhou, a northern, He Yingqin orchestrated the defection of an army corps and the navy at Fuzhou. Faced with these defections, peace negotiations were initiated that month (587).
• Unwilling to surrender, Zhou Yinren ordered the invasion of Guangdong on 27 September. His attack was repulsed and General He pushed forward to capture Yongding on 10 October. Organized mass defection began on 14 October, allowing General He to capture Zhangzhou on 8 November and Quanzhou on 21 November. The navy defect on 4 December, trapping Zhou Yinren's remaining forces and force his flight to Zhejiang (587-588).
• Chiang Kaishek was so impressed by He Yingqin's performance in Fujian and Guangdong that he appointed him Commander of the Eastern Route Army, responsible for three army corps in coastal China (587).
• Guomindang victory in southern China led to a wave of anti-foreign agitation, labor unrest, and peasant mobilization in the countryside. Chinese industrialists demanded that the Guomindang suppress strikes, and the widespread murder of hated landlords or officials in the countryside caused an economic depression as landlords and merchants fled to cities (593, 606-607).
• Anti-British sentiment was revived in December 1926, when Britain executed 7 Guomindang members who had been captured in the British and French concessions in that city in November 1926. Massive anti-British marches took place in Hankou and other Guomindang-controlled cities in January 1927, prompting British police to erect barricades and restrict entry into the concessions (600).
• On 3 January, a protest in Hankou evolved into a riot, with protesters throwing stones at British policemen and marines manning the barricades. British marines charged the crowd with bayonets, injuring 5 Chinamen and dispersing the assembly (600).
• A local Guomindang committee demanded that, to relieve tensions, British police and marines surrender control of the Hankou concession to Chinese police and soldiers, on the promise that foreigners and their property would be protected. The Hankou Consul-General, Herbet Goffe, accepted the offer and passed control of the Guomindang on 4 January (600-601).
• Large crowds rushed into the Hankou concession following the British withdrawal, forcing Consul-General Goffe to request Chinese assistance. When all Sikh and Chinese police officers quit on 5 January, the situation grew more tense and foreign women and children were evacuated to Shanghai. Later that day, full control of the Hankou concession was given over to the Guomindang (601). This transfer was legally ratified on 19 February (603).
• On 6 January, a Chinese crowd overwhelmed British police at the concession in Jiujiang, later looting and destroying much of the British concession (601). This transfer was legally ratified on 2 March (603).
• Britain responded to the loss of its concessions in Hankou and Jiujiang by greatly reinforcing its position in Shanghai, sending several cruisers and an English division to reinforce the Indian battalion already in the city. This action, in turn, spooked the Guomindang, who feared that the British might prevent the Guomindang from taking Shanghai from Sun Chuanfang (601-602).
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• In early 1927, the Guomindang was divided on the next step of the Expedition, with the Nanchang base, led by Chiang Kaishek, advocating an advance on Shanghai, and the Wuhan base, organized around Tang Shengzhi and representing the left-wing of the party, arguing for a push towards Beijing to meet up with Feng Yuxiang's Soviet-backed forces. Chiang Kaishek's objectives prevailed and preparations began for an invasion of Shanghai (604-605).
• The Wuhan base took the rejection of its plans harshly and Mikhail Borodin and other leaders openly denounced Chiang Kaishek's leadership. The camps in Nanchang and Wuhan moved further apart throughout January and February, with both sides trying to undermine the authority of the other (605-606).
• On 25 February, Chiang Kaishek heard a rumor that the Wuhan faction planned to call a meeting of the Guomindang Central Executive Committee to dismiss Chiang Kaishek as commander-in-chief and restrict the extensive powers he was granted in May 1926. The Nanchang faction messaged the Comintern requesting that Mikhail Borodin be recalled and, when no answer was returned, warned Mr. Borodin to leave the country (606).
• A Third Plenum of the Central Executive Committee was organized on 10 March 1927 in Hankou, in which the leftist forces voted to replace Chiang Kaishek with Wang Jingwei. Left-wing members dominated the selected party bodies and the Plenum approved motions urging greater cooperation with the Communists, integrating the Guomindang into the Comintern, and criminalized contact with imperial powers (613-614).
• Chiang Kaishek responded to his losses at the Third Plenum by cracking down on Communists in regions he controlled: executing a labor union leader in Ganzhou, dissolving the Nanchang and Jiujiang chapters of the Guomindang because of Communist sympathies, and disbanded Communist militias following the capture of Anqing (614).
• The split was further complicated by the alignment of Zhang Zuolin with Sun Chuanfang in 1927, as Chiang Kaishek wanted to avoid a confrontation with the powerful Fengtian clique. Chiang Kaishek entered negotiations with General Zhang and his Japanese patrons, who said that peace was conditional on the expulsion and suppression of the Communist Party (609-610).
• Foreign powers were more generally opposed to Communist influence in the Guomindang, with agents of the treaty powers instigating the search of the Soviet Embassy on 6 April -- resulting in the arrest of 22 Soviets and 36 Guomindang members, mainly Communists, for conspiracy -- and France and Britain seizing Soviet consulates in Tianjin and Shanghai, respectively in April (629-630).
• In March 1927, tensions between Communist and anti-Communist members of the Guomindang organizations increasingly erupted into street fights -- sometimes deadly -- or suppression of parades by the rival faction by gunfire. Supposedly national bodies divided along ideological lines and each side attempted the disarmament and disbandment of rival forces within its controlled territories (625-627).
• By April 1927, an active purge of rival factions was underway in most of Guomindang-controlled China. Arrests and executions of rival Guomindang leaders were carried out by military forces, with right or left-wing organizations and leaders being targeted depending on region (628-629).
• Leftist leaders retaliated for the mass purges of Communists by the Nanchang faction in April 1927 by organizing the execution of 8 anti-Communist union leaders on 14 April in Wuhan, and the execution of a further 40 Chinamen with connections to foreign-owned businesses in Changsha (638).
• The Wuhan government issued a statement publicly condemning Chiang Kaishek and expelling him from the Guomindang on 17 April (639).
• The capture of Shanghai began in February 1927, when Guomindang forces captured Hangzhou, Zhejiang, and began a push towards Shanghai. Sun Chuanfang surrendered military control to the Shangdongese army under Zhang Zongchang  张宗昌, a member of the Fengtian clique (611).
• Chiang Kaishek was a native of Ningbo and maintained many connections with powerful figures in Shanghai. In late 1926, the head of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce indicated that he would have the support of the Shanghai business community, which funneled him several million dollars in loans over the next year (610-611).
• On 19 February, the Communist leadership in Shanghai initiated massive unrest designed to bring the city to a standstill, a tactic that succeeded despite public execution and mass repression by General Sun's forces (612).
• Well the strikes did disrupt anti-Guomindang forces during a crucial part of the campaign for Shanghai, the unrest also hardened attitudes among both the treaty powers and the Shanghai business community against the Communists (612).
• Facing the invading Guomindang army, Chen Diaoyuan 陳調元, the military governor of Anhui, betrayed Sun Chuanfang and announced his support for the Guomindang, allowing the New Revolutionary Army to concentrate entirely on taking Shanghai (700).
• By mid-March 1927, Guomindang forces were positioned to cut off the railways north and south to Shanghai, and the navy defected to the Guomindang on 14 March. A coordinated assault on Shanghai itself on 21 March was assisted by a Communist uprising in the city. As Guomindang forces moved into Shanghai, they were greeted by mass strikes and guerrillas who had seized police stations and checkpoints (616).
• General Bai Chongxi 白崇禧, commander of Guomindang forces in Shanghai, promised to restore order and to prevent any attempts to attack the foreign concessions. He demanded an end to the strike on 24 March and set about disarming and disbanding all irregular fighters in Shanghai, with the exception of powerful Communist militias; the leaders of these guerrillas were executed (617).
• Rivalries existed within Shanghai between the Communist forces and the New Revolutionary Army, supported by the business community, the criminal gangs, and the treaty powers (622-623).
• Du Yuesheng 杜月笙, a Shanghai mob kingpin, recruited hundreds of thousands of armed gangsters, residing in the French concession, by April 1927 with the intend of attacking the militia of the Shanghai Labor Union (630).
• Wang Jingwei returned to Shanghai from exile in Paris on 1 April 1927, being given a hero's welcome and greeted with Chiang Kaishek's announcement that all civilian authority over the Guomindang would pass to Wang Jingwei. During his time to Shanghai, Chairman Wang was pressured to lead the Nanchang faction in a purge of Communists from the party (623).
• Against the advice of Chiang Kaishek, Wang Jingwei travelled to Hankou to meet with Chen Duxui, with whom he published a joint statement calling for unity between the Guomindang and the Communist Party and an end to the Nanchang-Wuhan split (624).
• On 5 April, Chiang Kaishek declares martial law in Shanghai and orders the disarmament of all people not enlisted in the New Revolutionary Army (631).
• On his way home from dinner at a friend's house on 11 April, Wang Shouhua 汪寿华, head of the Shanghai Labor Union, was abducted and murdered by anti-Communist thugs (635).
• Disguised as factory workers, hundreds of Du Yuesheng's thugs and Guomindang soldiers took up firing positions near the foreign concessions. At 04:00, 12 April, they opened fire on Communist militiamen. Some Communists surrendered after falling for the ruse of dressing as workers. In some instances, uniformed soldiers pretended to restore orders, while in others they openly attacked the Communists. Communist leaders were arrested and later executed, and Communist arms caches were seized (635).
• The remaining members of the Labor Union declared a general strike on 13 April, managing to draw crowds of 100,000 workers, some of them armed. Guomindang troops opened fire on the rally, killing hundreds. By 15 April, continued arrests and murders had broken the Labor Union and the strike was called off (636).
• Anti-Guomindang forces retreated from Nanjing on 23 March. As Guomindang troops entered Nanjing on 24 March, they attacked the foreign concessions, looting the British, American, and Japanese consulates, robbing foreigners, injuring the British consul, and killing two Brits, an American, a French priest, an Italian priest, and a Japanese marine (617).
• To deter further destruction of the foreign concessions, two American destroyers and a British cruiser bombarded an occupied part of the concessions at 15:30, killing 15 Chinese civilians and 24 soldiers. Attacks on foreigners stopped after this and they were all evacuated by 25 March, but looting of the Nanjing concessions continued for several days afterward (617-618).
• Although the looting and burning of the foreign concessions in Nanjing was almost certainly done by Guomindang soldiers or local thugs, the Japanese Consul's rumor that Communists had instigated the attacks became popular and was adopted as the official version of events by Chiang Kaishek and other Guomindang leadership, as well as most of the treaty powers (618).
• The Wuhan faction had been ill-informed about events in Nanjing and believed that Japan, America, and Britain were considering invasion in retaliation. They sought to divide these powers by assuring the Japanese that their citizens and property would be protected. This strategy failed as the murder of a rickshaw driver by a Japanese sailor in Hankou on 3 April sparked a riot that killed 2 Japanese and ended with Japanese marines firing into the crowd, killing 9 Chinamen (619-620).
• Chiang Kaishek arrived in Nanjing on 9 April, when, on his orders, hired thugs beat and imprisoned the leadership of left-wing Guomindang organizations and trashed their party offices. A protest by the Labor Union the next day was violently suppressed by soldiers and police, and arrests or murders of Communists continued for several days (633).
• Chiang Kaishek organized a settlement with the British and American ambassadors on 30 March 1928, making an official statement of apology and regret for the attacks in Nanjing, pledging to protecting foreign citizens and property in all future incidents, and signing a warrant for the execution of all soldiers involved in the attacks (701).
• The purges of Communists from the Guomindang begun in Nanjing on 9 April and Shanghai on 11 April soon extended to the rest of the areas controlled by the Nanchang faction. Thousands were killed in the purges, and tens of thousands more arrested. Communists either had to go underground or flee to Wuhan (638).
• In Guangzhou, General Li Jishen 李济深 returned on 14 April with the explicit goal of purging Communists from the Guomindang. Martial law was declared on 15 April and police and soldiers were ordered by Chiang Kaishek to arrest all Communists and disarm the Labor Union militias (636).
• On the morning of 15 April, soldiers and armed police surrounded the headquarters of the Guangzhou Labor Union and Hong Kong strike committee, disarmed the guards, and arrested the leadership. A number of schools and universities were closed and their administrators arrested. Pro-Communist union leaders were arrested, as were Communist cadets at the Pazhou Military Academy. Over 2,000 Communists were arrested during the purge (636-637).
• Acting as military governor, Li Jishen announced that Guangzhou only recognized the authority of Chiang Kaishek, not the Wuhan faction. This change meant that control of the central bank passed into the Nanchang faction's hands, weakening the financial capacities of the Wuhan faction (637).
• Similar purges, although on a smaller scale than those in Nanjing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, took place in Shantou, Xiamen, Ningbo, as well as a number of other cities in Guangxi, Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang (638).
• Following the anti-Communist purges, the Nanchang faction gathered in Nanjing and held their own party meeting. When Wang Jingwei and members of the Wuhan faction did not show up -- for obvious reasons -- they issued their own proclamations and established a government, led by Hu Hanmin, at Nanjing on 17 April (638-639).
• The Nanjing government issued an order for all Guomindang organs to expel and arrest all known Communists and publicly expelled Mikhail Borodin and other members of the Wuhan faction. In practice, this only retroactively legalized purges that had taken place in pro-Nanchang areas and was ignored elsewhere (639).
• Following the establishment of two separate Guomindang governments in Wuhan and Nanjing, both sides attempted to prepare for internecine conflict. Facing Chiang Kaishek to the east, his anti-Communist allies in the south, Nanjing-aligned warlords in Sichuan, and Zhang Zuolin's army in the north, the Wuhan faction felt that its only possible ally was the Soviet-backed army of Feng Yuxiang (639-640).
• The threat of imperialist intervention loomed throughout Spring 1927, as the length of the Yangtze River had become intensely militarized by the treaty powers after the attacks on concessions in Nanjing and Hankou. The Wuhan government was particularly scared of intervention, as all the treaty powers opposed Soviet influence (640).
• The territories of the Wuhan faction -- essentially Hubei, Hunan, and part of Jiangxi -- were also economically crippled by its revolutionary activities. An active peasant revolution in the countryside resulted in a disruption of normal trade, leading to a grain shortage. Simultaneous strikes had paralyzed industry in Wuhan and other big cities, feeding an unemployed population that faced rising food prices (640).
• Faced with this economic crisis, the Wuhan government, on the advice of Mikhail Borodin, issued a decree forcing all employees back to work and prohibiting strikes without Guomindang permission. They also began issuing a new copper currency and distributing an unemployment subsidy to attract public support. These initiatives were combined with a public relations drive to convince foreign investors that Wuhan was still open to commerce (641-642).
• Violence and disorder in the countryside was a result of prior Communist policy to encourage armed peasants to kill exploitative landlords, merchants, and nobles (643-644). The Guomindang established special rural courts to punish counter-revolutionary landowners in April 1927, but this change only channeled some of the executions through legal mechanisms rather than stemmed the violence (646). 
• The Wuhan government was divided on the issue of agricultural reform and rural terror, one camp under Mikhail Borodin arguing that reform and violence should be restrained so that a military campaign top link up with General Feng could be organized, whereas another under Manabendra Nath Roy -- a new Comintern adviser -- held that military action should be postponed and rural revolution intensified (647). The issue was never actually resolved (650).
• The Wuhan government's initiatives to force an end to strikes were largely successful, as seen by a sharp rise in government revenue in Summer 1927 as commerce restarted and foreign property was returned (643).
• Both the Wuhan and Nanjing governments decided to initiate northern military campaigns against the combined forces of Zhang Zuolin, Wu Peifu, Sun Chuanfang, and Zhang Zongchang in May 1927, attacking Henan and Anhui, respectively. These offensives were timed with Feng Yuxiang's attack from Shaanxi (650-651).
• The pro-Wuhan forces under Tang Shengzhi met up with Feng Yuxiang's army in Zhengzhou on 1 June, forcing the Fengtian Army to retreat north of the Yellow River. The pro-Nanjing forces had similar success and captured Xuzhou on 3 June, forcing Sun Chuanfang and Zhang Zongchang to retreat to Shandong (651).
• The apparent military threat to Shandong from the pro-Nanjing armies spooked the Japanese, who had a number of settlers and significant investments in the province. In response, Japan reinforced their garrison in Qingdao and occupied Jinan (651). 
• Taking advantage of heavy fighting between Wu Peifu and the pro-Wuhan forces, in May, Yang Sen 楊森, the military governor of Sichuan, attacked Wuhan with the help of a turncoat Wuhan general, Xia Douyin 夏斗寅. Although their initial attack was repelled, they did cut communication between Wuhan and other pro-Wuhan cities and it was believed that many local military officers resented the pro-Communist government (652-653).
• Changsha, the most radical city in China at that time, fell into chaos after cables from Wuhan went dark. Rumors circulated that Wuhan had fallen, that Wang Jingwei had fled, and that Mikhail Borodin had been executed. These fed into paranoia among the Communists that the New Revolutionary Army would also attack Changsha in retaliation for mass executions carried out by Communists there in April 1927 (653).
• Responding to these fears, the Trade Union and other Communist-dominated groups began to mobilize and discussed disarming the Army garrison. On 18 May, scattered clashes broke out between Trade Union militias and soldiers and that night militiamen broke into the army commander's home and beat up his father (653-654).
• Fearing that they would be disarmed, and perhaps imprisoned or killed, and angry at the assault of their commander's father, soldiers under Xu Kexiang 許克祥 stormed Trade Union and farmers' association offices in Changsha on 21 May, arrested the leadership, and killed those who resisted (654).
• In the following week, similar repression spread to the rest of Hunan and Hubei as Guomindang soldiers violently dissolved Trade Union offices and farmers' associations and arrested Communists. Some of those arrested were executed, and thousands were likely killed in the week of anti-Communist panic (654).
• The lack of information regarding the anti-Communist violence that wracked Hunan and Hubei in Wuhan and Moscow was demonstrated by an order from Joseph Stalin on 1 June, that ordered Communists in the Guomindang to raise a peasant and worker army to fight all counter-revolutionary elements of the Guomindang; a farce considering the military predicament of the Wuhan government (657).
• The Wuhan government managed to restore communication with Changsha in June, but was unable to exercise real authority in Hunan or Hubei despite cordial relations with Xu Kexiang. Negotiations were fruitless and on 26 June, when he heard that the Wuhan government intended to demote him, he accepted a general's commission from Chiang Kaishek (658-660).
• Although Jiangxi avoided the widespread violence in Hunan and Hubei, the military governor, Zhu Peide 朱培德, expelled all political officers from the army on 29 May, disarmed Communist-aligned organizations, freed a number of anti-Communist political prisoners, and forced to local farmers' associations and trade unions to disband (660).
• The Wuhan government decided that demoting or firing Zhu Peide would only cause him to join the Nanjing government. A diplomatic mission to Jiangxi on 20 June, however, only reconfirmed that Zhu Peide governed Jiangxi relatively independent of both Wuhan and Nanjing (661).
• Feng Yuxiang met with Wang Jingwei, representing the Wuhan government, on 6 June. At the meeting it was decided that General Feng would continue supporting the Wuhan government -- although he would not fight the Nanjing government -- on the condition that he be given control of Henan (662).
• Wang Jingwei and Feng Yuxiang also discussed the activities of the Communists in light of Marshall Stalin's telegram from Joseph Stalin ordering the Communist Party to rise up against counter-revolutionary elements of the Guomindang. They agreed in secret to curb Communist influence (661-662).
• In the aftermath of his meeting with Wang Jingwei, General Feng travelled to Xuzhou to meet with two generals of the Nanjing government. At another meeting with Chiang Kaishek on 20 June, General Feng indicated that he would betray the Wuhan government for a large-enough salary, and that he might be able to convince the Wuhan government to expel Mikhail Borodin and the other Communists and reunite with the Nanjing government (665).
• On 14 June, General Wu's army was decisively beaten at Zhumadian, Henan, and he was forced to flee to Sichuan. This marked a turning point in the pro-Wuhan army's campaign, as they now faced the Fengtian Army, which inflicted tens of thousands of casualties on the force (651-652).
• General Yan Xishan 閻錫山, the military governor of Shanxi, declared his support for the Guomindang in June 1927, although he did nothing else of significance to align his Shanxiese forces with the rest of the Guomindang (697).
• Feng Yuxiang went forward with his agreement to force the expulsion of Communists from the Guomindang on 21 June, issuing a telegram to Tan Yankai and Wang Jingwei, demanding that Mikhail Borodin return to the USSR and that all members of the Guomindang Central Executive Committee in Wuhan either join the Nanjing government or go into retirement (665).
• The Communists flipped their shit at this ultimatum and developed an emergency plan to prevent this from happening. They wanted remaining Communists in Shanghai to organize massive violent protests and attack the international concessions, especially Japanese properties, in order to provoke an imperialist occupation of Shanghai and Nanjing that would then cripple Chiang Kaishek's national prestige and leadership of the Guomindang (665-666).
• On Soviet instructions, the Communist Party decided to organize a revolt in Jiangxi, where it was believed some military officers were Communist sympathizers, seize control of the army there, and attack Guangdong (673). On 1 July, Communist officers took over the Nanchang garrison and marched south towards Guangdong (674-675).
• The Communist forces marched for other month facing constant military resistance, facing large numbers of casualties, defections, and desertions. They briefly held Shantou in late September, but the crushing of local labor and peasants' associations had limited their support and they were forced to move on Lufeng, where they either fled to Hong Kong or Shanghai, defected to enemy forces, or retreated into the mountains of southern Jiangxi (675).
• In the aftermath of relative failure in the Nanchang Uprising, the Communists decided to launch a rural uprising in September 1927, intended to coincide with traditional rent payments, in Hubei, Hunan, and Guangdong (676).
• The revolt in Hubei began on 8 September when Communists robbed a train carrying weapons, but ended only 10 days later when local bandits betrayed the Communist leadership and stole all their guns (677-678).
• The revolt in Hunan, led by Mao Zedong 毛泽东, had the support of a number of military units near Changsha in addition to armed workers and peasants. The uprising had initial successes on 10 September, but their forces were overwhelmed and destroyed by anti-Communist troops on 16 September and Mao Zedong fled into the Luoxiao mountains (678-680).
• The revolt in Guangdong was organized by a combination of Communist peasants in the eastern part of the province and a group of Communist rebels who had taken over Haifeng and murdered Guomindang officials for 10 days in April in opposition to Li Jishen's coup. They took over Lufeng on 8 September and Haifeng on 17 September and met up with Jiangxiese forces in late September, but were dispersed along with that force (680-681).
• The Communist Party voted on 28 June to voluntarily disarm the Labor Union militias to ease tensions with the Guomindang in Wuhan. The commotion of disarmament was probably misinterpreted, as soldiers from the Hankou garrison arrived to seize the militia's arms, although Wang Jingwei assured the Union that no harm would befall its members (667). Another meeting on 1 July confirmed this retreat and forbade Communists from organizing outside of Guomindang structures (668).
• By the end of June, most Soviet military advisers, including Manabendra Nath Roy, had left China. Mikhail Borodin's departure had been delayed by the arrest of his wife in February 1927, but they both departed the country in August 1927 as per General Feng's ultimatum (668).
• In mid-July, Wang Jingwei held a series of meetings with fellow non-Communist Guomindang leaders to determine party policy. They decided to expel Communists in order to facilitate a reunification of the Guomindang, but do so in a way that did not involve the arrest or execution of Communists and without destroying relations with Moscow (669).
• A large number of Communists freaked out during June and July and went into hiding, including two members of the Guomindang Central Executive Committee in Wuhan, fearing execution as in other purges (670).
• On 16 July, the Guomindang ordered all Communists to either resign their Guomindang or their Communist Party membership, the order being accompanied by a copy of Joseph Stalin's telegram to demonstrate the danger posed by Communists (670-671). In the following week, Wuhan was placed under martial law and the headquarters pro-Communist organs were seized; resisters were executed (671).
• The expulsion of Communists from the Guomindang in Wuhan was complete by late July, opening the way to reconciliation between the three Guomindang factions: the Western Hills faction based in Shanghai, the Nanjing faction, and the Wuhan faction. This process lasted for months due to deep distrust and animosity between the groups, really only beginning in earnest in August 1927 when the recapture of Xuzhou by Zhang Zuolin underlined the importance of unity (681-682).
• Tensions between Chiang Kaishek and many of his military governors led to his resignation as commander-in-chief on 13 August, a move he believed would be challenged but was instead accepted (682). In wake of this, Sun Chuanfang's forces pushed south and threatened to take Nanjing by late August. All factions sent their forces to defend Nanjing, incidentally concentrating all faction leaders in the city (683).
• All three factions reached a deal in September, agreeing to call a Third Party Congress in January 1928 to elect a nationally-recognized government and to coordinate all military planning in the meantime (683).
• Most of the Guomindang leadership was satisfied with the deal made at Nanjing, with the exception of Wang Jingwei and Tang Shengzhi, who rejected the idea of a new conference and demanded immediate recognition of their supreme civilian and military authority, respectively, over the Guomindang. In late October, Wang Jingwei left to Guangzhou and Tang Shengzhi began a military campaign against rival Guomindang generals (684-685).
• On 20 October, the Guomindang office in Shanghai officially announced the rumors that Tang Shengzhi had been collaborating with Zhang Zuolin and Sun Chuanfeng. All of General Tang's subordinate officers abandoned him and he was forced into Wuhan, which was threatened by the Nanjing faction's navy by November. He publicly announced his retirement on 12 November and fled to Japan on a Japanese naval vessel (685).
• Wang Jingwei's return to Guangzhou on 29 October was intended to precede a military coup against Li Jishen by his ally, Zhang Fakui 张发奎, who had forces in southern Jiangxi and eastern Guangdong. Wang Jingwei announced Guangzhou as the seat of Guomindang government, under his authority, and called a meeting that no one attended. (685-686).
• After his retirement in August 1927, Chiang Kaishek traveled to Japan. While there, he met with Prime Minister Tanaka Giichi, who convinced him to leave retirement and try to seize control of southern China, a move that Japan would support on the condition that the unequal treaties and other Japanese interests were respected (686-687).
• Chiang Kaishek began scheming again in November 1927, returning to Shanghai on 10 November after contacting Wang Jingwei with a plan for the two men to seize control of the Guomindang. Both Chiang Kaishek and Wang Jingwei now agreed to attend the meeting in Nanjing, on the condition that preliminary talks be held that month in Shanghai, to which basically everyone agreed. This was all an elaborate ruse (687).
• All important leaders in Guangzhou -- Li Jishen, Wang Jingwei, and Zhang Fakui -- agreed to leave to Shanghai from Hong Kong on 16 November, to ensure nothing fishy happened. Zhang Fakui 'missed the boat' at Hong Kong, and in Li Jishen's absence, Zhang Fakui and his subordinates disarmed Li Jishen's troops and seized control of Guangdong (687-688).
• Talks started in the French concession in Shanghai anyway on 24 November, with Wang Jingwei being universally condemned by other Guomindang leadership for the coup in Guangzhou. Having been absent for 3 months, Chiang Kaishek played the role of mediator between Wang Jingwei and everyone who hated Wang Jingwei (688).
• The talks got nowhere, as the main issues were either to expel Wang Jingwei from the party and whether to collectively invade Guangdong to kick out Zhang Fakui. On 10 December, the last day of the meeting, Wang Jingwei suggested that he might retire if Chiang Kaishek was reinstated as made commander-in-chief, a motion unanimously endorsed by everyone who hated Wang Jingwei and wanted him to leave (688-689).
• The decision to reinstate Chiang Kaishek as head of the armed forces was motivated not only by a belief that Wang Jingwei might fuck off if this was done, but also because Feng Yuxiang had been asking for his reappointment for several weeks (689).
• A Communist uprising began to Guangzhou on 11 December, seizing control of much of the city and executing scores of designated class enemies and anti-Communist officials. Although Zhang Fakui suppressed the rebellion within two days, the events severely shook Wang Jingwei. He went into exile in Paris on 17 December (689). Zhang Fakui resigned that week and Li Jishen retook control of Guangzhou in late December (696).
• Some of the soldiers and officers stationed under Zhang Fakui were Communists; they, along with armed trade unionists and Communist cadets at Pazhou Academy, would form the core of the Communist forces in the revolt (691).
• Most of Guangzhou was only lightly garrisoned, as Zhang Fakui had deployed the majority of his forces in eastern Guangdong to deter an invasion by the rest of the Guomindang (691-692).
• The revolt was originally planned to take place on 13 December (691), but, on orders from a telegram from Wang Jingwei, Guangzhou police raided the Soviet consulate on 9 December and discovered a cache of bombs, prompting more widespread detention of Communists in the coming days. In response, the Communists launched the revolt the following day, with Ye Ting 叶挺 returning from Hong Kong to lead the revolt that night (692).
• On 11 December, Communist soldiers seized control of most police stations in Guangzhou and released 700 Communists from prison. All telegram stations, railways, and other militarily important locations were seized, as were the Guomindang headquarters and the central bank (692-693).
• Widespread looting began on the night of 11 December, with a number of private residences and the central bank being set on fire. Over 300 policemen were shot, and extrajudicial killings were also widespread. Most Guomindang leaders fled the city by this point, fearing execution (693).
• There was almost popular support in Guangzhou for the revolt, with most of the worker population either openly hostile to the Communists or terrified of retaliation from the Guomindang if they participated. Most people stayed home and only 3,000 of Guangzhou's 290,000 unionized workers joined Communist organs (693).
• Zhang Fakui's troops, supported by gunboats in the harbor, began their attack on Guangzhou on 13 December. They quickly overwhelmed the Communists, recapturing the city that day and forcing Communist leadership to flee (694).
• Soldiers under Zhang Fakui and anti-Communist trade union militias swept the city for several days after the uprising, rounding up and executing suspected Communists. It is estimated that 3,000 to 4,000 civilians were murdered in the aftermath of the revolt, most of them innocent (694).
• The uprising in Guangzhou was seen as the last straw by many in the Guomindang and after its suppression, China officially suspended diplomatic relations with the USSR and the Guomindang left and severed all contact with the Comintern (690). Most Soviet citizens were arrested and deported from China in December (695).
• With Wang Jingwei now out the picture, Chiang Kaishek launched into an independent plan to capture Beijing and declare himself the leader of China. He returned to Nanjing in January and called for a meeting of the full Guomindang Central Executive Committee to reunite the party (697).
• The official Guomindang government was broke, as Chiang Kaishek only had tax authority over Jiangsu and Zhejiang. He appointed Paul Song 宋子文, his former Finance Minister, back into power and directed him to increase revenue for a military campaign (696).
• Chiang Kaishek's proposals at the Guomindang Central Executive Committee meetings, which began in February 1928, were to remove all Communist influence from the party doctrine, expel all Communists, and that the Wuhan faction would annul all pro-Soviet resolutions it made in return for the Nanjing faction annulling its expulsion of many Wuhan faction members on suspicion of Communist influence. These reforms were passed and a new united government was constituted, led by Chiang Kaishek and Tan Yankai 譚延闓 (698-699).
• The military governors of Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei, and Jiangxi were uninterested in Chiang Kaishek's campaign towards Beijing and did provide support, causing him to rely more heavily on the support of Feng Yuxiang (700). The two agreed to first attack Shandong in April 1928 (701).
• Over the course of a month, and with Zhang Zuolin's forces distracted by Feng Yuxiang, Chiang Kaishek pushed into Shandong and managed to rout Sun Chuanfang and capture Jinan on 30 April. The rest of the front remained static with intense fighting against the Fengtian Army (702).
• The occupation of Jinan was a risky move, since over 5,000 Japanese troops garrisoned the city to protect the approximately 2,000 Japanese citizens there. After several days of peaceful joint occupation, Chiang Kaishek managed to convince the Japanese to withdrawal on 2 May, pledging to protect Japanese citizens and their property (704).
• Fighting broke out between Guomindang and Japanese soldiers on 3 May, escalating as Chinese soldiers looted some Japanese-owned businesses and Japanese soldiers murdered dozens of Guomindang officials. Fighting stopped that day, and Chiang Kaishek agreed to abandon the city to Japanese control (705).
• This settlement did not satisfy Japan, which demanded that China be punished for the violence. On 7 May, Japan issued a telegram to Chiang Kaishek demanding that commanding officers in Jinan be punished, all anti-Japanese propaganda be banned in Guomindang territories, and that all of Shandong between Jinan and Qingdao be evacuated by Guomindang soldiers (705).
• Chiang Kaishek agreed partially to all Japanese demands, but the lack of complete agreement to the ultimatum was unacceptable to the Japanese. The Japanese garrison in Jinan attacked nearby Guomindang forces on 8 May, executing thousands of war prisoners and civilians in retaliation for Guomindang refusal of the ultimatum and taking complete control of the area between Jinan and Qingdao (706).
• Feng Yuxiang's forces were reinforced by Guomindang soldiers forced to move west because of the Japanese in May, and were able to gain the upper hand over Zhang Zuolin in Zhili then, capturing Dezhou on 12 May and threatening to take Tianjin (706-707)
• Chiang Kaishek and Feng Yuxiang's advance to Beijing was negotiated with the Japanese, who sought to play the Guomindang and Zhang Zuolin off of each other to maintain their position in Manchuria. They agreed in April 1928 that the Guomindang would not cross the Great Wall, and in return the Japanese would pressure Zhang Zuolin to remain in Manchuria if he was defeated in Zhili (706). 
• The treaty powers worried about the capture of Tianjin by the Guomindang, considering the violence that had broken out in Nanjing and Jinan, since the city was home to thousands of foreigners and several large foreign concessions. Japan threatened Zhang Zuolin with blocking his retreat to Manchuria if he did immediately retreat on 18 May and surrender Tianjin to occupation by the treaty powers (707-708).
• Although he originally resisted Japanese pressure, facing military setbacks Zhang Zuolin agreed to evacuate to Manchuria on the condition that Beijing be occupied by Yan Xishan, not his old enemy Feng Yuxiang. This deal and the ceasefire were agreed by Feng Yuxiang, Zhang Zuolin, and Chiang Kaishek on 1 June (709-710).
• Zhang Zuolin left Beijing on 2 June and was killed on-route to Manchuria by a bombing planned by dissent members of the Japanese Army on 4 June. Despite the chaos in the Fengtian clique following the assassination, the handover continued, with Yan Xishan arriving in Beijing on 12 June (710).
• The military success of the Northern Expedition hinged on several factors, most crucially the high morale and loyalty of Guomindang troops, the training and equipment supplied by the USSR, aerial surveillance by Soviet pilots, and widespread support among a population willing to provide intelligence to the Guomindang and sabotage enemy forces (588-590).
• The British government recognized the rising power of the Guomindang after their successful capture of the much of the southern Yangtze basin in December 1926, and began negotiations to recognize their government. Initial discussions of diplomatic recognition of the Guangzhou government foundered on British instance that the Guomindang recognize the unequal treaties as fully binding until new treaties were drafted (599).
• The Northern Expedition was declared officially over on 6 July 1928 at a meeting outside Beijing between Chiang Kaishek, Yan Xishan, and Feng Yuxiang. They agreed to reduce the overall number of troops in the country and divide China into 12 military districts, the control of which was to be decided in January 1929 (711).
• The Guomindang Central Executive Committee, now including Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang, met on 8 August 1928 to determine China's future. They voted to greatly centralize the Guomindang, restricting the powers of provincial branches and subordinating all decisions to the Central Executive Committee, which at this power represented a conference of all major warlords in China (712).
• Paul Song played a major role at the meeting, as he managed to convince the Executive Committee that China could not function within a common civilian financial system. They agreed to establish a common Ministry of Finance to establish one central bank, collect taxes, issue a common currency, manage loans, and create a single national budget, albeit one that had to be approved by the warlords of the Central Executive Committee (713).
• The Executive Committee also agreed, in principle, to a common military that would place all military academies under Guomindang control, greatly cut military spending to under 50% of the total budget, and invest in a modern air force and navy (714).
• On 7 July 1928, the Foreign Minister, Wang Zhengting 王正廷, announced that all the unequal treaties would be immediately opened for renegotiation and that, in the meantime, Chinese law would fully apply to all foreigners and foreign-owned property (715).
• The USA agreed to these new terms and signed a treaty on 25 July that recognized full Chinese sovereignty and abrogated prior treaty rights, but wrote in a clause saying that it would only become active after these rights had also been suspended by all other treaty powers. Britain signed a nearly identical agreement on 8 August. None of the other treaty powers recognized Wang Zhengting's declaration as legitimate (715-716).
• On 8 October 1928, the Chinese government announced a new constitution law that officially subordinated the state to the Guomindang and established the Guomindang party structure as the basis for governance in China (716).
• The new Chinese government, with its capital at Nanjing, was officially inaugurated on 10 October 1928, with Chiang Kaishek as its president (717).
• Although significantly more unified and a more ardently nationalist administration than in previous decades (717), China was still riven by faction. Actual power in the country was split between five groups: the Nanjing government in the Yangtze River Valley; the Jiangxi clique in Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangxi; Feng Yuxiang in Shaanxi, Henan, and parts of Shandong and Hebei; Yan Xishan in Shanxi, Beijing, and Tianjin; and the Fengtian clique, now under Zhang Zuolin's son Zhang Xueliang 張學良, in Manchuria. Independent warlords still exercised power in Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan (719-720).