Northern campaign
The Northern Campaign was a military operation by the Guomindang and their allies against the Northern Militarists . It lasted with interruptions from July 1926 to the end of 1928. The aim of the operation was to smash the warlords as an independent power factor in the Republic of China and to create a centralized state based on the aims of the Guomindang movement. The nationalists were supported by the Chinese Communist Party and the Soviet Union . Several political crises occurred during the military campaign. In the Guomindang there was a power struggle between the faction around Chiang Kai-shek and that of Wang Jingwei . After Chiang had won this power struggle, he tried to eliminate the communists as a power factor and risked a break with his Soviet supporters. The campaign was successful after several setbacks and ended with the capture of Beijing and the establishment of a KMT government in Nanjing, with Jiang at its head.
background
In the Xinhai Revolution , the nationalist leader Sun Yat-sen and the military leader of the Qing Dynasty Yuan Shikai agreed to end the monarchy. Sun renounced the presidency of the Republic of China in favor of Yuan Shikai. During the First World War , Yuan established a dictatorship based on his military might as the commander of the Northern Sea Army and tried unsuccessfully to become the monarch of a new empire. After his death in 1916, a power vacuum developed from senior officers who led their units and areas of government as personal fiefs. These rulers, known as warlords, formed loose coalitions that fought one another. The Guomindang nationalist movement was only able to hold onto power in Canton , southern China.
Military balance of power and planning
In 1926 the Fengtian clique under Zhang Zuolin controlled northern China and Manchuria with an army of 130,000-350,000 soldiers. The Zhili clique controlled central China with their leading warlords Wu Peifu in Wuhan and Sun Chuanfang in Nanjing . Wu commanded 135,000-200,000 men. Sun's army numbered 200,000–225,000 men. The warlord Feng Yuxiang , who was based in Gansu , was fighting with Wu Peifu's troops . The National Revolutionary Army of the Kuomintang (WMD) possessed 1926 some 100,000 soldiers and 6,000 by the Soviets at the Whampoa Military Academy -trained officers . The Soviet Union also supported the nationalists by selling firearms, artillery and a few military aircraft. In addition to advisory activities, Soviet officers also served as pilots in an emergency as front-line officers.
Military actions for the reunification of the country had long been prepared and discussed in circles of the GMD leadership. In March 1926, an uprising against the governor appointed by Wu Peifu in Hunan provided the occasion when the leader of the insurgents Tang Shenzi Chiang and the Guomindang submitted after briefly taking the provincial capital of Changsha . In May, the Guomindang Central Committee made the decision to wage a large-scale campaign against the warlords. The war plan developed by Chiang and Wassili Konstantinowitsch Blücher provided for 65,000 soldiers to take action against Wu Peifu in Wuhan. 35,000 soldiers should remain in Guangdong to protect against possible counter-attacks. The operation in the military sense was to be led by Blücher. The military deployment should be accompanied by political campaigns and mass mobilization. Through the First Popular Front , the communists supported the operations of the GMD and found themselves in its ranks.
Military history
On July 9, National Revolutionary Army (NRA) troops opened in Shaoguan on the northern border of Guangdog on the border with Hunan. Three days later they captured the provincial capital, Changsha . Wu's attempt to hold them back until the arrival of reinforcements from Sun's troops failed despite the public execution of officers who had dropped out. In August, Feng Xiuqan formed an alliance with the GMD and submitted to the high command of Chiang Kai-shek. On September 6th, Hankou fell to the nationalists. In October, the NRA was able to capture Wu's capital with Wuhan . They captured Nanchang in November after having fought heavy fighting with Sun's forces there since September. After the losses of 20,000 dead and 7,000 wounded at Nanchang, Sun's army showed signs of disintegration. 40,000 of its soldiers were disarmed by the National Revolutionary Army. In December there was a successful attack by the GMD from Guangdong on Fujian, in which the provincial capital was also captured. By the end of 1926, the nationalists had taken control of the four provinces of Fujian, Hunan, Hubei and Jianxi. Only in Zhejiang was Sun able to assert itself after a failed attempt at insurrection by the local civil administration. The warlords reacted to the military setbacks against the GMD armed forces with the formation of a united command in November 1926. This was headed by Zhang Zuolin. The united kingdom pacification army of warlords involved still about 300,000 soldiers, and Zhang provided the largest contingent.
Political crisis and break with the communists
In January 1927, the Guomindang in Wuhan under Wang Jingwei established a nationalist government with the claim to represent all of China. The new government initially assessed the northern campaign as finished and successful. Jiang planned another military operation aimed at conquering Shanxi . In February 1927, the provincial capital of Zhejiang Hangzhou was captured. Meanwhile, a power struggle developed between Wang's government in Wuhan and Chiang's faction in the military. The communists sided with Wang and criticized the new warlord Chiang in their press . On March 26, the Kuomintang captured Shanghai with the support of communist guerrillas, whose uprisings had already been crushed by Sun several times. In the same month, Nanjing fell to the Guomindang. The defeat resulted in Sun's forces fleeing north.
Differences of opinion developed between the national Chinese officers and their Soviet advisers as to what extent the communists should be supported. Chiang Kai-shek saw the communists' activities as preparation for an attempted coup. From April, purges against communist members began in the GMD. Chiang was able to assert himself in the power struggle against Wang and established a loyal Guomindang government in Nanjing. In May 1927, this enforced the one-party state of the GMD. From July he enforced the violent persecution of communists in the area under his government. Thousands of cadres were killed by their former allies in cracking down on the communists.
At the end of August, troops from the Imperial Peace Army stood in front of Nanjing. They were repulsed by Chinese national forces, leaving 10,000 dead and 30,000 prisoners. The communists went over to civil war and tried to destabilize the KMT state in the Nanchang uprising in April 1927, the autumn harvest uprising in September and the canton uprising . As a result, the GMD's plans for a further advance northward came to a standstill. As a result, the GMD also suspended all cooperation with the Soviet Union.
Military operations continued
After a reorganization, Chiang ordered the continuation of the northern campaign with the aim of smashing Zhang Zuolin's power base and taking the Qing imperial capital Beijing. The National Revolutionary Army had meanwhile grown to around 700,000 soldiers. They faced around 400,000 soldiers under Zhang's command. Zhang died in a bomb attack on June 4th. This was planned by his former supporters of the Japanese Kwantung Army with the aim of being able to better control a leaderless Manchuria. Two days later, the nationalists occupied Beijing. His son and successor as warlord Zhang Xueliang announced on June 19, 1928 that the war with the Guomindang was over and withdrew to Manchuria.
consequences
At the party plenum in August 1928, the two warring factions of the GMD were able to reach an agreement under Chiang's leadership. This led to the establishment of a national government in Nanjing on October 10, 1928. The successful northern campaign led to the fact that, for the first time since the end of Yuan Shikai's death, a state actually controlled the majority of Chinese territory and ended the era of warlords.
Complete numbers of fatalities in combat between the military and civilians are not available. The fighting contributed to a famine in northwest China that affected around 60 million people in 1927. The death toll from famine is estimated at three to six million people.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dieter Kuhn: The Republic of China from 1912 to 1937 - Draft for a political history of events. 3rd edition, Heidelberg, 2007 pp. 340–347, p. 355
- ↑ Dieter Kuhn: The Republic of China from 1912 to 1937 - Draft for a political history of events. 3rd edition, Heidelberg, 2007 pp. 347-350
- ↑ Dieter Kuhn: The Republic of China from 1912 to 1937 - Draft for a political history of events. 3rd edition, Heidelberg, 2007, pp. 350-356
- ↑ Dieter Kuhn: The Republic of China from 1912 to 1937 - Draft for a political history of events. 3rd edition, Heidelberg, 2007, pp. 360–371
- ↑ Dieter Kuhn: The Republic of China from 1912 to 1937 - Draft for a political history of events. 3rd edition, Heidelberg, 2007 pp. 386 - 394
- ↑ a b Michael Molina: Northern Expedition. In: Xiaobing Li (Ed.): China at War - An Encyclopedia. London, 2012, pp. 326-328
- ↑ Dieter Kuhn: The Republic of China from 1912 to 1937 - Draft for a political history of events. 3rd edition, Heidelberg, 2007, pp. 405-407
- ↑ Dieter Kuhn: The Republic of China from 1912 to 1937 - Draft for a political history of events. 3rd edition, Heidelberg, 2007, pp. 407f
- ↑ Dieter Kuhn: The Republic of China from 1912 to 1937 - Draft for a political history of events. 3rd edition, Heidelberg, 2007, pp. 409f
- ^ SCM Paine: The War for Asia - 1911-1949. Cambridge, 2012, pp. 56f