A report on Chiang Kai-shek and Chang Hsueh-liang

From 1926 to 1928, the KMT under Chiang Kai-shek successfully led the Northern Expedition against regional warlords and unified the fragmented nation.

Zhang Xueliang, who believed that the Japanese invasion was a greater threat, was persuaded by the CCP to take Chiang hostage during the Xi'an Incident in 1937 and forced Chiang to agree to an alliance with them in the total war against the Japanese.

In 1923, Sun sent Chiang Kai-shek, one of his lieutenants, for several months of military and political study in Moscow.

In 1936, Zhou Enlai and Zhang Xueliang grew closer, with Zhou even suggesting that he join the CCP.

In order to resist the domination of Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin, Yan allied himself with the forces of Chiang Kai-shek in 1927, during the Nationalists' Northern Expedition.

When the governor of Manchuria, Zhang Xueliang, publicly declared his allegiance to Chiang (whose support Zhang required in order to contest the Russians and Japanese), Yan fled to Dalian in the Japanese-held Kwantung Leased Territory, only returning to an unconquered Shanxi after making peace with Chiang in 1931.

Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Nationalist government of China, was detained by his subordinates Generals Chang Hsüeh-liang (Zhang Xueliang) and Yang Hucheng, in order to force the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) to change its policies regarding the Empire of Japan and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The Central Plains War was a series of military campaigns in 1929 and 1930 that constituted a Chinese civil war between the Nationalist Kuomintang government in Nanjing led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and several regional military commanders and warlords that were former allies of Chiang.

The Northern Expedition ended with the reunification of China in 1928 under the Nanjing government, as Zhang Xueliang declared the allegiance of his Northeast Army to the Nationalist government in Nanjing, following the assassination of his father Zhang Zuolin by the Japanese Kwantung Army.

They were nominally reunified in 1928 by the Nanjing-based government led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, which after the Northern Expedition governed the country as a one-party state under the Kuomintang, and was subsequently given international recognition as the legitimate representative of China.

Despite nominal reunification, the Chiang's Nationalist Government relied heavily on the support of warlords such as Ma Hushan, Yan Xishan, and Chang Hsueh-liang to exert control on the provinces.

He joined the Nationalist Party (KMT), supported the Northern Expedition and became blood brothers with Chiang Kai-shek, but resisted Chiang's consolidation of power in the Central Plains War and broke with him again in resisting Japanese incursions in 1933.

This Zhili clique defeated the Fengtian clique, headed by Zhang Zuolin, father of Zhang Xueliang, in the First Zhili–Fengtian War in 1922.

In 1927 the Chinese Communists retaliated against Kuomintang following a betrayal of its members in Shanghai by National Revolutionary Army commander Chiang Kai-shek, which marked the end of the KMT's four-year alliance with the Soviet Union and its cooperation with the CCP during the Northern Expedition (aka First United Front) to defeat warlords and unify China.

In 1936, Chiang Kai-shek assigned "The Young Marshal" Zhang Xueliang, leader of Northeastern Army, the duty of suppressing the Red Army of the CCP.

Chang Hsueh-liang, Chang Tso-lin's son and successor, joined the Nanjing Government led by Chiang Kai-shek from anti-Japanese sentiment.

Ordered to destroy the newly established Communist Party of China (CPC) stronghold at Yan'an with Zhang Xueliang's Northeast Army in 1935, both Yang and Zhang Xueliang were impressed with the Communists' determined defense and fighting capabilities.

As both sides ceased hostilities, Kuomintang chairman Chiang Kai-shek flew to Xi'an in early December to investigate the inaction.