A report on Kuomintang, Chinese Civil War and Chiang Kai-shek

The Republic of China (ROC) was commonly recognised as the official designation of China from 1912 to 1949, when it was a country in East Asia based in Mainland China, prior to the relocation of its central government to Taiwan as a result of the Chinese Civil War.

Sun's party, the Kuomintang (KMT), then led by Song Jiaoren, won the parliamentary election held in December 1912.

General Chiang Kai-shek, who became the Chairman of the Kuomintang after Sun's death and subsequent power struggle in 1925, began the Northern Expedition in 1926 to overthrow the Beiyang government.

For the purpose of unifying China and defeating the regional warlords, the Kuomintang (KMT, alternatively known as the Chinese Nationalist Party) in Guangzhou launched the Northern Expedition from 1926 to 1928 with limited assistance from the Soviet Union.

Later in the same year, Zhang decided to declare his allegiance to the Nationalist government in Nanjing under Chiang Kai-shek, and consequently, China was nominally reunified under one government.

To secure the release of Chiang, the KMT agreed to a temporary ceasefire of the Chinese Civil War and, on 24 December, the formation of a United Front with the communists against Japan.

The Northern Expedition was a military campaign launched by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT), also known as the "Chinese Nationalist Party", against the Beiyang government and other regional warlords in 1926.

The expedition was led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and was divided into two phases.

Although Chiang was ultimately victorious in that war which ensured his status as the singular leader of all China, regionalism and warlordism would continue, weakening the country and laying the groundwork for the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War.

The resumption of the Chinese Civil War resulted in the ROC's loss of mainland China to forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and consequent retreat to Taiwan in 1949.

Central authority waxed and waned in response to warlordism (1915–28), Japanese invasion (1937–45), and the Chinese Civil War (1927–50), with central authority strongest during the Nanjing decade (1927–37), when most of China came under the control of the Kuomintang (KMT) under an authoritarian one-party state.

After the end of World War II, the Chinese Civil War resumed between the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang), led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by CCP Chairman Mao Zedong.

Sun Yat-sen (born Sun Te-ming; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925), also known as Sun Yat-sun, Sun Chung-shan, Sun Yi-hsien, Sun Wen, Sun Jih-hsin, Suen Yat-sen, Suen Yat-sun, Sun Yixian and Sun Rixin, was a Chinese statesman, physician, and political philosopher, who served as the first provisional president of the Republic of China and the first leader of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party of China).

He did not live to see his party unify the country under his successor, Chiang Kai-shek, in the Northern Expedition.

When the Communists and the Kuomintang split in 1927, marking the start of the Chinese Civil War, each group claimed to be his true heirs, a conflict that continued through World War II.

The CCP under his leadership emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War against the Kuomintang, and in 1949 Mao proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China.

However, when the right-wing of the KMT, led by Chiang Kai-shek, turned on the CCP and massacred tens of thousands of the party's members, the two parties split and began a prolonged civil war.

Japan invaded China in 1937, starting the Second Sino-Japanese War and temporarily halting the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT).

In the late 1920s, the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek, the then Principal of the Republic of China Military Academy, was able to reunify the country under its own control with a series of deft military and political maneuverings, known collectively as the Northern Expedition.

The Nationalist government, officially the National Government of the Republic of China, also known as the Second Republic of China but most commonly known simply as the Republic of China, refers to the government of the Republic of China from 1 July 1925 to 20 May 1948, led by the Kuomintang (literally the "Nationals' Party").

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.

The Nationalist government would then experience many challenges such as the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Civil War and World War II.

The Shanghai massacre of 12 April 1927, the April 12 Purge or the April 12 Incident as it is commonly known in China, was the violent suppression of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organizations and leftist elements in Shanghai by forces supporting General Chiang Kai-shek and conservative factions in the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party, or KMT).

For the rest of 1927, the CCP would fight to regain power, beginning the Chinese Civil War.

The Nationalist Kuomintang government of Sun Yat-sen based in Guangzhou began to contest Yuan's Beiyang Government based in Beijing as the legitimate government of China.

The Warlord Era ended in 1928 when the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek officially unified China through the Northern Expedition, marking the beginning of the Nanjing decade.

Several of the warlords continued to maintain their influence through the 1930s and the 1940s, which was problematic for the Nationalist government during both the Second Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War.