A report on Chongqing, Chiang Kai-shek and Wuhan

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.

The latter event forced the CCP and KMT's left-wing into armed rebellion, marking the beginning of the Chinese Civil War and the establishment of a rival nationalist government in Wuhan under Wang Jingwei.

Three years later, in 1949, nearing the end of the civil war, the CCP established the People's Republic of China in Beijing, with the KMT-led ROC moving its capital several times from Nanjing to Guangzhou, followed by Chongqing, then Chengdu and lastly, Taipei.

After failing to stop the Japanese in the Battle of Wuhan, the Chinese central government was relocated to Chongqing (Chungking) in the Chinese interior.

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.

Afterwards the IJA changed its strategy and deployed almost all of its existing armies in China to attack the city of Wuhan, which had become the political, economic and military center of rump China, in hopes of destroying the fighting strength of the NRA and of forcing the KMT government to negotiate for peace.

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to defend Shanghai, but after three months of fighting, Shanghai fell.

In June 1938, Chinese forces stalled the Japanese advance by flooding the Yellow River; this manoeuvre bought time for the Chinese to prepare their defences at Wuhan, but the city was taken by October.

Japanese military victories did not bring about the collapse of Chinese resistance that Japan had hoped to achieve; instead, the Chinese government relocated inland to Chongqing and continued the war.

Nanjing is also considered a Beta (global second-tier) city classification, together with Chongqing, Hangzhou and Tianjin by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and ranked as one of the world's top 100 cities in the Global Financial Centres Index.

Nanjing served as the capital of Eastern Wu (229–280), one of the three major states in the Three Kingdoms period; the Eastern Jin and each of the Southern dynasties (Liu Song, Southern Qi, Liang and Chen), which successively ruled southern China from 317 to 589; the Southern Tang (937–75), one of the Ten Kingdoms; the Ming dynasty when, for the first time, all of China was ruled from the city (1368–1421); and the Republic of China under the nationalist Kuomintang (1927–37, 1946–49) prior to its flight to Taiwan by Chiang Kai-Shek during the Chinese Civil War.

Along with Chongqing and Wuhan, Nanjing is traditionally referred to as one of the "Three Furnaces" along the Yangtze River for the perennially high temperatures in the summertime.