A report on Chiang Kai-shek, Second Sino-Japanese War and Wuhan

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

From 1937 to 1945, the KMT-ruled Nationalist government led China through the Second Sino-Japanese War against Japan.

Wang Jing Wei, who led the KMT leftist allies, took the city of Wuhan in January 1927.

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.

Nation-building efforts yielded to fight the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 when a skirmish between the National Revolutionary Army and Imperial Japanese Army culminated in a full-scale invasion by Japan.

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.

The city also served as the seat of the rebel Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1853–64) and the Japanese puppet regime of Wang Jingwei (1940–45) during the Second Sino-Japanese 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.

The exact causes of World War II are debated, but contributing factors included the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Soviet–Japanese border conflicts, the rise of fascism in Europe and rising European tensions since World War I.

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.

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 global COVID-19 pandemic originated in Wuhan and was first identified from an outbreak in December 2019.

It served as its wartime capital during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).

During and after the Second Sino-Japanese War, from Nov 1937 to May 1946, it was Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's provisional capital.

After the General and remaining army had lived there for a time following their retreat in 1938 from the previous capital of Wuhan, it was formally declared the second capital city (陪都, pèi dū) on 6 September 1940.

He was initially a member of the left wing of the Kuomintang, leading a government in Wuhan in opposition to the right-wing government in Nanjing, but later became increasingly anti-communist after his efforts to collaborate with the Chinese Communist Party ended in political failure.

After Sun's death in 1925 Wang engaged in a political struggle with Chiang Kai-shek for control over the Kuomintang, but lost.

Wang remained inside the Kuomintang, but continued to have disagreements with Chiang until the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, after which he accepted an invitation from the Japanese Empire to form a Japanese-supported collaborationist government in Nanking.

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

The first phase ended in a 1927 political split between two factions of the KMT: the right-leaning Nanjing faction, led by Chiang, and the left-leaning faction in Wuhan, led by Wang Jingwei.

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.