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The Northern Expedition was a military campaign fought by the Kuomintang (KMT) against the Beiyang government, particularly the Zhili Clique, between July 1926 and February 1927. The purpose of the campaign was to reunify China, which had become fragmented in the aftermath of the 1911 Xinhai Revolution and was plagued by crippling factionalism between opposing military cliques and corrupt opportunists, under the red, blue and white banner of the KMT. The KMT forces were in-part funded and equipped by the Commune of France, which hoped its assistance would spread socialism to China.
The expedition was led by famous Whampoa army commander and chief of staff of the KMT government in Guangzhou Chiang Kai-shek, who pushed north through Hunan into the domain of Zhili Warlord Wu Peifu, with the aim to capture the Tri-City of Wuhan, an important fortress at the Yangtze. Other commanders, like He Yingqin, focused on Eastern China instead, marching towards Hangzhou via Fujian. The campaign evolved into a disaster after the German intervention following the controversial Yangtze Incident: The German capture of Guangzhou in November/December 1926 and the decisive defeat of Chiang during the Battle of Jinhua in January 1927 caused the near-total collapse of the Kuomintang as a contending Chinese government and sealed Beiyang influence over all of China.
Background[]
Following the Xinhai Revolution in 1911 and Yuan Shikai's abortive enthronement in 1916, Sun Yat-sen's Kuomintang became one of several factions competing for political legitimacy and military supremacy in an increasingly divided China. As the authority of the country's only internationally recognized government in Beijing continued to erode, by the 1920s China's predominant form of government had become various mutually hostile military cliques, with the provinces further away from Beijing often turning into lawless, corrupt military autocracies under the rule of arbitrary warlords.
Sun had already tried to set foot in Southern China as early as 1917, but was sidelined multiple times by several of his former allies: First time in 1918 by Cen Chunxuan and Lu Rongting, only to be restored by Guangdong warlord Chen Jiongming in 1920, but being once again expelled in 1922 by the latter, who was not contempt with Sun's stance towards Chinese reunification. He would be restored another time in 1923, this time by Tang Jiyao from Yunnan.
Now, what exactly had caused the frictions between Chen and Sun? While Chen, a proponent of Chinese federalism, pushed for peaceful reunification with the north via negotiations, Sun had a more violent and drastic approach in mind: From his center of power in Guangxi and Guangdong, Sun Yat-sen envisioned an offensive northwards with the goal of taking Wuhan and Nanjing, the birthplace of the Xinhai Revolution and the old Southern capital of China respectively, and then eventually the rest of China. With Chen out of his way, nothing was stopping him anymore.
Sun's first attempt at Chinese reunification was launched in 1924, during the Second Zhili-Fengtian War. After diplomatic overtures with the Fengtian Clique to challenge Zhili authority in Central and Eastern China, KMT forces moved northwards into Fujian, then the personal domain of Zhili governor Sun Chuanfang, to prevent the latter from reinforcing his comrades in the north. However, the Canton Merchants' Corps Uprising forced the troops to return back to Guangdong. Nevertheless, the southern campaign proved to be the first major conflict fought by cadets and officers trained at the Whampoa Military Academy, the KMT military academy in Guangzhou which had been organized with assistance of the Commune of France.
Sun would never be able to start another attempt, as he died of cancer in early 1925. His death triggered a power struggle within the KMT. Chiang Kai-shek, director of the Whampoa Military Academy, became commander of the National Revolutionary Army. There were three plausible candidates for the position of generalissimo: Liao Zhongkai, Hu Hanmin and Wang Jingwei. A failed assassination attempt on Liao cast suspicion on Hu, who was arrested, tried and executed. This allowed Wang to become official head of the KMT, and the leader of its left wing, while Chiang assumed unofficial leadership of its right and became chief of staff. Liao Zhongkai was appointed acting President in an effort to balance the left and right factions.
Course of the War[]
First Stage: July 1926 - September 1926[]
The early stages of the Northern Expedition
In late 1925, the Anti-Fengtian War, a direct consequence of the Second Zhili-Fengtian War, began: The defeat of the Zhili Clique at the hands of the Fengtian, the Anhui and the Guominjun, a nationalist warlord clique consisting of Zhili defectors under the lead of Feng Yuxiang, had left an unstable triumvirate in Beijing. Tension boiled over in October, when a high-ranking Fengtian commander defected to the Guominjun. The subsequent war would pit the Fengtian, supported by the Zhili, against the Guominjun.
At the end of the war, the Beiyang warlords of old stood once again victorious and Fengtian troops would march through Beijing, but nonetheless, they were weakened by yet another pointless war against each other. The Guominjun had retreated to Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi and were preoccupied with reorganizing themselves. Sensing an opportunity to bring down the exhausted Northern warlords, the Guangzhou Government launched the Northern Expedition on 9 July 1926.
Chiang Kai-shek gave a lecture to 100,000 soldiers of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) in a ceremony that can be considered the official commencement of the Northern Expedition. The NRA, set up by cadets trained by French and Russian officers at the Whampoa Military Academy and equipped with European weapons, were better organized than many of the Northern warlord armies, something the KMT would immensely profit from in the early stages of the campaign.
A few days after that, the NRA advanced from their base in Guangdong into Hunan to the north. The initial strategy for the KMT's northern advance against the Zhili warlords, which was largely devised by Communard advisors, was to focus on defeating Wu Peifu, whose crumbling power base was centered around Henan and Hubei. Initially, the KMT planned to only take on Wu, while simultaneously trying to appease Sun Chuanfang, an associate of Wu, bringing him to defect to the Guangzhou government - however, Sun ignored the KMT's proposal, instead beheading the Guangzhou Government's diplomats, and therefore, another offensive into Fujian would be secretly planned soon after.
Hunan would fall very quickly, mainly because Zhili control was very thinly spread there. While Zhili commander Zhao Hengti had still been de jure governor of the province, de facto control of the province laid in the hands of Tang Shengzhi, a KMT-aligned warlord, since March 1926. Therefore, Changsha was under complete control of the KMT as early as 11 July, less than a week after the start of the campaign.
At Changsha, discussions began in early August about where to head next. Negotiations with Sun Chuanfang were still ongoing at that point, but many had realized that these were probably not going to bear fruit and that military subjugation of the League of Five Provinces would probably be for the best. Nevertheless, Chiang decided to ignore Sun for the time being and continued to fully focus on Wu. At the time, most of Wu Peifu's forces were still preoccupied with fighting at Nankou Pass, near Beijing, against the remnants of the Guominjun, and therefore, a good opportunity was given to capture the Tri-City of Wuhan in Hubei, one of the most important fortresses on the Yangtze. In this manner, the NRA would follow the route taken by the Taiping Rebellion in the 19th century.
Sun Chuanfang did not intervene as KMT troops advanced further into Wu's territory. Zhang Zuolin of the Fengtian Clique in Manchuria offered his support against the KMT to Wu, but the latter refused, fearing that the Fengtian Clique would undermine his position if he allowed their troops into his territory. With the capture of the Yangtze port of Yueyang on 22 August, Hunan came under complete KMT control, paving the way for an advance to Wuhan along the route of the Beijing–Guangzhou railway. Wu's forces retreated northwards, slowing the KMT's advance by destroying several Yangtze dams.
By 28 August, the KMT, led by Li Zongren and his Guangxi NRA Seventh Army, had taken Xianning, about 75 kilometers south of Wuchang. Wu returned from the north and launched a small counteroffensive, which however failed. By 2 September, the NRA had nearly surrounded Wuchang, one of the three cities of Wuhan. Wu fled north into Henan to reorganize himself, while a large Zhili garrison remained in Wuchang to defend the city against the NRA.
Second Phase: September 1926 - November 1926[]
The later stages of the Northern Expedition.
In the meantime, the KMT Offensive on the League of Five Provinces was launched. Troops from Hunan would push into Jiangxi, capturing Jiujiang and Nanchang in mid-September, hastened by the defection of Lai Shih-huang, one of Sun's generals. A further advance into Zhejiang however was not possible, as Sun arrived with reinforcements from Nanjing, brutally asserting his authority in the Jiangxi-Zhejiang border region by killing hundreds of students, teachers, and suspected members of the KMT, whose severed heads he displayed on spikes in public places. This would however help the KMT, which presented itself as a progressive force on behalf of ordinary people persecuted and mistreated by warlords, in the long-term: NRA troops received a warm welcome and strong support from peasants and workers who had suffered under the brutal rule of Sun's forces.
Still, at that point, in mid-September 1926, the future of the Northern Expedition seemed uncertain. Progress in Eastern China had been halted by Sun's forces for the time being and Wuchang still had not fallen to Chiang Kai-shek. However, the biggest problem of all was the increased interference of the imperialist powers. The coast of Guangdong had been blockaded by German ships since July/August, when it had become public that the French were secretly supplying the Guangzhou Government with weapon deliveries via India.
With the Northern Expedition's advance in the East and in Hubei temporarily halted, the KMT launched an offensive into Fujian in late September. The NRA 1st Army under He Yingqin was welcomed by many locals, especially the Hakka, who resented foreign control, and gradually began to infiltrate the Fujian countryside. He's forces moved up the coast, pushing toward the provincial capital, Fuzhou. The NRA however would soon be bogged down in the mountains and only barely reached Fuzhou in late October.
Meanwhile, in mid/late September, Chiang was still busy with trying to capture Wuchang. The other two cities of Wuhan, Hankou and Hanyang, had already been captured, but the Wuchang garrison was simply not willing to surrender, and had become a thorn in Chiang's side. He had counted on a swift victory, as the significance of Wuchang as the birthplace of the Xinhai revolution could have made its conquest the perfect propaganda platform.
Newspaper article concerning the Incident on the Yangtze
Concerned that Chiang's forces could threaten the international concessions in nearby Hankou, several great powers dispatched gunboats to the area, in case the situation should escalate. Said escalation occurred when shells fired by Chiang's armies, intended to hit the Wuchang fortress, damaged several gun boats on the Yangtze, among them the USS Pigeon on 13 September and the SMS Maikäfer on 20 September. The SMS Maikäfer responded with its cannons and machinegun fire. Chiang would deliver an ultimatum to the Western powers, demanding their immediate withdrawal of their ships from the Yangtze. Most decided on a policy of passive defiance - but Germany went a step further, triggering the controversial Yangtze Incident, during which German ships, under KMT bombardment, would secretly supply the Wuchang garrison with supplies under the pretense of delivering postage.
Chiang was aware that further escalation could risk a full-blown German intervention, so instead of doubling down, he left the siege to his subordinate Li Zongren after the incident, and proceeded downriver towards Nanjing, aiming to acquire his essential victory there. The old southern capital should make for an equally good stage from which to declare China's rebirth, he thought.
What Chiang did not know at that point was that a German intervention was almost imminent in any case: German troops in the British concessions across China, especially in the South, had begun to grow restless after reported attempts by Kuomintang troops to enter the concession under darkness. At that point, everything hinted to an incoming German intervention; Germany began to prepare troop detachments in Tsingtau and Indochina, establishing clear plans where to deploy them in the following weeks.
With Chiang on his slow way towards Nanjing along the Yangtze via Jiangxi, bloody clashes between his NRA associates and Sun's forces continued at the Jiangxi-Zhejiang border. This would change in mid-October: Emboldened by the slow NRA advance in Fujian and Chiang's march on Nanjing, the civil governor of Zhejiang, Xia Chao, one of Sun's subordinates, defected to the KMT: A move all too sudden, as the NRA forces in Fujian had not even reached the Zhejiang border, Chiang had barely entered Anhui and forces loyal to Sun were stationed all over Zhejiang. Therefore, Xia's rebellion was crushed only a week later when he attempted to march northwards to assist Chiang: Sun's forces subsequently marched on Zhejiang's capital of Hangzhou, defeating the rebels by 23 October. Xia was executed, along with hundreds of his troops, while thousands of civilians were massacred at Xia's former headquarters.
Around the same time, the Germans had decided to act decisively and dispatched two major expeditionary forces after talks with high-ranking Zhili representatives: The first, recruited in Tsingtao, was deployed to move southwards to Nanjing to prevent Chiang from capturing the city, and the second would be shipped from the German possessions in South East Asia to Hong Kong, with the goal to move into neighboring Guangzhou and drive the KMT out of their most important headquarters, as this would strike the movement at its heart, disrupt its already stretched supply lines, and scatter Kuomintang forces in Southern China.
Meanwhile in Wuhan, Li Zongren still struggled with taking the city and established contacts with Feng Yuxiang's Guominjun. The Guominjun had long been rooted out in the northwest by Fengtian, Zhili and Mongolian troops, but Feng Yuxiang had managed to find shelter in neutral Shanxi and still had his power base in Shaanxi. The Guominjun agreed to support the KMT and pushed into Henan with the aim to eventually reach Wuhan, but at that point, Wu had already returned to Wuhan with fresh forces and destroyed the remaining KMT troops. When Feng Yuxiang arrived at the border to Hubei, all he found were strengthened and reinforced Zhili troops: The Guominjun suffered one last crushing defeat and entirely retreated to Shanxi and Shaanxi in the aftermath, withdrawing all meaningful support for the KMT. Wu Peifu had successfully reestablished his control over all of Hubei and Henan.
Third Stage: November 1926 - January 1927[]
The final stages of the Northern Expedition.
When November dawned, most of Jiangxi was under control of the KMT. Now, the goal was to proceed into Zhejiang, capturing Hangzhou and potentially even Shanghai on the way, and then march onto Nanjing. To achieve that, Chiang planned to lead his army over the Yellow Mountains, following the road to Jingdezhen, Shezhou and eventually Hangzhou, taking Sun's troops by surprise while avoiding the main brunt of his forces as well as his Yangtze fleet. Chiang was aware that supplying the troops in the mountains could be difficult, especially with winter approaching, but he banked on a short and efficient campaign, so that should not have been a problem at all.
Chiang however did not know at the time about the simultaneous German intervention: The German expeditionary forces from Kiautschou had taken the train from Tsingtao down to Nanjing and were more than ready to assist Sun Chuanfang's men. In mid-November, Chiang's troops had reached Shezhou in the heart of the Yellow Mountains, indeed engaging the Zhili garrison there in a surprise attack. In a crushing victory, the NRA would fully capture the city on the 20th - but this victory was only short-lived. Sun's troops would retreat to Yu Ling Pass, a very strategic passageway to the northeast of Shezhou, where they were reinforced by troops from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which now had dealt with the remnants of Xia Chow's rebels, as well as German supporting forces. Due to the blockade of Yu Ling, the only paved road towards Hangzhou had become inaccessable, and as Chiang was aware that a siege of the pass during this time of the year in the cold mountains would lead to a strategic disaster, he changed his plan after setting up camp in Shezhou for two weeks, proceeding southwards towards Quzhou instead. Only a small rearguard force was left in the Yellow Mountains, protecting the road from Shezhou to Quzhou.
Almost at the same time, in mid to late November, Guangzhou was captured by invading German troops from Hong Kong. While the Germans were unable to capture any high-ranking KMT politicians in Guangzhou, the party was thrown into complete disarray; what NRA troops remained in the south began to disband, and supplies destined for the Wuhan and Jiangxi fronts quickly grew thin. Wang Jingwei and other party functionaries relocated to Nanning for the time being. Upon hearing of these news, Chiang was deeply demoralized, but decided to stick to his original plan. Even though the south was lost, he still believed that capturing Nanjing would give the KMT a strong presence in the east instead.
With the fall of Guangzhou, most of Guangxi and Guangdong would begin to slowly collapse as well. The Germans would not advance too deep into the inland, mainly occupying small stretches of land around Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macao and securing the territories around Guangzhouwan to stop KMT troops from evacuating to Hainan via the Leizhou Peninsula. The chaos in the south would see the reemergence of former enemies of the Kuomintang: Lu Rongting, leader of the old Guangxi Clique who had been ousted in 1923/24 by his former KMT-aligned subordinate Li Zongren, entered the province from the north, slowly advancing towards Nanning, while Chen Jiongming, a former close associate of Sun Yat-Sen turned KMT opponent deposed in 1924 by forces from Yunnan, returned from his exile in Hong Kong with German support and managed to reestablish himself in Eastern Guangdong, winning the support of the Merchant Corps and the local gentries disgruntled by KMT with his regionalist, federalist rhetoric. Many former NRA troops would defect to Lu or Chen, gradually weakening the KMT throughout November and December.
Until late December, Chiang's forces were gradually advancing towards Jinhua via the forested riverlands of Western Zhejiang, between the Yellow Mountains to the left and the Wuyi Mountains to the right. He hoped that after capturing Jinhua, he would finally be able to team up with He's NRA 1st Army and then push into coastal Zhejiang. After harsh resistance from local Zhili detachments, which however were ill-equipped and suffered from corrupt leadership, Jinhua would be finally captured after fierce resistance in the last days of December. There, Chiang set up camp again, with the goal to properly resupply his forces in the fertile riverlands of the region and wait for the arrival of the 1st Army from Fujian. In case of a sudden advance of Sun Chuanfang's troops from the east, Jinhua would be easily defendable, Chiang assumed, and his western flank was secured by the rearguard in the Southern Yellow Mountains. What Chiang however did not include in his calculations was the scale of the German intervention; soon, German scouting planes were flying over Western Zhejiang, recording the exact positions of the NRA. Shortly after, Sun sent his most skilled men and his German allies to engage Jinhua from two directions: One large army was approaching from Hangzhou to the east, while another army, equipped with modern German weaponry and led by German officers, directly attacked Chiang's rearguard in the mountains, defeating them in an overwhelming victory, and then proceeded towards Jinhua from the west.
When Chiang realized that the city was being attacked from two sides, it was already too late; while he managed to defend the city for a few days, a major battle broke out in the early morning of 19 January, leaving the core of the NRA defeated, demoralized and disintegrating. Chiang and some of his remaining troops would flee southwards in the aftermath of the battle, attempting to go into hiding into the hills of Southern China and later join He Yingqin. On the way however, he was assassinated by some of his own men, possibly in retaliation for his involvement in the earlier execution of Hu Hanmin. At this point, the Northern Expedition was basically over, with no realistic hope of KMT recovery.
Aftermath[]
The collpase of the Guangzhou Government.
Throughout February, most German troops would slowly retreat back into their concessions. Guangzhou was handed over to Chen Jiongming's forces, which would soon establish control over all of Guangdong. The Kuomintang leadership in Nanning realized that everything was hopeless: They were not informed about the general conditions in Eastern China and had not heard from Chiang for weeks. When Lu Rongting's troops began to advance towards Nanning, Wang Jingwei and Liao Zhongkai officially declared the end of the campaign and fled towards the coast, accompanied by NRA commanders Zhang Fakui and Ye Ting, other high ranking party members as well as some loyal soldiers. They would embark on transport ships at Yangjiang, one of the last KMT-controlled port cities, and escaped to Free India in mid-February, and eventually to the Commune of France.
Eventual news of Chiang's defeat at Jinhua and subsequent disappearance, the fall of Guangzhou, and the escape of the KMT leadership would soon spread across all of eastern China. Demoralized by this news, talk of desertion began to spread throughout the remaining ranks of the KMT forces in Fujian, Jiangxi, and especially Hunan, the last remaining province completely under NRA control. This only worsened once scattered reports about the alleged assassination of Chiang appeared, and chaos ensued as various units defected, deserted, or outright disintegrated. Jiangxi found itself under complete control of Sun Chuanfang already by January, with the last strongholds of He Yingqin in Fujian falling in late February. Many KMT remnants in Jiangxi and Fujian would retreat to the inland mountains in the aftermath, eventually establishing the MinGan Insurgent Zone. In March, to finally be able to reintroduce stability in the south, Guangxi and Guangdong made a special agreement with Sun Chuanfang and, together with Hunan, joined the League of Five Provinces, de facto making it the League of Eight Provinces. The different Southern warlords had multiple inducements for joining Sun Chuanfang's League: Chen Jiongming for example always had been a proponent of Chinese federalism, and the idea of being a governor of a model province within a united, but federalized China greatly appealed to him, while Lu Rongting, more of a classic warlord, mostly cared for his own position and did not bother too much about politics and the like, mostly because of his high age, and additionally, he already had established good relations with the Zhili Clique in the past. In Hunan, the long-reigning governor Zhao Hengti would be reinstated, who was formerly directly aligned to Wu Peifu's power base in Henan, but accepted to fully join the League when Wu's power base shifted northwards following the Third Zhili-Fengtian War in April 1927.
Political Legacy[]
Even though the Northern Expedition had ended in a disaster for the Kuomintang leadership, Sun Yat-sen's "Three Principles of the People" were far from death. While the party's leadership had fled abroad,
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However, the Zhili clique's losses and Fengtian Clique's non-involvement, despite their alliance, altered the balance of power in eastern China. Zhang Zuolin would attempt to exploit this in the Third Zhili-Fengtian War, where a further Zhili victory with German aid would enable first the Xuantong Restoration, followed by the nominal reunification of most of China.
Despite the end of meaningful resistance by the National Revolutionary Army, the remains of the Left-Kuomintang continued an underground but increasingly organized resistance in the eastern coastal cities, eventually leading to the Shanghai Uprising in 1932.