Chiang Kai-shek

Chiang Kai-shek, also known as Jiang Jieshi in Mandarin Chinese (the name we know is in the dialect Cantonese), was the founder of the modern Republic of China who helped Sun Yat-sen overthrow the corrupt Qing Dynasty and the privisional dictatorship/monarch of Yuan Shikai and then unified China during the Warlord Era.

He soon became the ideological core of China, instituting unifying reforms of modernism, industrialism, and infrastructure development while maintaing and emphasizing Chinese tradition and identity during partial Westernization. He did this through his party, the Kuomintang, also known as the Nationalists.

Early Life
Chiang Kai-shek was born in Xikou, a village near Ningbo and Fenghua in Zhejiang Province (formerly known as Chekiang Province). His family's ancestral home was Yixing near Wuxi in Jiangsu Province. He was a member of a well-off middle-class family of salt merchants, which at the time was an esteemed profession, however his father's premature death while Chiang was 8 put the family into a state of poverty.

He was raised by his mother, whom was often described by him as the "embodiment of Confucian virtues"; being a traditional and somewhat Stoic mother-figure. At an early age he was recognized as having leadership abilities and ambitions, leading him into interest and then finally pursuit in a military career. He attended the Baoding Military Academy to serve the Qing Dynasty, however, he seen sought the honorable scholarships of any Chinese military-man at the time by being trained and educated by the Imperial Japanese Army in their Tokyo Shinbu Gakko, a state military preparatory school. At the time many militarymen from China studying there abhorred the Qing Dynasty's corruption and selling out of the Chinese people. Also, many Chinese thinkers had gone overseas to voice their anti-Qing beliefs more loudly, leading to Chiang becoming exposed to and ultimately engaged with the revolutionary movement.

Upon meeting Chen Qimei, he joined the revolutionary alliance of the Tongmenghui, a predecessor of the Kuomintang, and although serving in the Imperial Japanese Army through the Qing military, cut off his sign of imperial loyalty and sent it home. (The Qing Dynasty had Chinese men grow pony-tails to show obedience and servitude to the Manchurian leadership of the Qing). Chiang thus continued his engagement overseas with the Tongmenghui until ending service in the Imperial Japanese Army in 1911 after three years of service, returning home to join the revolution.



Revolutions
Upon hearing of the Wuchang Uprising, Chiang immediately sent his uniform and sword to the Imperial Japanese Army to resign with honor, and not as a deserter. He returned home to join the Xinhai Revolution of his compatriots, and gained leadership of a brigade.

The Xinhai Revolution, or First Revolution, was a success and the Tongmenghui transformed into the Kuomintang Party. However, the main Qing military of the time, the Beiyang Army, soon after joining the Xinhai Revolution and winning, secured itself as the main leader of the nation under a military junta with first republican, but eventually monarchial ambitions.

The Second Revolution began to overthrow the new Beiyang Army leadership under Yuan Shikai, which proved somewhat different but similar in function to the Qing Dynasty. Many provinces revolted, but the Beiyang Army was victorious, resulting in Kuomintang members to spend time overseas in exile and planning in either Shanghai, a concession of the time, or in Japan.

In Shanghai the Kuomintang continued to network and grow. Chiang engaged in life as a socialite and playboy as well, actually boosting his career as he gained connections with a major political force in China at the time, a major criminal syndicate known as the Green Gang. With this help he succeeded with the Kuomintang to prosper in Shanghai and launch attacks on the pro-Qing Restoration Society. Yuan Shikai soon responded by having Chen Qimei killed.

The Kuomintang established it's own government soon-after in the South in eventually Nanjing (formerly known as Nanjing), and the Beiyang Army of Yuan Shikai began to splinter has Yuan Shikai attempted to establish himself as Emperor of a new Great Chinese Empire, with the Beiyang Army being the military of his new dynasty. His loss of support led to the fragmenting of his government, with generals and leaders of the Beiyang Army splintering to form their own governments as warlords, while bandit leaders became warlords of other less-administered areas.

Unifying China
With the fragmentation of the Beiyang Army into warlord cliques, the Warlord Era had begun. Chiang Kai-shek became the leader of military operations of the Kuomintang's government in the South, under it's leader and his mentor Sun Yat-sen.

Sun Yat-sen's eventual death left Chiang sorrowed but empowered as the leader of the Kuomintang after defeating his rival Wang Jingwei, a man who wanted to steer the Kuomintang into becoming a left-wing socialist or communist force. This was foreshadowing the Chinese Civil War, in which Mao Zedong took the mantle to lead the leftists.

With new centralized power in his domains, Chaing began the Northern Expedition to reunite China and disperse of major warlords like those of the Fengtian Clique and Zhilli Clique. After massive campaigns and wars, the Kuomintang out of Nanjing successfully pushed on with it's National Revolutionary Army to topple warlord after warlord, while absorbing and reindoctrinating their forces. This led to the reunification of China and the end of the tumultuous chaos which left peasantry nationwide robbed, raped, or killed by feuding armies and bandits.



Second World War
Shortly after reunifying China, the Kuomintang wanted to begin it's temporary tutelage of the people. This was an ideal from Sun Yat-sen, meaning a fully functional republic serving the Three Principles would be instituted after a short-term of martial law where the government could reform, modernize, and establish itself under guidance from the Kuomintang.

This tutelage was undermined by the splitting of the Kuomintang into it's main and original center-right wing and the left-wing, Wang Jingwei' legacy, which wanted socialism and/or communism under the ideals of Karl Marx, perhaps in the fashion of the new Soviet Union. Chiang would begin liquidating the left-wing of the party, but he was forced through coercion to stop his plans on the Communists to fight off the Imperial Japanese Army. Japan had begun a huge and brutal incursion into China from it's concessions, raping and pillaging cities to assert control under pretenses of racial and ideological superiority.

The National Revolutionary Army thus deployed itself as the Republic of China Armed Forces to repel the Japanese, while the communists under Mao Zedong claimed to help but instead gained power hoping to watch a Kuomintang victory but a military weakening of them as a result.

Costly and massive campaigns ensued as Chiang became one of the major powerplayers of the Allies. He abandoned Soviet Union insight and aid due to ideological differences, and began to become closely allied with the United States of America. Through cooperation of Chinese and American forces the Empire of Japan saw a crippling military defeat. The Chinese under Chiang ran the Second Sino-Japanese War campaign of the Pacific Theater of the Second World War with the Allies, as a result.

Chinese Civil War
The victory over the Imperial Japanese Army was a momentous occasion, however, the forces of Chiang's government were weakened from the conflict and now had to engage a well-rested and recooperated fresh Red Army under Mao Zedong.

The Kuomintang forces began fighting the Communists throughout China, chasing them in what became known as the Long March. The Communists began to recruit heavily upon isolated and uneducated peasants wherever it went, engaging in guerrilla warfare and zig-zag maneuvers.

The United States of America provided financial and logistical aid but would not join the conflict despite heavy Soviet Union backing of the Communists as part of the Cold War. This strategy did not sufficiently aid the Kuomintang, and the tides of war began to turn.

Kuomintang forces became forced to retreat to the newly ceded lands of Taiwan, formerly Formosa, to build a stronghold to launch back into the mainland. This historical retreat brougth 2,000,000 Chinese to Taiwan, with Chiang Kai-shek famously saying one day he would return.



Tutelage in Taiwan
In Taiwan, formerly Formosa, Chiang faced the realities it would be decades before a full reclamation of the mainland could occur. Therefore, he began developing Taiwan industrially, infrastructurally, politically, and militarily. This became a showpiece of the tutelage period Sun Yat-sen had discussed.

Remaining a United States ally throughout the Cold War, the Republic of China retained legitimacy as the true representative of modern China for some time internationally, until appeasement led to the eventual proclamation of the mainland communist government, the People's Republic of China to become the forefront of diplomatic representation. However, the original government remains entrenched politically and diplomatically worldwide.



Death, Aftermath, & Legacy
Chiang Kai-shek eventually died retaining tutelage of Taiwanese-based China. The Kuomintang began ending the tutelage thereafter, under his son Chiang Ching-kuo. Today the Republic of China on Taiwan remains, with the Kuomintang rewinning power in elections.

Chiang Kai-shek was entombed but never buried, to reflect the fact the Kuomintang will eventually reclaim the Mainland and defeat the Communist usurpers.