Chapter 6 Chapter Six: Before and After Sun Yat-sen's Death

After the death of Sun Yat-sen, a struggle for the right of succession was launched within the Kuomintang.In the beginning, Chiang Kai-shek was not a real competitor. Power was contested among Wang Jingwei, Hu Hanmin, and Liao Zhongkai, because Sun Yat-sen believed that his fellow Cantonese were smarter and more revolutionary than people from other provinces, and he did not want a "dark horse" from other provinces to win the final victory . While Sun Yat-sen struggled with the treachery and deceit of his day, he continued to lead the way in displaying nobility of character and a simple trust in others, and others seemed in no hurry to emulate him, at the age of 58 and after the first KMT representative When the Congress came, he again focused his energies on the realization of the fundamental ideal.

Everyone knew that Sun's revolution meant overthrowing Qing rule, canceling unequal treaties, and safeguarding China's sovereignty and unity.But those ambitions are murky. A small number of communists who fully adhered to their ideology joined the Kuomintang. These communists knew what they wanted to do and were well instructed in the methods and measures to achieve their goals.But what is the Kuomintang itself going to do?What exactly does the Kuomintang itself stand for and insist on? Dr Sun's three principles - the Three Principles of the People - have been stated but not explained.He's currently trying to make up for that with a weekly speaking series that will last for several months.

Sun Yat-sen has been criticized as a hollow idealist, but this criticism is not entirely fair. Due to the characteristics of the Chinese language, the exact meaning of the three principles themselves appears to be ambiguous. The first principle, often interpreted as nationalism, literally means race in Chinese, but in a broader sense it emphasizes the unity and unity of the country; the second principle, often called democracy, has two Similar to the Chinese characters for the first principle: Minquan, meaning the rights of the people; as for the third principle, "people's livelihood", it is sometimes described as social welfare or socialism, and Dr. Sun himself has argued that it is no more important than communism The doctrine is inferior, but the literal meaning of the people's livelihood is undoubtedly closer to its original spirit.

Dr. Sun tried to absorb foreign political thoughts including Rousseau, Jefferson, Marx, etc., and adapt them to China's historical experience and actual conditions.Although Sun Yat-sen's fourteen speeches on the Three Tops are only occasionally homey and cannot be compared with the greatest writings of the intellect of political philosophers, they are still a good way to unite the common feelings of the Chinese people. Dr. Sun's most original combination of Chinese and Western systems was a new form of regime structure, a government with five powers, whose five branches were legislative, judicial, executive, examination and inspection.Although each department has its own elected committee (called "Yuan" in Chinese), the people mainly exercise their sovereignty through the use of the following four "powers": the right to vote, the right to recall, the right to create and the right to restore power of decision.A serious shortcoming is that Dr. Sun has not laid out any details on how people use the four powers mentioned above.

In the chaos and brutality of the time, Dr. Sun's political views had limited impact.In 1924, however, the main problem for Dr. Sun was not how to plan his hopeless utopia of the Three People's Principles, but how to effectively control and lead the revolution he had initiated. He outlined his revolutionary approach in the "Outline of National Rejuvenation" issued on April 12, 1924, which laid down the principles of using force to remove obstacles, solving social and economic problems peacefully, and avoiding class struggle and social unrest . Chiang called this outline the "Basic Charter of the National Revolution" and cited it after Sun Yat-sen's death as the basis for his massacre of communists.

Although there were marginal opportunities for cooperation with the warlords and their mercenaries, Sun pinned his hopes mainly on the Whampoa Military Academy.Chiang Kai-shek once refused to work in the military academy to show that he seemed indifferent to it, but once he started to take up this work, he poured great energy into it.Obviously, the position of principal of the Whampoa Military Academy is a step for him to gain power. At that time, Jiang's seniority and inherent political weakness prevented him from entering the higher KMT's political decision-making body. No matter whether people asked for his opinion or just adopted his suggestion, his proposition could not be regarded as an order. but as the man appointed to train the future national army, his influence gradually expanded, and he had at least begun to assemble an army that would serve the orders of a central authority that actually existed, rather than the might of a warlord and greed.

It is hard to say that Chiang was thinking about seizing personal supreme power in the short term at that time, because Sun Yat-sen is still alive and only 58 years old, which is relatively young. At the opening ceremony of the Military Academy on June 16, 1924, Dr. Sun articulated his goals in simple, yet compelling words: The foundations of our republic barely existed.The reason is very simple, because our revolution has always been carried out and sustained by the struggle of the revolutionary party instead of relying on the revolutionary army. Due to the lack of a revolutionary army, our revolution has always been manipulated by warlords and bureaucrats.If this state of affairs persists, our revolution will never succeed.

From now on, our revolution has begun a new period. This military academy is the foundation of the revolutionary army, and the revolutionary army is based on you students. Jiang got up at 5:00 a.m. every day. After cleaning the bedroom, he began to inspect and severely wake up those who were still sleeping with their heads covered.The first batch of 500 cadets was selected through a public examination among 3,000 applicants, and they were admitted on May 5, five or six weeks before the official start of the military academy. The military academy lacked funds and the quality of the teachers was uneven. Chiang’s Russian friend, General Galen, led this Soviet-style cadet team and adopted Borodin’s opinion that the army should be trained on the model of Trotsky’s Red Army. To be able to walk in formal drills, and to be familiar with the techniques of modern warfare - all of this has a political purpose.

The trainees must have been confused by the competing theories.The communists brought enthusiasm and a Soviet-style style of work to the students, while many people in the Kuomintang were busy propagating Dr. Sun's new ideas. On the KMT side, however, there are clear signs of ideological disunity. Liao Zhongkai, the political commissar of the military academy, represented the left wing, which was eager for full cooperation with the Russians and the Chinese Communists.KMT Propaganda Minister Wang Jingwei was a centrist figure who first formed the KMT and supported contacts with the Russians because Dr. Sun advocated doing so.Hu Hanmin, a conservative rightist, publicly opposed this.

Chiang Kai-shek's position was ambiguous and confused his colleagues. Before leaving for Moscow, he worked enthusiastically with the Bolsheviks.The fact that he changed his mind after returning from Russia is hardly known. Sun Yat-sen ignored Chiang's inspection report to Russia with contrary opinions, and Liao Zhongkai did not pay attention to his letter.At this time, he had not yet decided to speak out against the Communists, and he still worked closely with the Russians, especially General Galen.As such he is often seen as a member of the Left Front. Military academies are poorly funded.Because the revolutionary government itself was poor.

At that time, two warlord forces from Yunnan and Guangxi occupied Guangdong, and they were considered "friendly" because they had helped Sun defeat Chen Jiongming.In fact, Yang and Liu, the commanders of the two armies, had no particular interest in the revolution and only wanted to enrich their own pockets. Like great warlords and bandits elsewhere, they illegally imposed taxes and extorted money from wealthy local merchants.Sun's tax law and enforcement powers are limited.Yang and Liu were hostile to the Whampoa Military Academy, which was training officers who seemed to be making trouble for the warlords, so they continued to plunder for themselves. Sun still does not receive revenue from customs duties.The Beijing regime has the right to obtain the remaining customs revenue after paying the boxer indemnity, and this is recognized by the great powers of various countries with this interest. In the spring of 1923, Dr. Sun had requested that his government be allowed to receive the balance of Cantonese customs revenues, and the Great Powers rejected Sun's request. In November of the same year, Sun publicly declared that he would seize the balance of customs revenue by force.Under the instigation and instigation of the British, the great powers sent a powerful international joint naval fleet to Guangdong. Dr. Sun was filled with righteous indignation. He held a press conference and announced that if the great powers did not help him, he would turn to the Soviet Union for help. When the British Labor Party government came to power in January 1924, Sun's hopes rose and he sent a congratulatory message to Ramsay and Macdonald in the name of the Kuomintang, but Macdonald did not recognize the Kuomintang.At that time, the Kuomintang was holding its first congress. Soon, news of Lenin's death reached Guangdong, and the Kuomintang sent a telegram.Soon, Chicherin received a warm thank you call, but from a psychological point of view, this atmosphere is not likely to be more conducive to cooperation with Moscow. Businessmen in Guangzhou viewed Sun's "central government" with particular distaste, not only because Sun's power structure was still undecided, but more importantly because Sun's government was coalitioning with growing communists at home and abroad.The merchants threatened in May 1924: If we were taxed, we would strike. Weeks later, disturbing reports reached Sun: merchants were arming a 9,000-man private army against Sun's government, and a Norwegian ship carrying 9,000 rifles would soon enter the port of Canton.What if this new challenge interrupts Sun's speech plans?Most of his trusted officers were busy elsewhere, which led Sun to use Chiang Kai-shek instead. The crisis that ensued was somewhat comical.Without compromise, Chiang sent his heavily armed cadets aboard Norwegian ships to transfer the rifles to the academy. Merchants went on strike, and Chiang countered by declaring martial law. At this time, the chaotic events in Beijing attracted Sun's attention like a magnet, and he was about to launch the long-delayed Northern Expedition.But Sun lacked funds, while the businessmen had plenty of money. At this point, the treacherous Yang (the leader of the "friendly" Yunnan army) boasted that if the future rifles were returned to the merchants, he would be responsible for collecting a fine of one million yuan (Chinese silver dollars) from them. This was not the kind of advice that Chiang Kai-shek was interested in, and Chiang firmly offered the opposite opinion: Don't trust these businessmen. At this time, the British Consul General in Guangdong also intervened in this matter. It seems that if the merchants are angered, the British Royal Navy may bombard the Chinese army. Sun wrote to Chiang with anxiety on September 9th: "Guangdong is now a land of death, the British can use fleet gunfire to turn our headquarters into ashes, the warship 'Yongfeng' and the Whampoa Military Academy are under gunfire Nor are they immune to that," In Dongjiang, Chen Jiongming launched a new offensive, and the troops in Yunnan and Guangxi were also disobedient and greedy. Sun Yat-sen continued in his letter to Chiang: "We must abandon everything to seek a new way of existence. The best way is to carry out a punitive crusade to the north. We must follow our long and rough road to Combat. Using the battlefield as our training school will yield amazing results. Our party comrades should never hesitate." Fighting—even in the form of the Northern Expedition—was not Chiang's hobby.While Sun mobilized his headquarters and part of the army loyal to him to Huizhou and entrusted Hu Hanmin as the nominal military commander, Chiang stayed quietly in Huangpu to fight. Sun asked Chiang to go to Huizhou for reinforcements, and Chiang kept asking Sun why by telegram. On October 9, Sun called back to Chiang, ordering Chiang to leave Huangpu and come to Huizhou to participate in the operation. "Act now," Sun urged Chiang, "I will never return to rely on Canton again. Please make a quick decision and don't hesitate any longer." However, Jiang still stood his ground.Jiang replied: "I have made up my mind to defend this isolated island. Until sacrifice, now I am waiting for you to lead the army to return to rescue us as soon as possible." He offered to hand over the weapon to Xu Chongzhi for safekeeping. Meanwhile, merchants have been haggling over prices, with some success. Under Yang's persuasion, Sun agreed to reduce the fine by half, and later reduced it to 200,000 yuan. After accurately assessing the situation, they persuaded Hu Hanmin to accept 200,000 yuan, but it was not a fine but a loan. Sun then agreed and ordered Chiang to hand over the weapons to the merchants, and Chiang carried out Sun's order with pain and anxiety. Sun's telegram, Jiang's reply, Sun's order, and Jiang's execution all happened on October 9th.The next day, Double Ten, the day of the 1911 Revolution, merchant militias turned their brand new rifles on loyalist troops and shot several, until Sun concluded that Chiang was right. On Oct 13th, Sun appointed Chiang as the head of the training department of the Guangdong Army Command.Reinforcements from Huizhou arrived, and Jiang led the troops into battle. After two days of street fighting, the armed riots of the merchant groups were quelled. On October 17, the strike was stopped and order was restored. What about the Northern Expedition?It can be said that even the most ardent advocates are discouraged, and the saying goes: "There is no such thing as a sun."In China in 1924, however, there were two regimes, each emphasizing its own legitimacy and legitimacy, but it was not the Canton regime that gained international recognition.In fact, neither regime could impose any authority beyond ceremonial forms over the lawless warlords, overseers or military chiefs who continually plundered the country's wealth and lived by force. At that time, the situation in northern China was as chaotic as in the south.Three main figures dominate the power struggle in the north, they are Wu Peifu, Zhang Zuolin and Feng Yuxiang. Wu controlled Beijing and the provinces surrounding it.Zhang was a warlord in the Northeast, and his title was "Commander-in-Chief of the Northeast Provinces".Feng was Wu's subordinate at that time and had become the Northwest Warlord. The difference between them is very obvious.Wu was a learned general, a true officer, with a scar carved into his long face and a small beard.Zhang, with a protruding beard on his grim, fat face, was a bandit in the Russo-Japanese War and employed by the Japanese; later, as an officer in the Chinese regular army, he rose to the rank of military commander in a northeastern province. The most vivid image is Feng.With a broad heart and a fat body, a broad face and a burly figure, he was known as the "Christ General", and later many people gave him a better name: "The Rebel General".He had his troops baptized with a hose to show his Christianity.As the influential head of the provinces surrounding Beijing, Wu had installed the throne of the President of the Republic on October 5, 1923 through the National Assembly vote.At that time, only 33 of the 513 MPs voted for Sun Yat-sen, and each of the 480 MPs who voted for Wu received 5,000 yuan in bribes. Wu tried to convince Dr. Sun that Feng followed Wu's lead.Zhang in the Northeast is mainly worried about the Middle East Railway that runs across his territory. The Russians are trying their best to play the KMT card, but the Russians are not falling out with Beijing. On May 31, 1924, the two parties reached an agreement that the Eastern Railway would be jointly managed by both parties.When Zhang objected, the Russians told him they would use force if necessary.In this way, Zhang signed the last separate agreement with them on September 20. The ever-optimistic Dr. Sun Yat-sen had announced the start of the Northern Expedition in Guangzhou two days earlier, but his efforts had been thwarted by a merchant rebellion in Canton.The North was still fighting at this time, and Wu Peifu and Feng Yuxiang formed an alliance against Zhang Zuolin. In mid-October, Feng Wangxiang suddenly betrayed Wu Peifu, and he ordered his troops to turn around and march towards Beijing. On October 25th, Feng Wangxiang's troops occupied Beijing, and Wu Peifu was driven out of Beijing.With Feng Yuxiang's help, Zhang Zuolin won several more titles.In addition, Feng Yuxiang also put one of his own puppet on the throne of the president. Why did Feng Yuxiang betray Wu Peifu?James E. Sheridan provides us with an answer to this question by recreating Feng Yuxiang's life in the manner of a historian, who argues that Feng Yuxiang was neither satisfied with what he was paid nor that he was in an alliance with Wu Peifu secondary role played.Sheridan believes that, in addition to this, there are other factors. The Japanese also used money to induce Feng Yuxiang to betray Wu Peifu, because the political changes in Beijing were in their interests. Because of these changes in the north, Sun Yat-sen felt that now he had another chance to realize his ideal of a nationalist democratic republic.At this time, Feng Yuxiang, who had just betrayed Wu Peifu, sent an invitation to Sun Yat-sen to go to Beijing.Should Dr. Sun accept the invitation?When Sun Yat-sen received the invitation, the situation he faced was not optimistic. His views were already widely known, and the northern warlords did not accept them at all. The most unacceptable thing for these warlords is that they should step down and accept the leadership of the constitutional government.In addition, the pro-Japanese forces in the north are very strong.Therefore, waiting for Sun Yat-sen has both quarrels and dangers. So Dr. Sun called his followers to a meeting in Guangzhou to hear their opinions.These people wanted to persuade Sun Yat-sen not to go north, but he still decided to go to Beijing in order to fulfill his lofty mission. On November 12, 1924, Sun Yat-sen set off for Beijing. On November 13, Sun Yat-sen's ship passed by Huangpu, and he spent the night at the Huangpu Military Academy that night.He said to Chiang Kai-shek: "I am going to Beijing. It is hard to say whether I can come back alive. Anyway, I am going there to fight. Seeing the spirit of the Whampoa Military Academy, I feel that it can complete my revolution. Task. In this way, even if I die, I can rest in peace. " Before Sun Yat-sen left for the north, Borodin invited him to visit Moscow. Sun Yat-sen asked Chiang Kai-shek for his opinion on this matter. Chiang Kai-shek did not think highly of this matter. He believed that cooperation with the Russians was a necessary step for China to strive for freedom and independence, but the Communist Party always seized some things and made a big fuss .If Sun Yat-sen were to visit Moscow, the Russians would certainly spread some harmful rumors about it.Sun Yat-sen listened quietly without comment. Sun Yat-sen's health deteriorated sharply on the way north, and he was finally bedridden in Tianjin, but he struggled to get out of the bed again on New Year's Eve.He encountered another setback after arriving in Beijing. The pro-Japanese faction did not refuse to sign the unequal treaties at all, as Sun Yat-sen had hoped, and they had exchanged diplomatic recognition of those treaties with the big powers. Sun Yat-sen died in Beijing on March 12, 1925, due to heartbreak and despair, as cancer cells had spread to his vital organs.His death not only saved him from a greater and more poignant disappointment, but also enabled him to be posthumously recognized as the founding father of the Republic of China, a title recognized by both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. After the death of Sun Yat-sen, a struggle for the right of succession was launched within the Kuomintang.In the beginning, Chiang Kai-shek was not a real competitor. On the one hand, people thought he was too young, he was not yet 40 years old; on the other hand, he was a soldier - not a party man (although he was a party member). Wang Jingwei, Hu Hanmin, and Liao Zhongkai were the real contenders—Sun Yat-sen gave almost the same trust to all three of them. In addition, the three of them had another advantage. They were all Cantonese. One is what Chiang Kai-shek lacks.Dr. Sun was known to be partial to his Cantonese comrades. He, like most Cantonese, believed that his countrymen were smarter and more revolutionary than people from other provinces. Those unfortunate people from other provinces could not help but talk behind Sun Yat-sen's back. He can't get rid of the "folk concept". Wang Jingwei later became notorious in Chinese history because he cooperated with the Japanese during the Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945. He served as the chairman of the puppet government under the Japanese. "Puppet" and the like. But in the 1920s, Wang Jingwei was recognized as a dedicated revolutionary. He was imprisoned for trying to assassinate the Qing regent in 1910. He was freed after the revolution. There is some sort of divine aura shrouded in it.Among the three competitors, he was the only one who accompanied Dr. Sun to the north.When Sun Yat-sen was dying, Wang Jingwei was responsible for drafting his political will, which was transcribed on February 20, 1925 after Sun Yat-sen revised it.Because Wang Jingwei later betrayed the motherland, some Kuomintang members tried to question this will, but this will only expressed Sun Yat-sen's wish that his followers would continue his unfinished business, and it did not mention who Sun Yat-sen was. Heir, the suspicion that Wang Jingwei forged this document is unfounded. In China, older people are more respected than younger people.One disadvantage of Wang Jingwei is that he is the youngest of the three contenders.He has always strongly supported cooperation with the Russians in public.As a result, he was considered a leftist, but he never made it clear that he had any particular principles. Liao Zhongkai, on the more dedicated left, was suspected by the right-wing Nationalists of being a secret Communist Party member (although they did not have any hard evidence) who had been sent by Sun Yat-sen to Japan to meet with Soviet representative Yue Fei Month-long talks were held on the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Soviet Union. The third contender, Hu Hanmin, is a conservative.He had deep misgivings about the Russians.Hu Hanmin had a glorious revolutionary history, as he had been assisting Sun Yat-sen in his revolutionary work in the past, and he edited and published a newspaper in Hong Kong for which he became famous throughout the country.Hu Hanmin was a scholar who once served as Sun Yat-sen's secretary—— Wang Jingwei also occasionally did this job.Hu Hanmin had a major advantage over the other two contenders in that Sun Yat-sen had appointed him acting generalissimo before he left for Beijing. That was the competitive situation at the time.But Chiang Kai-shek, the dark horse, won the final victory. There were also two bloody incidents in China at the time, which further fueled xenophobia among the Chinese.The KMT always benefits when foreigners offend the Chinese.This time the Russians also became beneficiaries, because this time they did not join forces with the imperialist powers. The British call these two incidents "incidents", while the Chinese call them "infiltration cases", which involves the question of who is the victim. The first was the "May 30th Incident" (or the "May 30th Massacre" as it is called by Chinese historians). British military officers commanded foreign patrols to shoot at the demonstrators in Shanghai, killing many people on the spot.After learning the news, Borodin said: "We did not create the May 30th tragedy, it was a gift from others." The second is the "Shakey tragedy" (or "Shakey incident"). On June 23, a French gunboat that was about to berth next to the British Concession in Guangzhou opened fire on the crowd who were demonstrating against the "May 30th Massacre", and the British fired with machine guns, causing many casualties.And about 10 days earlier, on June 12, Chiang Kai-shek had just recaptured Guangzhou from the Yunnan and Guangxi warlords, thwarting their plans to take advantage of Sun Yat-sen's death to seize power. An atmosphere of hatred and fear of foreigners was evident in Guangzhou at the time, mingled with some triumphant joy, as the Kuomintang was about to reorganize and its control expanded.The Grand Marshal's Mansion of the Kuomintang was also renamed "Tongmin Government", which sounds more formal.All troops loyal to the Kuomintang are now also called the "National Revolutionary Army". On July 1, 1925, the Kuomintang elected a sixteen-member national government and an eight-member military committee.Wang Jingwei became the chairman of both committees.In the eyes of most people, Wang Jingwei was clearly promoted to the position of Sun Yat-sen's heir at this time. At the first meeting of the Military Council, Chiang Kai-shek presented his revised plan for the Northern Expedition, which called for the division of the National Revolutionary Army into seven armies and the establishment of arsenals and heavy industry.According to this plan, about half of the Guangdong government's annual financial revenue of 40 million silver dollars will be used for the military budget. Although Wang Jingwei leaned to the left, he was also accepted by the right of the Kuomintang. It is precisely because he is acceptable to both the left and the right that he overwhelmed Hu Hanmin and Liao Zhongkai in the competition to win the chairmanship. Although he was younger than both of them, Hu Hanmin was hated by the left, while Liao Zhongkai was not trusted by the rightists.However, both men were also elected members of the National Government and members of the Military Council.Chiang Kai-shek was also elected as a member of the Military Council. After the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, murder and betrayal became commonplace in China. On August 25, 1925, Liao Zhongkai was assassinated. There is no doubt that the assassination was planned by rightists.Hu Yisheng, Hu Hanmin's cousin, was also one of the planners of the assassination, which made Hu Hanmin very embarrassed. Borodin believed that Hu Hanmin was also involved in this matter, and since Hu Yisheng had already fled, Borodin demanded that Hu Hanmin be punished, but neither Chiang Kai-shek nor Wang Jingwei believed the charge.Chiang Kai-shek also hid Hu Hanmin in his home.Soon after, Hu Hanmin was deliberately sent to the Soviet Union to carry out a special mission, which was to some extent regarded as a strange punishment for him.Since this incident seriously weakened the position of the rightists of the Kuomintang within the party, a group of rightists left Guangzhou and went to Shanghai or the north to start anew. This incident put Wang Jingwei in the lead in the party competition, with Chiang Kai-shek close behind.But the situation is not that simple.Military Minister Xu Chongzhi was Chiang Kai-shek's superior at the time. Although he was not an active competitor, his presence was still an obstacle to Chiang Kai-shek's possible political ambitions. After Liao Zhongkai was assassinated, the Kuomintang set up a Xu, Wang, and Jiang are the "big three" of this special committee. What follows is further intrigue.It was later discovered that Xu Chongzhi maintained secret contacts with the defeated Hakka general Chen Jiongming, and that his officers were also implicated in the case of Liao Zhongkai. On September 20th, Chiang Kai-shek led his Whampoa military academy cadets to suddenly disarm Xu Chongzhi's troops, which were later incorporated into Chiang Kai-shek's First Army. The next day, Xu Chongzhi was relieved of his post as Minister of Military Affairs and deprived of command of the Guangdong Army.He was also deported from Guangzhou to Shanghai.Now, only Jiang and Wang are left to compete for the top leadership of the Kuomintang. Chen Jiongming, who was defeated but not yet finished, is still like a thorn in the back of the KMT.He had been causing trouble since the beginning of 1925, and now he was back on a massive offensive.The Kuomintang felt the need to remove Chen Jiongming's thorn once and for all. Under the command of Chiang Kai-shek, the five armies of the National Revolutionary Army began their eastward march on October 6, 1925.A month later, Chiang Kai-shek sent a telegram of victory to Guangzhou: "Today, we have arrived in Huizhou after driving 600 miles. Ordinary people flocked from all directions to see our army's demeanor and give our army food and drinks." Huizhou is the headquarters of Chen Jiongming's rebel army. After the capture, Chen Jiongming fled to Hong Kong for asylum. Since then, he has lived in obscurity. In a letter from Chiang Kai-shek to Zhou Enlai, who was then the party representative of the First Division of the First Army, Chiang complained that the party work in the divisions was not doing a good job; Example is a squad leader stuffing a smelly sock into a soldier's mouth)."We are in a revolution," he wrote, "and all those slogans about reform and social progress will be nothing more than empty words if we don't start improving the lives of our soldiers." The prime minister's reply did not survive. Chiang Kai-shek, who had won on the battlefield, now faced an unexpected political challenge.To dramatic effect, disaffected KMT rightists held a meeting in front of Sun Yat-sen's coffin at Biyun Temple in Xishan, outside Beijing.There are only ten of them in total, but this does not prevent them from issuing a very loud resolution.This resolution called for the removal of all Communist Party members from the Kuomintang, the expulsion of Russian advisers such as Borodin, the comprehensive reorganization of the Kuomintang, and the relocation of the Kuomintang headquarters from Guangzhou to Shanghai. Chiang Kai-shek, who was in Huizhou at the time, heard the news of the Xishan Conference, Angrily condemned the participants of the Xishan Conference, which made him still maintain the image of a leftist leader of the Kuomintang. At this time, another rightist organization called "Sun Wen Society" also began to actively carry out anti-communist activities in Guangzhou. Despite these separatist activities, Chiang Kai-shek at this time felt that he could actively plan the Northern Expedition, at least militarily. Datang Chinese School Scanner