Chapter 24 Marching into Shanghai and Nanjing, Chiang Kai-shek's hesitation

In November 1926, in a late autumn when the maple leaves were falling, Chiang Kai-shek was still pacing back and forth in the office of the General Headquarters of the Northern Expedition Army in Nanchang.At this moment, his mood was anxious and tangled.The closer the army of the Northern Expedition approached Shanghai and Nanjing, the more uneasy he felt. In the military, Chiang Kai-shek played smoothly.Since the Northern Expedition in Guangzhou in July 1926, the army has advanced triumphantly all the way. The revolutionary melody of "overthrowing the great powers and eradicating the warlords" resounded across the land of China. The vigorous wave of national revolution quickly swept across the country. The armed forces of the warlord Wu Peifu.Subsequently, the Central Committee of the Kuomintang and the National Government also moved from Guangzhou to Wuhan.Immediately afterwards, in November, Chiang Kai-shek, commander-in-chief of the Northern Expedition Army, led his troops into Jiangxi from the Lianghu area, defeated another warlord, Sun Chuanfang, and even conquered Jiujiang and Nanchang, and directed his troops directly to Beijing and Shanghai.

However, politically, the situation was very unfavorable to Chiang Kai-shek.His main political opponent, Wang Jingwei, went to Wuhan.Since the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925, Wang Jingwei has regarded himself as the heir to the prime minister, with strong political power in the party, coupled with the support of the Soviet Union's politics, military and money, he has become the main leader of the Kuomintang.Wang Jingwei established an alliance with Tang Shengzhi, a local powerful faction in Wuhan, and together with Bo Luoting, a Soviet adviser who was deeply hostile to Chiang Kai-shek, Wuhan had become the core of the anti-Chiang within the Kuomintang.At this time, most of the Kuomintang Central Committee members had arrived in Wuhan, and political power had been dominated by Wang Jingwei.Wang Jingwei repeatedly urged Chiang Kai-shek to come to Wuhan quickly, and Chiang Kai-shek fell into a deep predicament.If you go to Wuhan, you are likely to be ostracized. If you don't go, you will be in danger of cutting yourself off from the party-state.What's more, his Northern Expedition army consumed a lot of food and pay every day, and the financial power was not in his hands.No matter how smooth the battle on the battlefield, if Wuhan cut off his financial resources, his Northern Expedition army would immediately lose its combat effectiveness.

Chiang Kai-shek's ideal is to unify the country through the Northern Expedition, and then become China's Caesar.The worst thing is that he had to rely on the Soviet Union's money to realize his ideals, and it was Stalin's eyes and right-hand man in China - Borodin - who stuck his financial lifeline. After the "Zhongshan Ship Incident", although he weakened the Communist Party's power in Guangzhou to a certain extent, he had to temporarily endure it for the sake of Soviet weapons and money, and for his great cause of unifying China. When the May 4th Movement broke out, Chiang Kai-shek was strongly shocked. He wrote in his diary: "This is the first demonstration movement of the Chinese people. One day." On June 23, 1925, when the Guangzhou masses supported the Hong Kong workers' general strike and held a demonstration march past Shaji near the British Concession, the British army brutally massacred more than 50 demonstrators and injured more than 170 people, leading to " The Shakey Tragedy".Hearing the news, Chiang Kai-shek wrote in his diary: "The power of the country is so far. Don't take the lives of the Chinese as a matter of concern. Let them be slaughtered by the British imperialism. Hearing this, he is broken-hearted. He doesn't know how to behave! Since his birth, his grief has never been as great as it is today. The angry Chiang Kai-shek wrote in his diary every day an "angry youth" slogan against Yingde, as many as more than a hundred: "All the British captives can be killed! The hatred of the British is tolerable! If the British and the barbarians are not destroyed, it is not a man! You forget Enmity against the British captives? If the British are not destroyed, the revolution will not be accomplished!..." [1] Chiang Kai-shek is not only anti-British, but also wary of the United States, France and other countries, "The British can be destroyed, but the United States and France cannot be ignored ". In 1926, he severely criticized the foreign policy of the United States, "striking at the errors of American foreign policy and the hypocrisy of Christianity".

Chiang Kai-shek was not only full of anger towards the big powers, but also hated the foreign comprador class, hating them for helping foreigners control the lifeline of China's economy. "The abhorrentness of foreign slaves does not stop there. All foreign slaves in the foreign concessions, government offices, and foreign companies can be killed." The strange thing about history is that who would have thought that Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of China's largest bureaucratic comprador class, actually hated the forces he relied on in his bones!It is absurd but logical that, as a politician who puts personal power first, ideals are subordinate to reality, he is very conscious of who can bring him power.When the Soviet Union could use it, he used the money and weapons of the Soviet Union to achieve the Northern Expedition and unification, and to consolidate and strengthen his power.When the Soviet Union tried to control and order him, he didn't hesitate to kick it away.In the days to come, it was the same for the big powers he hated, such as Britain, the United States, Japan, etc.; it was the same for the foreign compradors he hated.He positions himself as the embodiment of revolution and the ultimate interpreter of truth. To oppose him is to oppose revolution and truth!No matter who it is, as long as it blocks his path to power, "anyone can be killed"!

In Chiang Kai-shek's view, all the heroes in the world are rats.Zhang Zuolin, a warlord of the Feng family, has no ideals and beliefs. He is backed by Japan and sits in the northeast. Although the land is vast, as long as it is destroyed one by one, how difficult is it to destroy it?It was the Communist Party that gave him the most headache. Chiang Kai-shek had visited the Soviet Union and witnessed a party with a doctrine and belief system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, well-organized and deeply rooted in the military.The Soviet Red Army had unified orders and actions, and its combat effectiveness was very different from that of the Chinese warlords.Inspired by Chiang Kai-shek, he vigorously promoted "one doctrine, one political party" when he returned to China. "China wants revolution, and it also requires the concentration of all forces. Learn from the method of the Russian revolution. The revolution cannot be achieved without a one-party dictatorship and autocracy." .

Because of this, Chiang Kai-shek regarded Sun Yat-sen's major policy of "union with Russia, the Communist Party, and support for farmers and workers" as an expedient measure in order to obtain assistance from the Soviet Union and increase the strength of the Kuomintang.Therefore, I am very disgusted with the "party within the party" situation where the Communist Party joins the Kuomintang.In particular, the Communist Party's ability to mobilize and organize the masses is far stronger than that of the Kuomintang, and it has even fought fiercely with the leftists in the Kuomintang, which greatly increased the difficulty for Chiang Kai-shek to centralize power in the Kuomintang.During the "National Congress" of the Kuomintang, a large number of Communist Party members held important positions in the National Government.

On the issue of the Northern Expedition, Chiang Kai-shek insisted on speeding up, but Borodin seemed to have seen through his personal plot and suggested slowing down, first consolidating the revolutionary regime in Guangdong and mobilizing the masses until the time came.Chiang Kai-shek knew very well that the day when Borodin's "time was ripe" was when he was driven out.So he must seize the opportunity to make himself bigger and stronger.Under his efforts, Borodin finally made a concession, and Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition began. Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition progressed rapidly, thanks in large part to the continuous supply of arms and financial support from the Soviet Union.So, why did the Soviet Union support the Kuomintang?This needs to start from the international environment of the Soviet Union at that time.