g Kai-shek
already played a prominent part. The People's Party, under Chiang
Kai-shek and with the support of the communists, began the great
campaign against the north. At first it had good success: the various
provincial governors and generals and the Peking government were played
off against each other, and in a short time one leader after another was
defeated. The Yangtze was reached, and in 1926 the southern government
moved to Hankow. All over the southern provinces there now came a
genuine rising of the masses of the people, mainly the result of
communist propaganda and of the government's promise to give land to the
peasants, to set limits to the big estates, and to bring order into the
taxation. In spite of its communist element, at the beginning of 1927
the southern government was essentially one of the middle class and the
peasantry, with a socialistic tendency.

3 _Second period of the Republic: Nationalist China_

With the continued success of the northern campaign, and with Chiang
Kai-shek's southern army at the gates of Shanghai (March 21st, 1927), a
decision had to be taken. Should the left wing be allowed to gain the
upper hand, and the great capitalists of Shanghai be expropriated as it
was proposed to expropriate the gentry? Or should the right wing
prevail, an alliance be concluded with the capitalists, and limits be
set to the expropriation of landed estates? Chiang Kai-shek, through his
marriage with Sun Yat-sen's wife's sister, had become allied with one of
the greatest banking families. In the days of the siege of Shanghai
Chiang, together with his closest colleagues (with the exception of Hu
Han-min and Wang Chying-wei, a leader who will be mentioned later),
decided on the second alternative. Shanghai came into his hands without
a struggle, and the capital of the Shanghai financiers, and soon foreign
capital as well, was placed at his disposal, so that he was able to pay
his troops and finance his administration. At the same time the Russian
advisers were dismissed or executed.

The decision arrived at by Chiang Kai-shek and his friends did not
remain unopposed, and he parted from the "left group" (1927) which
formed a rival government in Hankow, while Chiang Kai-shek made Nanking
the seat of his government (April 1927). In that year Chiang not only
concluded peace with the financiers and industrialists, but also a sort
of "armistice" with the landowning gentry. "Land reform" still stood on