who led the nationalists in the chinese civil war
Nationalist government The following year, Chiang Kai-shek became the de facto leader of the Kuomintang (KMT). Chiang led the Northern Expedition through China with the intention of defeating the warlords and unifying the country. Chiang received the help of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party; however, he soon dismissed his Soviet advisors. He was convinced, not without reason, that they wanted to get rid of the KMT (also known as the Chinese Nationalist Party) and take over.[2] Chiang decided to strike first and purged the Communists, killing thousands of them. At the same time, other violent conflicts took place in the south of China where the Communist Party fielded superior numbers and were massacring Nationalist supporters. These events eventually led to the Chinese Civil War between the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party. Chiang Kai-shek pushed the Communist Party into the interior as he sought to destroy them, and moved the Nationalist Government to Nanjing in 1927.[3] Leftists within the KMT still allied to the communists, lead by Wang Jingwei, had established a rival Nationalist Government in Wuhan two months earlier, but soon joined Chiang in Nanjing in August 1927. By the following year, Chiang's army had captured Beijing after overthrowing the Beiyang government and unified the entire nation, at least nominally, marking the beginning the Nanjing Decade.