122 China in World History
or suspected Communists in all the cities under their control. Thou-
sands were killed without trials or hearings.
The Russian advisors to the Nationalist Party fl ed as quickly as they
could, but Joseph Stalin, with little understanding of the real situation
in China, urged the Chinese Communist Party to cooperate with “pro-
gressive” elements in the Nationalist Party and to resist Chiang Kai-
shek with armed opposition. This was disastrous advice, as Chiang had
most military commanders under his control. The end result was the
death of perhaps 20,000 of the most loyal and committed Communists
and non-Communist labor organizers in the spring of 1927.
The northern warlords Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang now threw
their support to the anti-Communist Chiang Kai-shek. In June, the
Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin was killed when his railroad car
was blown up by Japanese troops. Zhang’s son, Zhang Xueliang, inher-
ited his father’s troops and immediately declared his allegiance to a new
government headed by the Nationalist Party. Thus, after thirteen years
of warlord domination of China, civil war, and near anarchy, the coun-
try was at least nominally unifi ed under its new president, Chiang Kai-
shek. Chiang established his capital at Nanjing, since his real power base
was in the Yangzi valley of central China, renaming Beijing (Northern
Capital) Beiping (Northern Peace).
The northern warlords now donned Nationalist uniforms and
declared themselves loyal to the Republic of China under Chiang Kai-
shek. For the next decade, known in history books as “the Nanjing
decade,” Chiang attempted to promote rapid industrialization and the
development of a modern government and a strong nation that would
participate in the international community as an equal rather than as a
semicolony of foreign powers. Chiang was a very strict disciplinarian
and demanded (and usually received) the utmost loyalty from his troops.
He was attracted to the doctrines of fascism, which were developing in
Europe in the 1930s, and he came to rely heavily on German advisors in
training his army and organizing his government in Nanjing. Although
never able to suppress his political rivals completely, he was a master
manipulator of factions within the Nationalist Party and an effective
speaker, despite a high, squeaky voice and heavy Zhejiang accent, in
rallying his followers against the “evils” of communism.
An additional factor in Chiang’s rise to power was his much-publicized
marriage in December 1927 to Soong Meiling, the daughter of one of China’s
wealthiest families and the sister of Sun Yat-sen’s widow, Soong Qingling.
Soong Meiling had been educated in the United States and would become
an extremely effective ambassador for her husband and his government to