the Kuomintang. He set himself as his first task
to gain military control over China. But, though
his success had been astonishing, he had not
broken the power of all the warlords and by the
close of the 1920s controlled less than half of
China. In 1930 he quelled a rising in the north
in large-scale battles. Thereafter the remaining
warlords and Chiang Kai-shek’s government
agreed to tolerate each other. China was more
unified, but a new military struggle was opening
up between the Kuomintang and the commu-
nists. Simultaneously Japan took advantage of
China’s weakness to seize Manchuria in 1931. In
the end Chiang Kai-shek, faced with the Japanese
war and simultaneous civil conflict with the com-
munists, failed to create the national unity of
China which was Sun Yat-sen’s testament to his
followers.
1
CHINA IN DISINTEGRATION, 1900–29 79
