ABSTRACT
In 1928 the Nationalist armies entered Peking. Chang Tsolin, the last warlord, retreated to Manchuria, where he was blown up in his train by the Japanese, who had no further use for him. The Japanese had also attempted to stop the Nationalist advance at Tsinanfu, in Shantung, but though their intervention there, wholly unjustified and pre-figuring future events, did prevent the eastern army from advancing, the western force, moving up the Peking-Hankow railway, took Peking almost unopposed. Many parts of South-West China through which they marched were more defensible, richer and less accessible to the pressure of the Nationalist Government. Chiang Kai-shek never really controlled China; he could not prevent Japanese infiltration, he could not crush the Communists, he could not discipline the Kuangsi generals nor keep Canton loyal; he juggled with the factions of the Kuomintang, but only ruled by playing one off against the other.
