In May 1926, the First Division of the Seventh Army of the National Revolutionary Army and the Ye Ting Independent Regiment of the Fourth Army marched into Hunan as the vanguard troops; on July 9, the Nationalist government swore an oath to the Northern Expedition in Guangzhou, opening the prelude to the Northern Expedition. The direct target of the Northern Expedition was the Beiyang warlords, and the main targets were the direct warlord Wu Peifu, the warlord Sun Chuanfang, who had split off from the direct lineage, and the Warlord Zhang Zuolin, who was directly subordinate.
Wu Peifu stills (from the internet)
Wu Peifu controlled the Baoding area of Hubei, Hunan, Henan, and Hebei, with a force of 200,000 troops; Sun Chuanfang occupied the five provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Anhui, and Jiangxi, with a strength of more than 200,000 troops; Zhang Zuolin occupied the northeastern provinces, Tianjin, Beijing, and the northern section of Jinpu Road, controlling the two major railways of Beijing-Fengfeng and Jinpu, with a total strength of about 350,000 troops.
Wu Peifu (from the network)
The Northern Expedition had to face three factions of warlords, with a total strength of more than 700,000 troops. At that time, the Guangdong National Government only had 8 corps of the National Revolutionary Army, with a total of about 100,000 people, so from the perspective of the comparison of troop strength, the Northern Expeditionary Army was at a disadvantage. However, the morale of the National Revolutionary Army was high, and the warlords of various factions were full of contradictions with each other, which was the only advantage of the Northern Expeditionary Army.
In view of the situation between the enemy and ourselves, with the help of Soviet military advisers headed by Galen, the Northern Expeditionary Army formulated a strategic policy of concentrating its forces and annihilating the enemy in various ways, that is, to first march to Hunan and Hubei, quickly eliminate Wu Peifu, then eliminate Sun Chuanfang, and finally eliminate Zhang Zuolin and unify all of China. Subsequent practice proved that this strategic approach was correct.
Sun Chuanfang (from the network)
After the Northern Expedition began, the Battlefield of the Two Lakes was the main direction of attack of the Northern Yi Army. The Northern Expeditionary Army successively attacked ancient Zhuzhou, Liling, Xiangtan, Changsha and other places. In August, he took advantage of the victory to go north and enter Hubei to conquer the Tingsi Bridge and Hesheng Bridge, which were heavily fortified by the enemy. In early September, hankou and Hanyang were captured. On October 10, Wuchang was captured. At this point, the main force of Wu Peifu's department was annihilated, and the Northern Expeditionary Army achieved a major victory in the battlefield of the two lakes.
Stills from the Northern Expedition (from the internet)
After that, the Northern Expeditionary Army concentrated its forces on the Battlefield of Jiangxi to attack Sun Chuanfang. In early November, Jiujiang and Nanchang were successively occupied. Under the influence of the victory of the Northern Expedition, Sun Chuanfang's troops in Fujian defected one after another, and in December, the Northern Expeditionary Army entered and occupied Fuzhou. In early 1927, the Northern Expeditionary Army continued to march to the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. In March, Lianke Anqing, Wuhu, Nanjing, and Hangzhou pressed into Shanghai, and Sun Chuanfang's reactionary forces were basically eliminated.
Under the situation of the victorious development of the revolution, the local warlords of Guizhou, Sichuan, Shanxi and other places that were originally dependent on the Beiyang warlords also successively declared their submission to the Guangdong National Government.
Stills of the Northern ExpeditionAry Army (from the Internet)
Less than 10 months after the Northern Expeditionary Army was dispatched, it eliminated the main forces of the warlords Wu Peifu and Sun Chuanfang, and the revolutionary forces developed from the Pearl River Basin to the Yangtze River Basin, successively occupying Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and other provinces, seriously dealing a blow to the rule of the Beiyang warlords, and the imperialist forces in China were also severely hit.
Zhang Xueliang (from the network)
The victory in the Northern Expedition can definitely be regarded as a classic example of a victory of less and a lot, and it is also the greatest achievement of the first Kuomintang-Communist cooperation. Under the influence of the Northern Expedition, on December 29, 1928, the patriotic general Zhang Xueliang changed his banner in the northeast and accepted the leadership of the Nationalist government, which laid the foundation for national unification, which created solid conditions for the later gathering of forces throughout the country to carry out the War of Resistance Against Japan, and had a profound impact on China's modern history.