HeyJaredThe Chinese Revolution
A detailed look at modern Chinese history and the Chinese Revolution. It is for those that believe that understanding Chinese history is important.
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- Oct 1, 2026
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Why the KMT Retreated to Taiwan (opens the original)
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In January 1949, Chiang Kai-shek stepped down as President of the Republic of China.He did not resign. He did not surrender. He did not concede that the war was lost. He announced that he was temporarily retiring from the presidency to allow peace negotiations to proceed. As if his personal absence might somehow unlock a diplomatic solution that his presence had made impossible. Li Zongren, his vice president and a man who had spent years in uneasy rivalry with him, became acting president and b
The Pingjin Campaign (opens the original)
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On the morning of January 31, 1949, the last Nationalist troops marched out of Beijing through the city’s ancient gates. There was no battle. There was no bombardment. The Temple of Heaven was undamaged. The Forbidden City was undamaged. The hutong alleyways, the old courtyard houses, the lakes and pavilions and walls that had accumulated over seven centuries of imperial capital were all intact.The People’s Liberation Army entered the city in an orderly column, marching past citizens who lined t
The Largest Battle of the Chinese Civil War (opens the original)
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The Huaihai Campaign is not well known outside China. It probably should be.Fought between November 1948 and January 1949 across the plains of central China, it involved more than a million soldiers on each side at its peak. It destroyed approximately 550,000 Nationalist troops killed, captured, or defected in sixty-five days. It was, by many measures, the largest land battle of the twentieth century.In the West, people know about the beaches of Normandy and the hedgerows of France. They know ab
The Election Chiang Didn't Win (opens the original)
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The last episode took us deep into fighting in Manchuria. Armies destroyed. A city under siege. Soldiers dead, wounded and dispirited. This episode, we step back from the battlefield. We’re going to look at what was happening inside the Nationalist government itself, from the spring of 1948 through January 1949. Because while Chiang Kai-shek’s armies were collapsing in the field, something else was happening in Nanjing. People inside his own party were asking a hard question. Could the KMT survi
The Liaoshen Campaign (opens the original)
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In the autumn of 1948, roughly 550,000 Nationalist troops were stationed in Manchuria. They held the cities Shenyang, Changchun and Jinzhou. They had American weapons and American-trained officers. They were some of the best divisions the KMT possessed. They had been there for three years.By November 2, 1948, they were gone. Destroyed, captured, or defected. All of Manchuria was in Communist hands. The campaign that accomplished this had taken fifty-two days.The Liaoshen Campaign, named for Liao
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