Shanghai, 1916.
Sun Yat-sen has returned from exile, with troops.
Yuan Shikai has finally gone too far. When he declared himself Emperor,
everyone from revolutionary groups to his trusted lieutenants rose against him.
Customs refused to send him tax revenue, and Japan funds and anti-Yuan insurgency.
But Sun's campaign is struggling.
Nationalist operations barely get off the ground before Yuan's men assassinate his best lieutenant. Then, he gets a message
Yuan is gone. Under pressure and ill, the old man had abdicated the throne,
abolished the monarchy, and died in disgrace.
There was a new president, but that was just for show. China belonged to the Warlord's now.
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Yuan is dead, and China ignites into a cycle of never-ending crisis.
Instead of restoring constitutionalism, his death shattered the young democracy.
Yuan's massive northern army broke into cliques under his lieutenants.
Troops pillaged the local population collecting taxes at gunpoint.
Foreign mercenaries,
military advisers, and soldiers of fortune of all stripes poured into China.
Some warlords only control a single province.
The most powerful dominate two or three. A few seized power in hopes of guarding
constitutionalism until the Republic can reemerge.
But the majority govern through naked exploitation.
In Manchuria, Japanese interests back a warlord who's basically a bandit king,
giving them open access to China's industrial heartland.
Everyone wants Beijing. Whoever holds the capital gets both foreign recognition and access to tax revenue.
So the Warlord's take it from each other again and again. In the 12 years following Yuan's death,
China will have no less than six heads of state,
and 25 different political cabinets.
The dethroned child Emperor, now a political pawn, will get briefly reinstalled twice.
This marked the darkest period in Sun's life.
His flower of republic in China had been snipped before it could bloom.
Two decades worth of work, destroyed.
Even after the Japanese agreed to fund his rebellion, he'd arrived too late,
and once again lost the initiative.
His Nationalists played little part in dethroning Yuan. The Warlords all had more troops.
Sun questioned everything.
He decided it had been naive to expect China to simply transition to democracy.
The people were unfamiliar with it, and a new republic with its inherent factionalism,
could never stand up against authoritarian warlords.
So he wouldn't found a democracy, then.
At least, not at first.
His next government would be a single-party military one with the hope of securing the country and instructing the people in
republican government before transitioning to democracy
soon reorganized the Kuomintang into a party that stressed obedience to political doctrine a move that drove away some allies and
with few options available. He relied on Shanghai's criminal syndicates to serve as foot soldiers.
These weren't triads triads were rebel groups.
These were gangsters and from those ranks came a new lieutenant an infantry officer named Chiang Kai-Shek.
Brutal but effective Shang brought a ruthlessness to the Nationalists that soon lacked.
Soon disliked killing and tried to avoid it Shang by contrast once assassinated a man as he lay in a hospital bed.
With these new allies soon traveled to Guangzhou and formed his new state declaring a china's legitimate government,
members of parliament loyal to soon convened and declared him grand marshal and he began preparing a military campaign.
A northern expedition to retake the country and with the nation split over whether china should enter World War one.
Soon sought funds from both allied and central powers trying to play one against the other other than secret support from Germany.
He received little on top of that soon's first northern expedition failed.
He was outmatched his forces were so small.
He couldn't even remain in Guangzhou unless the provincial warlords allowed it.
By 1918 they grew tired of Sun killed his bodyguards and chief lieutenants and removed him as grand marshal.
His government collapsing Sun fled to his house in Shanghai, too right.
And this period of self-doubt leaked into soon's private life as well.
While in exile three years before soon married his young secretary.
Despite the scandal due to the fact.
He never officially divorced his first wife the new madam soon proved indispensable to setting down his political philosophy.
For two years soon wrote as much as possible,
he restated his plans for a Republican government and
argued that any future Republic must include the right to both elect and recall officials.
He collected essays in two books and he set out a radical infrastructure plan.
Proposing that China lay down over a hundred thousand miles of rail and roads to connect cities.
Dam the Yangtze River for hydroelectric power and establish two new ports.
Though deeply unrealistic at the time it would essentially create the development plan China still follows today.
And Sun might have ended there an elder statement dreaming of the future. If not for the Treaty of Versailles
See China's entry into World War 1 divided the country.
Especially since Japan had used the war as a pretext to invade German possessions in China and solidify its control over the Beijing government.
So when the Treaty of Versailles let Japan keep Chinese territory it invaded the betrayal was too much.
China had joined the Allies despite having little interest in the war and their reward for being on the winning side was to lose territory.
Mass protests followed with a younger generation of students emerging as leaders.
New forces like the Communist Party of China sprung up arguing for an alliance with their new revolutionary kin in Soviet Russia
and one of these young motivated revolutionaries was an assistant university librarian named Mao Zedong at
First soon dismissed this new cultural movement as a passing fad.
But it had quickly become clear that this youth movement had staying power and that they had respect for soon's new
outspoken style.
In his writing years Sun became more openly anti colonial years of eliciting support from foreign powers had worn him down.
He raged against hypocrisy of governments like the United States that praised Democratic systems, but supported the autocratic warlords.
He upgraded Japan for emulating Western colonialism rather than siding with other Asian Nations.
And he called for a can sling of all unequal treaties that foreign governments had imposed via military force.
And those positions proved extremely popular with the young new culture revolutionaries.
And that popularity boost came at a crucial time a Sun friendly warlord retook Guangzhou allowing him to return in
1920 and form a second military government.
But it lasted only seven months before Sun set off on another ill-timed northern expedition.
A rival seized Guangzhou in his absence and forced Sun to hop on a gunboat and evacuate to Shanghai.
And unfortunately, he left behind some papers proposing an alliance between the countries who'd lost the most in the Treaty of Versailles.
Namely China, Germany and Soviet Russia.
This revelation as well as Sun's difficulty in working with progressive warlords and
constitutionalists in Beijing, tarnished his legitimacy.
While still respected as an elder statesman public opinion increasingly cast Sun as irrelevant.
Abandoned by both domestic and foreign allies Sun turned to the only ones offering aid the Soviets.
Russia's new government was strangely enough a fairly natural ally.
Like China it was a revolutionary state the two shared a border. Communist doctrine considered
anti-colonial movements brothers-in-arms and finally
Soviet Russia was the only nation that committed to return at Chinese territory and abolish unequal treaties.
Plus the Soviets were sending agents to help advise
and undermine governments across the globe. And Sun wanted their advice, money and weapons.
He needed it for starters, but it was also clear that if he didn't accept it someone else would. In the ensuing agreement
Russia recognized Sun as the leader of China agreed to support his bid for national reunification and
Formally renounced most Russian claims to China itself.
Sun for his part made it clear that he would not be accepting the Soviet model
but that he would allow individual Chinese Communists to join the Nationalist Party.
Under the table though the agreement provided Sun with money, arms and Soviet training to help him reorganize the Nationalists and
establish military academies.
So as Sunn returned to Guangzhou again
establishing his third military government things finally looked up. He'd regained legitimacy through foreign recognition his reputation recovering.
The Nationalists were at last becoming a military force building up a new northern expedition.
Warlords in Beijing courted him foreign governments even Hong Kong which had once banned him.
Finally treated him like a major political figure.
Now he did have to violently suppress an uprising in Guangzhou when merchants chafed against his taxes, Sure.
But overall things were never better and in 1924 a progressive warlord invited him to meet in Beijing.
Offering hope that a political settlement could reunite China without the bloodshed.
Sun so despised, he began feeling ill on the way by the time he'd reached the capital it was clear
Something was wrong. A doctor confirmed the diagnosis terminal liver cancer
Sun died three months later his wife by his side.
In the time when most Chinese political leaders built vast fortunes he could only leave her his personal papers and a house in Shanghai.
Three years later
A nationalist honor guard carries Sun's coffin into a great mausoleum laying it under a stone sarcophagus
The ceremony is propaganda as well as memorial. After a short power struggle following Sun's death
Chiang Kai-Shek had emerged as the nationalist leader and finally launched the northern expedition.
It had succeeded
The nationalists had taken Beijing though warlords still controlled much of the country and Shang actually ruled from Nanjing.
But during the expedition a rift opened up between the hardline nationalists and Chinese Communists. Chiang ordered a purge.
Executing thousands of Chinese Communists and setting the stage for a civil war that would tear the country apart for the next 20 years.
But throughout those bitter times as men who could agree on nothing.
Slaughtered each other in service of Chiang and Mao they both revered one figure.
One called him the father of the nation the other the forerunner of the democratic revolution.
Yet it was the same man.
Sun yat-sen.
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