Merge all of the following information into a single prompt, removing contradictions and staying true to the general message, the key point is that Chiang Kai-shek's death allows Wang Jingwei to reclaim his rightful position as head of both the KMT-ruled Nationalist Chinese regime based in Guangdong and Guangxi and President of the Beiyang Government in the form of the first Republic of China ruling over Han China, due to him being Dr. Sun Yat-sen's rightful heir and successor, but Chiang Kai-shek's cultists and propagandists begin to fight him for the job so he asks for Japanese aid to help stabilize China, and so the KMT-ruled Nationalist Chinese regime based in Guangdong and Guangxi and the Beiyang Government in the form of the first Republic of China are merged into the Japanese protectorate of the pro-Japanese, pan-Asianist, anti-Soviet wing of the KMT-ruled Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China, while the KMT stronghold and homebase of Guangdong and Guangxi are given to the Japanese protectorate of the Ngyuen-ruled Empire of Vietnam ruling over Vietnam, after the death of Jingwei, the RNGROC has a constitutional democratic imperial parliamental monarchy centered around an imperial court consisting of the descendants of the Ming dynasty's reigning imperial family, the Imperial House of Zhu, the Han Chinese aristocracy and nobility that survived and worked with the Qing and later Yuan Shikai and remained alive during the Chinese warlord era of 1916-1928, and Yuan Shikai's descendants based in the Forbidden City in Beijing that co-exists and cogoverns alongside the Chinese democratic presidental parliamentary system of the Beiyang Government, with some modifications from the KMT-ruled Nationalist Chinese era, due to the fact that the Xinhai Revolution was fought to restore the Ming and Zhu to power as the government of a post-Qing, independent free Han China, due to the fact that the Xinhai Revolution was fought to restore the Ming and Zhu to power as the government of a post-Qing, independent free Han China, and also to shut Han Chinese imperial nostalgists opposed to Japan up and continue its modernization unimpeded, Japan also formed its protectorates of the Qing imperial family, the Manchu House of Aisin-Gioro-ruled Empire of Manchukuo in Manchuria and the side branch of the main branch of the Genghis Khan-descended, Mongolian Imperial House of Borjigin-ruled Mongolian Autonomous Federation in Inner Mongolia's Chahar and Suiyan provinces early in the 1920s by exploiting discontent with Zhang Zuolin, the Generalissmo of the Beiyang Government as the first Republic of China and warlord of Manchuria through being the head of the Zhang family-ruled Fengtian Clique-ruling over both Manchuria and Inner Mongolia to overthrow Zhang Zuolin and his [Zuolin's] family [the Zhangs] and return the Manchu [the Aisin-Gioro-ruled Great Qing Empire] and Mongolian [the Borjigin-ruled Yuan Empire/Northern Yuan] monarchies to Manchuria through the formation of Manchukuo in Manchuria and Mengjiang in Inner Mongolia's Chahar and Suiyan provinces, avoid more international condemnation and to keep the peace in Asia, Japan replaces the Soviet protectorate, puppet state and satelite state of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party-ruled Mongolian People's Republic in Outer Mongolia with a restored spiritual head of the Gelug lineage of Tibetan Buddhism who also hold the title of Bogd Gegeen, making them the top-ranked lama in Mongolia known as the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu[a] or Khalkha Jetsün Dampa Rinpoche ., highest authority of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia, as theocratic sovreign under the title Bogd Khan or "Holy Ruler"-ruled Bogd Khanate of Mongolia/Great Mongolian State as per the the efforts of the Mongols to form an independent, theocratic state that included Inner Mongolia, Barga (also known as Hulunbuir), Upper Mongolia, Western Mongolia and Tannu Uriankhai ("pan-Mongolism"), and also puts the side branch of the main branch of the Imperial House of Borjigin that ruled over the Great Yuan Empire/"Yuan dynasty' as Khans of Mongolia and Emperors of China known as the Imperial House of Kublai back on the Outer Mongolian throne, restoring both the Bogd Gegeen-ruled Bogd Khanate of Mongolia/Great Mongolian State and the Imperial House of Kublai-ruled Great Yuan Empire/"Yuan dynasty' in a dual monarchy format as the government of post-Soviet Greater Outer Mongolia after launching a revolution in the MPRP-ruled MPR in Outer Mongolia against Soviet rule and occupation of Mongolia [ MPRP-ruled MPR] that [the revolution in Mongolia against the MPRP-ruled MPR] topples the Soviet occupation and [the revolution in Mongolia against the MPRP-ruled MPR] results in the Soviets losing a lot of historical territory to revolutionary Mongolia

the Japanese protectorate of the side branch of the main branch of the Genghis Khan descended, Mongolian Imperial House of Borjigin-ruled Mongolian Autonomous Federation/Mengjiang in Inner Mongolia's Chahar and Suiyan provinces remains a separate state from the Japanese protectorate of the jointly restored Bogd Gegeen-ruled Bogd Khanate of Mongolia/Great Mongolian State and the Imperial House of Kublai-ruled Great Yuan Empire/"Yuan dynasty' ruling over post-Soviet Greater Outer Mongolia. :

The KMT fails to get Soviet and US Support for the Northern Expedition.

In 1926 they still launch the northern Expedition but after early victories the Tide turns against them and they are getting pushed back. In 1927 Zhili-Fengtian forces capture Gaungzhou ending the Kuomintang rebellion

In Guangdong Chen Jiongming and in Gaungxi Lu Ronting are appointed as leaders but under heavy Zhili supervision. The Guominjun meanwhile id partitioned. Shanxi annexes Shaanxi, the Ma Clique annexed Suiyuan and the Fengtian Clique annexed Jahar

In 1928 Sun Chuanfang, leader of the southern Zhili Clique, agreed to reunify with the Northern Zhili Clique under Wu Peifu. They also annex Guangdong and Gaungxi and launch the third Zhili-Fengtian War

Initially it looked great as they pushed the Fengtian forces to the Yellow River but Shangdong held firm due to Japanese support. The Fengtian then push the Zhili to the Yangtze. Fuijuan then rebells and Fengtian and Japanese forces land in Guangzhou and push the Zhili out of Guangdong and Guangxi. 

Henan then rebells as well and the Fengtian use it to push from the east. By 1929 the Zhili were left with Shanghai and its surrounding area and it was in Shanghai were Wu Peifu was gunned down ending the third Zhili-Fengtian War

The Guangxi and Guangdong Cliques are restored and once again under Lu Ronting and Chen Jiongming. The Fuijuan Clique is formed in Fuijuan, Jiangxi and southeastern Hubei. The Henan Clique is also estalished and the Fengtian form the Zhejiang Clique under Zhang Zhongchang. All lands north of the Yangze are directly annexed by the Fengtian.

The Fengtian Clique is now under total controll of China and Zhang Zoulin is now the Generalissmo of the Republic of China. In 19 38 Zhang Zoulin dies and his son Zhang Xueliang becomes Generalissmo.

In this timeline the USSR doesn't Support the Kuomintang during their northern expedition which causes them to lose against the Zhili and Fengtian Clique. The Fengtian annex Guomijun and Shanxi while the Zhili annex Guangdong and Guangxi

Soon later over a territorial dispute the Third Zhili-Fengtian War starts. It was quickly won by the Fengtian Clique and ended with the annexiation of the Zhili Clique. After that they didn't really have any enemy left.

Soon later they take down Sichuan and Yunnan and when a war broke out in Xinjiang they marched in finally bringing all of China under their controll. After that they even took Tibet but Mongolia managed to remain "independent" because of the USSR

However the Fengtian were an ally of Japan and now they are under controll of all of China and Japan doesn't have to spare troops to keep them alive

And since there is no Second Sino-Japanese War the US doesn't sanction them exept maybe in 1940 when they took French Indochina

Without a Battle of Khalkhin Gol and the Japanese Army being free they invade in 1941 the USSR and China even sends a lot of forces themselves

The USSR is unable to fight both Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan at once and thus collapses.

The RoC is recognized as the legitimate government of Han China

. Japan puppets the Turkic Khanate in Central Asia which is led by Abdulmejd Osmanoglu and Siberia led by Rodzaevsky

In December 1942 Japan bombs Pearl Harbour starting the Pacific War

The "Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China," later referred to as simply the "Republic of China," was a Japanese puppet regime established in occupied China in opposition to Chiang Kai Shek and led by his KMT rival, Wang Jingwei.

It was initially intended to be a mere bargaining chip for Japan, which still hoped to make peace with the nationalist government in Chongqing, but ultimately total victory was pursued and achieved, establishing the RNG as the sole de facto government of China.

The Japanese granted Wang's regime greater independence following their victory, though they maintained a large presence in the country to maintain order (the government being very unpopular and detested as traitors and collaborators).

They also maintained extensive economic and military control of the country, including military bases on the coast and along the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, along with what amounted to a perpetual occupation in the northeast.

The military and security forces were all controlled by Japanese officers, Japanese companies had effective monopolies on Chinese industry, and the Japanese even attempted to promote Japanese dress and culture (including the Shinto religion) among the Chinese people.

As the regime consolidated it came to be regarded as legitimate, but was still widely detested by the supporters of the Chiang-Soong family, the KMT, the Soviets and even remnants of the CCP inside China, and even many supporters continued to demand greater independence and an end to the Japanese occupation.

The CCP remained a threat, however, and were gaining popularity day by day; so long as guerilla warfare continued the Japanese insisted on remaining to "maintain order."

Actually Beiyang Government has the most advanced tech and weapons and the biggest army in all of China, however most of the states in this alternate China (Guominjun, Ma, and Nationalist China) are in a military block which has the same idea as nato: if one gets attacked everyone gets attacked. Because of this, Beiyang does not want to attack them as together they can stand a chance against Beiyang. The People’s Republic is part of the Comintern (Soviet Union still exists in this timeline, albeit smaller) and if Beiyang attacks Communist China Comintern will support Communist China, maybe even intervene in the conflict themselves. Both Beiyang and Nationalist China tried to unify China under their rule at one point, but both attempts failed. Qing Mongolia is a neutral state and it would hurt Beiyang’s international image if they just attacked Mongolia out of nowhere.

Like in our timeline, Communists and the Nationalists were at first united against the warlords and the beiyang gov, however they soon fell into disagreement with each other, and the Communists declared independence from the nationalists, this is one of the main reasons why The Grand Alliance (Communists, Nationalists, and Guominjun) failed to defeat the other warlords and the Beiyang Government. At first they were doing well and was almost about to take Nanjing and Shanghai but because of split the Beiyang Government managed to reorganize their troops and push the Grand Alliance back. East Turkestan Republic was overthrown by an Islamic Revolution which established the Sinkiang Sultanate.

Japan only went to war with the allies after it has completely capitulated the various Chinese Warlords. 

After uniting a few of the puppets established in China, Wang Jingwei was installed as the passionate leader of the new fascist regime. Thus Wang achieved what Chiang couldn't through the war, uniting most of dynastical territories that were once Chinese.

 Mongolia was puppeted as a separate regime from Mengjiang due to fear of rising Mongol nationalism, and Mengjiang after the war became more of a Chinese puppet then the Japanese. 

Wang was able to bargain for these preferable land divisions due to the his negotiating skills, being a polyglot, he spoke Japanese and French apart from his native Chinese, and was able to peacefully negotiate the transfer of Indochina from a civil war torn France into the grasps of the Empire of the Sun. 

Thus he was rewarded for his appeasement attitude by the Japanese, and in this scenario, the appeasement policy certainly was better than going against the Japanese (some hoi4 eight years war of resistance influence here.)

1928 – December: Zhang Xueliang, Chinese warlord of Manchura, completes the Northeast Flag Replacement, unifying with the Nationalist government.

1929 – March: Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, and Huang Shaohong of the Guangxi clique breaks relations with Chiang Kai-shek, over disputes with reorganizing the army.

May: Feng Yuxiang of the Northwest clashes with Chiang.

November: Li Zongren issues an anti-Chiang declaration along with Wang Jingwei, the head of the leftist faction of the Kuomintang, rival of right-wing Chiang.

December: Tang Shengzhi and <PRESIDIO_ANONYMIZED_PERSON> announces their support the anti-Chiang coalition.

1930 – February 10th: Yan Xishan of Shanxi demands Chiang Kai-shek’s resignation, which Chiang refuses.

February 23rd: Yan Xishan is chosen to become the commander-in-chief of the coalition. Feng, Li, and Zhang Xueliang are chosen to be the seconds in command.

March: The Nationalist Government in Nanjing expels Wang Jingwei’s party membership as a response to the coalition.

May: The Central Plains War erupts. The Guangxi Army, led by Li Zhongren, deploys his Guangxi Army into Hunan to strike at Wuhan. The Northwest Army led by Feng Yuxiang deploys from Henan into the Shandong province to attack Xuzhou and Wuhan. The Shanxi Army, led by Yan Xishan, cooperated with the Northwest Army to strike Xuzhou, planning to march to Nanjing via the railway.

On Chiang’s side, the Central Army, commanded by Liu Zhi, is stationed in Xuzhou for defensive purposes. With use of its air force, it launched many major offensives.

May 28: The Northwest Army crushes Chen Cheng and Chiang’s forces in Kansu. During the counter-offensive, Chiang Kai-shek catches two bullets while inspecting the frontlines, a miracle of an event for the opposition.

May 30: Chiang Kai-shek dies in a hospital tent of the Northwest Army.

June 1st: News of Chiang Kai-shek galvanizes the warlord coalition and boosts morale to dizzying levels amongst the opposition.

June 2nd: (POD) Determining that Chiang Kai-shek could have only been killed, Liu Zhi, back in Xuzhou, makes his move to consolidate power. He goes ahead with many of Chiang’s policies and strategies that were already in effect, but Liu Zhi is known for favoring defensive strategy over anything else. Nevertheless, the Kuomintang has been thrown into a power flux with the loss of Chiang Kai-shek, perhaps irreparable.

June 14th: The Shanxi Army captures Jinan.

July 22nd: The Shanxi and Northwest Army take Xuzhou after an incredibly bloody siege, with the casualties piling up to more than 250,000.

August 10th: Liu Zhi calls for partial retreat of the Central Army back to the Shandong province. Demoralization of the Nanjing’s territory and citizenry is widespread.

August 14th: Qingdao falls to the Northwest Army, while the Shanxi army has taken to occupying Xuzhou.

August 15th: Returning from southern victories crushing the Guangxi Army and sending them back to their territory, reinforcements arrive in Shanghai. Nanjing tries to begin talks with their enemies, while Liu Zhi attempts to build a power base and convince the rest to defend the government until the last man.

August 31st: Zhang Xueliang declares his support of the Nanjing government and calls for the rest to stand down.

September 9th: With bankruptcy running its course throughout the government, the Kuomintang can do little but surrender. The war has cost well over 350,000 casualties. Warlords or their representatives, and parts of their armies, enter Nanjing to begin a peace conference. Liu Zhi and his small clique is banished, most of them to Japan.

September 20th: Wang Jingwei’s leftwing party is allowed back into Nanjing. This causes many of the rightwing warlords to retreat back into their territories and declare autonomy.

September 22nd: Yan Xishan is named the new Generalissimo of the Republic of China. Feng Yuxiang and Wang Jingwei had fought militantly for the position but had failed. Feng was too intimidating of a warlord with his large territorial holdings in the north, while Wang Jingwei could not garner the support of the rightwing. Warlords are given the responsibility to build their own regional militaries for their security. Yan Xishan begins a purge of the old guard of the Kuomintang, while Wang Jingwei uses the purge to infuse the leadership with new leftwing blood. Yan Xishan will remain most of the time in Shanxi, concerning himself with his own holdings, while Wang Jingwei will take up the slack in Nanjing.

October 9th: Yan Xishan and his Shanxi province begin a war against budding warlords in the Shandong Province, to spread his rule and also to counter against the warlord Zhang Xueliang. His army already in place, he incorporates Xuzhou, the important railroad nexus into his military dictatorship.

October 18: Zhang Xueliang comes into conflict with Yan Xishan, as he does not wish for Xishan to expand his direct rule. He forces small warlords along Shandong to join him, and asserts his power there by moving his forces southwards, from Tianjin to Jinan.

October 25th: Yan Xishan avoids a confrontation by dividing the northern area once administered by the KMT. Xueliang expands his influence from Jinan to Qindao while Yan asserts himself in Xuzhou and the railroads around it.

October 26th: The New Guangxi clique invades Hunan, taking more than half of the province.

November: Minor warlords start taking power in the south of once KMT-controlled lands. Fighting breaks out between the new cliques emerging along the coast and the old, larger cliques more inland.

1931 – January: Yan Xishan begins social and military leftist reforms designed to counteract the spread of communism, in coordination with Wang Jingwei.

April 19th: Hu Hanmin declares Guangzhou as the capital of a new rival Chinese government. The Guangxi clique rallies behind the rightwing Hu Hanmin, along with local Nanjing representatives. Many disappointed with the Yan Xishan reforms appear overnight. Wang Jingwei leads an initiative to build up the military, rally the northern warlords such as Feng Yuxiang, make peace with the communists, and begin a war against the Guangzhou government to assert the power of the Kuomintang.

April 19th: Hu Hanmin declares Guangzhou as the capital of a new rival Chinese government. The Guangxi clique rallies behind the rightwing Hu Hanmin, along with local Nanjing representatives. Many disappointed with the Yan Xishan reforms appear overnight. Wang Jingwei leads an initiative to build up the military and rally the Guominjun led by Feng Yuxiang, to begin a war against the Guangzhou government and assert the power of the Kuomintang. Hu Hanmin begins gathering support from the southern warlords. The Guominjun, however, do not want to get involved in another war at the time.

June 26th: Kuomintang Army and the Guangxi Army begin hostilities over an incident at Wuhan, disputed between the two. The south rallies behind Hu Hanmin and begins a siege to claim Wuhan. The Kuomintang, however, hold out.

July 19th: Guangxi claims Wuhan, bolstering morale through the Guangzhou government. They begin marching north.

July 25th: Feng Yuxiang declares his support of the Kuomintang and Yan Xishan. Their army begins moving southward towards Guangxi.

August 16th: Feng’s Northwest Army cuts the Guangxi Army from behind, retakes Wuhan, and forces a retreat of the Guangzhou forces. Heavy fighting throughout Hubei.

August 28th: The Guangxi Army, supported by recruits from western provinces, begins pushing back the Northwest Army in the east.

September 7th: The Northwest Army captures Chengdu and begins threatening Chongqing. The Guangxi Army pulls back to reinforce its positions, leading Yan’s Shanxi Army to take back territories losses in the west. Casualties have already leapt up to the 200,000 mark.

September 24th: The Mukden Incident.

September 25th: The Kwantung Army begins a railway blitzkrieg on South Manchuria Railway, taking numerous cities. Zhang Xueliang declares war on the Japanese, mobilizing his 100,000 men in the vicinity, while sending communications to call back the 60,000 men he has in the north. The Japanese, who have numerous agents throughout the country, are able to sabotage his message to General Ting Chao. Chinese troops make an earnest effort to take back the railways, but they lack training, equipment, and the Japanese have their fingers in so many parts of their military, that in many cases they are outmatched. Very shortly, more than 50,000 men would desert and surrender to the Japanese.

September 26th: The Chinese embassy appeals to the League of Nations to end Japan’s aggression.

September 29th: The Japanese cabinet approves the mobilization of Korean units for the occupation of Manchuria.

October: Though Xueliang has become determined to wipe out the Japanese onslaught before it overruns all of his territory, the Chinese face one reversal after the next. Secessionist movements, desertions amongst the army, and Chinese traitors continue to aid the Japanese in taking all that they desire. Many of Xueliang’s officers have switched to Japan’s side. Nevertheless, Manchuria is putting up a valiant effort, throwing tens of thousands of men at Japanese positions and using tanks and artillery wisely. The Japanese quickly bolsters its forces to more than 60,000 soldiers.

Throughout the rest of China, the civil war slowly and painfully peters out. Both Nanjing and Guangzhou holds their men back to decide what to do next. In the Kuomanting, Yan Xishan is criticized for not coming to the aid of Zhang Xueliang earlier.

October 31: The League of Nations passes a mandate to Japan for them to withdraw their troops within twenty days.

November: The Nanjing government begins to crumble, and warlords call back their armies to secure their provinces. Yan Xishan returns to the Shanxi Province to institute tighter control within the region, as his absence has led to a rise of banditry and communist agitation. As Yan begins to turn towards Shanxi instead of China, Nanjing falls and the Kuomintang begins to be re-organized.

November 13th: In a compromise with the south, the capital is moved to Guangzhou, while the new government is forced to accept Wang Jingwei as the new Premier of China. Negotiations begin with the Japanese, who will not give up the claim that the Manchus are seceding by their own will.

1932 – January 3rd: Japan declares large scale anti-bandit operations throughout Manchuria.

January 13th: United States Secretary of State Henry Stimson proclaims that the US would not recognize any government established due to Japanese actions.

January 19th: The Battle of Chinchow begins, where Zhang Xueliang has bolstered the city significantly.

February 6th: Chinchow has been pacified with 9000 casualties, most of them Chinese.

February 18th: Harbin is taken by the Japanese.

February 20th: Surrender of General Ma of northern Manchuria. The invasion of Manchuria has cost a military toll of more than 30,000 casualties, nine out of ten of them Chinese. As anti-bandit and occupation operations begin to expand throughout Manchuria, the death toll will rise.

February 24th: Zhang Xueliang begins a withdrawal of all of his troops still within Manchuria to Beijing.

March: The Great Manchu Nation of Manchukuo is established. The former Emperor Puyi accepts an invitation to become its head of state.

May: Ma Chan-san dies in a Japanese holding cell.
Jan 23, 2007

Some ideas on what happens next...

Well, first of all, Zhang Xueliang of Manchuria is in a better position. Also, the Northeast Army wasn't used, leaving Manchuria in a slightly stronger situation. The invasion of Manchuria will be different.

Wang Jingwei is back in Nanjing, which means the leftwing is back. Don't know what that'll mean.

Yan Xishan, Shanxi warlord, is an anti-communist and leader of the coalition. Whether that holds any weight, I don't know. But, he'll become leader of the right wing and begin anti-communist measures in his territory, much earlier than in OTL.

I wonder if the Christian General, Feng Yuxiang, who advocated a brand of Christian socialism, would favor the leftwing. He might form an alliance with Manchuria's Zhang Xueliang and seek to partition Shanxi, the little province in between the two.

Hu Hanmin will probably earlier than in OTL (in 1931) establish a rival government in Guangzhou which could be very popular.

The Jianxi Soviet / Chinese Soviet Republic will probably be formed by Mao Zedong as in OTL, sometime in 1931. Without Chaing Kai-shek, this might not be destroyed so quickly.

Man, I really, REALLY need Hendryk for this. Chinese history is so complex! So many individuals, especially in this period.

Following the failure of Chiang Kai-Shek's so-called "Northern Expedition" against the Beiyang government in 1927, the final consolidation of China began as the Guangzhou government came to its knees against the force of the Anguojun. 

The Anguojun was bolstered by Japanese material and personnel support that poured in following several incidents of NRA forces damaging Japanese owned businesses or attacking Japanese nationals in southern China. 

The new Tanaka government in Japan was keen to expand Japanese interests and profits in China following the Showa financial crisis, and saw the failing Northern Expedition as an opportunity. Kwantung forces began pressuring Zhang Zuolin in Beijing to allow further Japanese concessions in Manchuria and promises that Japanese forces could be stationed in parts of China until stability was restored.

 Zhang, desperate to stave off the NRA and the Guominjun, continued to relinquish power and authority to the Japanese while the Anguojun continued the pacification of the south. Wu Peifu and Sun Chuanfang had little choice but to bow to Japanese demands themselves as they were reliant on Fengtian support to maintain their authority. In 1928, Zhang declared the Southern Pacification to be over as Guangzhou fell into Anguojun hands.

However, the Japanese were not finished just yet.

 The weakened Zhili factions of Wu and Sun were soon pacified by Japanese forces stationed along the Yangtze for "protection of Japanese nationals", and authority in Shandong fell to Japanese hands as Zhang Zongchang caved to Japanese demands. 

All over China, informal Japanese authority and concessions spread like a virus, infecting and extorting all those who touched it. Zhang could only watch as while the Anguojun continued pacifying the provinces of the west, his authority in his own nation eroded. 

The Japanese soon reached Zhang's son and successor, Zhang Xueliang, fueling his opium addiction and his ambitions as they groomed him to be the next puppet ruler of Beiyang China.

By 1930, most of the country was under the control of the Anguojun or the Japanese, but the Anguojun by this time had become a puppet army of the Japanese that served to carve open new markets and regions for Japanese corporations to exploit. 

Several border conflicts with the Soviets resulted in the victory of the now dominant Kwantung army, who made both Manchuria and the steppes of Mongolia their playground. 

Japanese corporations quickly began buying European investments either through proper business or slightly more pressured exchanges. 

The British and the French could only watch hopelessly as their long-treasured assets were "sold" to the Japanese, who used new laws favoring them to their advantage. 

The strength of a united Beiyang Government as the first Republic of China-ruled China had finally come to the fore, only to be used as a tool for Japanese capitalism.

The year is 1932. Japanese forces have pulled out of much of China, but the scars remain in the form of military missions, exclusive economic investment zones, concessions, and regions of massive Japanese interests. 
]
Hundreds of thousands of Japanese have settled all across China, where they now rule as first class citizens over the native Chinese. 
European concessions remain, but are meagre or diluted, as with the Kunming Haiphong railway being partially bought by Japanese firms. China is united and has reclaimed its borders, but is but a lapdog of its Japanese masters.

So basically in this timeline, the USA and Britain after the Nanking incident of 1927 don't get a resolution with the KMT under Huang Fu and begin to support the north alongside Japanese support of the Fengtian as they were their de-facto vassals.

The National Pacification army founded by the Fengtian would also be more competent and would encircle and crush many detachments of the KMT and the Guominjun on their offensive toward Beijing while Yan Xishan and Shanxi would be defeated as well which was a major reason to the collapse of the Fengtian Clique into Manchuria

But essentially, China evolves into a Parliamentary system, headed by a President (first Wang Jingwei, then Chen Gongbo after Jingwei's death), but in the late 1940s, millenarian sentiments among the population and traditional cultural concerns among some more conservative members of the assembly, a member of the Zhu clan, the Ming Imperial family is installed as the chairman of the Parliament, then in 1934 promoted to the position of Emperor officially as a constitutional monarch.

This begins the period of Chinese government where the Beiyang Government returns to being Yuan Shikai's Empire of China, but ruled by the descendants of the Ming dynasty's reigning imperial family, the Imperial House of Zhu, instead of Yuan Shikai's son Yuan Keding and his [Keding's] family.

In terms of Japanese and Chinese jingoistic sentiments, it isn't so much jingoism as the desire to expel as much Western colonialism from Asia as possible and to set up sovereign states based on Asian popular government (in some case client states or puppets, but in other cases fully autonomous but friendly allied states.)

The Axis does not manage to secure Japan in its camp, and instead an alliance between Japan, China, Mongolia, Tibet, Siam (with a puppeted "protectorate" of Cambodia), and Vietnam (known as the Kingdom of Annam in this reality) is concluded in the city of Xi'an, known as the Xi'an Accord.

 This Accord is in essence very similar to the official purpose of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. 

How the Annamese and Cambodians, as well as Mongolians, became independent is a whole other beast, but I'll explain that in another post fully.

: Following the overthrow of Yuan Shikai, control of the Beiyang Government of the Republic of China was contested between two major military cliques: the Zhili and the Anhui. Both cliques saw the need to deal with the breakaway warlords of the south (such as the Guangzhou Government), but they had different ideas on how to do so.

When the Anhui Clique, which was the dominant force in northern China, began mobilizing for a reconquest, their Zhili counterparts turned against them, driving them from Peking with the help of the Fengtian Clique of Manchuria.

The Zhili and Fengtian took control of the government but soon found themselves at odds, fighting two major conflicts for control of the capital.

The second conflict ended with the Zhili ousted by the Guominjun, a rival faction within the clique led by the Christian socialist Feng Yuxian.

The Zhili and Fengtian cliques formed an alliance once again to take on this new threat, but the Zhili were soon distracted by a new threat: the Kuomintang, the party founded by the late Sun Yat-Sen in Guangzhou.

The KMT advanced north to conquer the Wuhan province, weakening the forces of the senior Zhili army of Wu Peifu, who now found himself besieged in Central China.

However, the party's forces fared less well against Wu's protege, Sun Chuangfang, who had his own army on the eastern coast.

As the Zhili beat back the southern invaders, the Yunnanese warlord Tang Jiyao, who had originally supported the KMT, turned against his former allies with the goal of restoring his ally, Chen Jioming, to power in Guangzhou.

Chen had governed the region prior to the KMT takeover, and had in fact been ousted with the help of Tang; however, after his removal from power he founded the Public Interest Party and appointed Tang as the party's vice-president.

As a federalist, Chen hoped to build a model democracy in his own province of Guangdong, and was willing to pay lip service to whoever controlled the Beiyang Government. 

With the Zhili Clique in tatters, power fell to the Fengtian Clique for the moment, and soon most of the warlords had recognized their rule. Finally China was reunited - on paper, that is.

“I have a fervent hope that the day is not far distant when Japan, Manchuria, and Mongolia as three independent powers closely linked together by a bond of cultural and racial affinities, will come to operate hand in hand for the maintenance and advancement of the peace and prosperity of the Far East” - Tanaka Giichi, prime minister of Japan 1927-1935

In June 1928, the military situation looked bleak for Zhang Zuolin, the Guomindang’s forces led by Chiang Kei Shek’s had crossed the Yellow River and forced Zhāng’s army, the Fengtian clique, to retreat in Beijing, as Chiang and his ally Feng Yuxiang were readying to attack Tianjin for the final assault of the northern expedition, the Japanese military, which had been supporting him for years to keep control of Manchuria, proposed him to concede Beijing to the KMT and retreat to Manchuria, assuring him that they would prevent the Guomindang army from crossing the Great Wall or the Shanhaiguan pass, initially reluctant, he eventually gave in and took a train to Mukden, in Manchuria, in June 3.

After an uneventful trip, he arrived to the region he had left 2 years earlier to capture Beijing, but he was soon faced with the reality of his situation, the economy of Manchuria was in shambles, and his prestige had taken a hit by his retreat, it was then that the Japanese Prime Minister and Foreign Affair minister, Tanaka Giichi, offered him generous loans and investment.

Tanaka, a fervent Anti-communist, had more ambitious goal about China than his predecessor, the corner stone of his policy was the “Man-Mo” plan, the separation of Manchuria and Inner Mongolia from the rest of China, so that their ressources and manpower could be used by Japan and serve as bulwark against the Soviet Union

Tanaka’s demands in return were simple: Allowing the Japanese army to jointly police Manchuria. Zhang knew that this would amount to effective Japanese occupation and suzerainty, but he also saw his power base dwindling by the day, and so in March 1929, he struck a deal with the devil.

The Japanese Kwantung Army took place alongside local polices on strategical infrastructure and buildings with a speed that was proof of the army’s quality, Tanaka kept his part on the commitment and soon Manchuria’s economy was relieved by the Japanese helps and stimuli. But to many in the Kwantung Army and Japanese government, Zhang was still too ambitious for their own taste, he regularly talked of reconquering China, he also had a respected past, now that the economy was doing better, and had a clear succession plan, the Kwantung Army, with Tanaka’s accord, decided to coup him, on a morning of September 1929, he and his immediate family, including his son Xueliang, were put under house arrest by the Japanese force, one of his general, Yang Yuting, secretely groomed by the Japanese to lead Manchuria, and who has had a rocky relationship with Zhang, was put in power. Japanese troops quickly suppressed any dissidents, with this coup, the Japanese unofficial control over Manchuria was near complete.

The Japanese continued to expand their economic influence in Manchuria, they kept investing in railways, mines and factories to turn it back into the workshop of China it was a decade before, the Japanese also manages to secure the southern side of the Great Wall, seeing the writing on the wall of the revolt of the northern warlord - who had broken off relations earlier in 1929 - against Chiang’s rule, decided to contact Yan Xishan, who held territories south of the wall, and offer him weapons and supplies in exchange with a non agression treaty, Yan had no sympathy for the Japanese, but he knew where his priorities were, Chiang’s KMT had to be dealt with first, thus he accepted the Japanese offer.

But where the Japanese made the most advances was in Inner Mongolia, the other focus of Tanaka’s policy, legitimised by his past success The Manchurian railway network was expended into Inner Mongolia and Japanese presence quickly grew there, with effective control reaching north of Níngxià by 1932, terrified by the Japanese encroachment, Yan Xichian vainly tried to counter it in Suiyuan, but he failed to focus enough forces there with the ongoing Central plain war, which the Japanese took advantage of to occupy a buffer zone south of the Great Wall.

With his streaks of foreign policy success, Tanaka’s ambition and confidence grew, he set his eyes on the biggest prize that would definitely contain Soviet Influence on China, Outer Mongolia.

A communist unrecognised state since 1921, Mongolia’s ruling Party had taken a dark, Stalinist turn since 1929, and systematically targeted The buddhist church and forced the collectivisation of the semi-nomadic, livestock agriculture with disastrous results, several small uprising had happened before 1933, but none had significant effect.

The Japanese saw the large popular discontentment and decided to use it to their advantage, they secretely contacted Buddhist leaders in the west of the country to stage an uprising. 

The date was set to April 19 1933, when the Zaya Khüree monastery in Arkhangai, Central-Western Mongolia, rose up, quickly disguised Inner Mongolian “volunteers” crossed the border and took part in the revolt and incited the local population, the success was near immediate and within days the entire western part of the country was lost to the Ulan Bator government, the Communist part itself was split, while the badly affected nomadic member tended to support the uprising, despite knowing he Japanese support behind it, they represented only a minority of the local party, the majority of the party was undecided, which the hardliners used at their advantage to take control of the remaining party, soon both sides of the civil war radicalised themselves, the population of the country being near equally split, this led to terrifying massacre from both sides which captured international attention. 

Eventually after the failed first capture of Ulan Bator, the Japanese decided to send the bulk of the Kwantung and Manchurian Army, overwhelming the local forces with over 70,000 men, in the ground of preventing massacre of Buddhist populations, 

Stalin was shocked by the event and quickly ordered an intervention. Alas, ongoing work on the Siberian railways, the effect of the soviet famines, and insurgent efforts prevented a quick enough military build up, by fall 1933, Ulan Bator and most of Outer Mongolia had fallen to the Rebel and Japanese forces, although regions adjacent to Tuva would stay out of complete control for a year.

 The communist party was nearly entirely and savagely purged, out of its 40,000 members, 5% of the Mongolian population , a third were summarily shot while the majority of the rest were put to jail for life.

 The civil war had devastated the country and cost the life of nearly a tenth of the country’s population.

Furious by the defeat in the USSR’s own backyard, Stalin ordered the invasion of the Xinjiang, which happened in late 1934 and saw the region fall under effective communist control, he also finally annexed Tuva, a small, nominally independant communist state, into the USSR as a SSR.

With Manchuria and all of Mongolia under nominal Japanese control, Tanaka Giichi’s goals had been fulfilled beyond most of the army and government’s expectations, at the zenith of his power in the Japanese government, he ordered the Mongolian (now united) and Manchurian government to declare independance from the Republic of China, which Japan recognised without delay.

 Many in the government criticised this move, fearing foreign sanctions and most importantly, a direct and lengthy war with China, which many felt japan wasn’t ready for yet.

The unilateral independence of Manchuria and Mongolia sparked a wave of Anti-imperialist and nationalist sentiments across China’s cities reminiscent of the May Four and May Thirtieth movements, foreign concessions and missions were assaulted, while in turn soldiers killed dozens of Chineses, after the failure of the movement the Chinese could only hope their country could unite against the Japanese threat.

Taking advantage of Mao’s sudden death, his former rival Zhang Guotao assumed leadership of the Southern Soviets.

In hope to reconcile with the Comintern he had been evicted from 4 years before, he followed Stalin’s advice of switching from Guerilla to Conventional warfare, going against Mao’s strategy, he decided to launch an all out attack to recover Guangzhou, which the CCP has lost following the failed 1928 uprising, against most predictions his army succeeded in retaking the city, but the rest of the party knew they had only been able to win thanks to the recent uprising in Fujian, cutting Guangdong from the KMT capital, and not because of his skills.

Indeed Soon his true nature would be revealed as he enacted terrible Stalinist policies, the other leaders of the party watched in horror as thousands of people died, Zhu De, a great friend of Mao, decided to stop the madness before too much damage could be done, and he ordered the assassination of Zhang, his fame allowed Zhu to take control of the CCP and so of a large region in southern China, which now was one of the foremost power in China.

With the KMT weakened, Feng Yuxiang’s and Yan Xishan’s cliques controlled the region south of the Great Wall, however the two warlords hated each other nearly as much as they hated the KMT, and they quickly confronted each other, Japan took advantage of it by quietly funding both sides.

Internationally the League of Nations had condemned the independences and Japan’s involvements in them, a report was commissioned in Spring 1934 and when the vote was made in 1936 the League Of Nation nearly unanimously condemned Japan for its interference in China, Their argument that they were “protecting China from the communism threat” fell on deaf ears.

Tanaka Giichi died in early 1936, after having retired at the height of his power, he saw nearly all of his foreign policy goals accomplished in his lifetime and had become one of the most influential men in Japan.


But United, China was not, the coalition of northern warlords of Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan, who the Japanese secretly supported from Manchuria, successfully drove back the KMT from the north and took control of much of the central plains.

The weakened Guomindang, whose southern regions were increasingly rebellious, effectively controlled only parts of Jiangsu, Anhui and Zhejiang. Chiang had lost much of the prestige that ensured his power, and following disagreement over the stance the KMT should have toward japan - Chiang’s experience in Jinan during the northern expedition had left him a particularly sour taste of the country -, the more immediately conciliatory Hu Hanmin, a veteran of the KMT, overthrew him, and focused more on securing the region the party still held than seeing beyond.

However the next years would show that Hu Hanmin has neither Chiang’s military skills, nor his ability to get funding for his army and reforms.

The Intra-Koumintang Conflict, also known as the Wang-Chiang split or Guangzhou-Shantou split, was a political and military conflict within the Nationalist Party of China (KMT) that was fought in 1926, in the regions in Southern China controlled by the Nationalist Government.

The conflict had it's origin in the rivalry between nationalist leaders Wang Jingwei and Chiang Kai-shek. Upon Sun Yat-sen's death on 12 march 1925, Wang Jingwei was considered the most likely successor as leader of the KMT. 

However the rising star of Chiang Kai-shek soon presented itself as a real threat to Wang's leadership. 

The rivalry between the two soon took an ideological dimension, as Chiang had already had disagreements with Sun over the close collaboration with the Soviet Union internationally and the CPC domestically, a policy that Wang on the other hand was set on continuing. 

During the months following Sun's death the KMT increasingly divided itself between Wang's pro-communist left wing and Chiang's anti-communist right.

The inciting incident of the conflict came on March 20th, 1926, when Chiang declared martial law in Guangzhou after being alarmed by the actions of Li Zhilong.

 Li, the communist captain of the coastal defense ship SS Zhongshan, had the ship moved back and forth between Guangzhou and Changzhou Island in the days prior, falsely claiming to be acting on Chiang's orders. 

Chiang was also alerted by several calls made by Chen Bijun (Wang Jingwei's wife) and by Deng Yanda (the left-leaning political director of Whampoa Military Academy) in efforts to try to track down Chiang's movements.

Chiang ordered the arrest of several communist political officers and for the Soviet advisors present in Guangzhou to be disarmed and placed under house arrest, along with Wang Jingwei himself.

 But before any of these orders could be carried out, many of Chiang's own men, including the generals Liu Zhi and <PRESIDIO_ANONYMIZED_PERSON>, were arrested in turn. 

Chiang himself only barely managed to escape arrest by boarding a steamer to Shantou, where he would begin rallying his supporters against Wang and the CPC.

What Chiang had not counted on was the extensive intelligence network that the Soviets had built in Southern China as part of their mission to the Nationalist Government. 

The resources for this effort were increased considerably during the later half of 1925, likely a consequence of the breach in isolation that the Soviets felt with the signing of treaties of friendship with Italy and Germany. 

Reconstructions of the events of March 20th suggest that Li, Chen and Yanda, acted independently from Soviet intelligence, but that it was the later that intercepted Chiang's attempt to neutralize them.

The following conflict was fairly bloodless in the context of the Warlord Era, consisting mostly of a long standoff with little fighting going on, as both sides tried to rally supporters. 

Wang held the advantage ever since Chiang's escape from Guangzhou, which allowed Wang to begin organizing his supporters earlier, all while spreading propaganda that painted Chiang as a defeated traitor. 

By late May it had become evident that Chiang had no supporters left outside of his headquarters in Shantou. 

Sometime around this time Chiang fled to an unknown location northward and on June 7th General Zhang Fakui's 4th Corps entered Shantou without a fight.

With his only major rival gone, Wang solidified his control over the Nationalist government and set plans in motion for a war against the northern warlords.


WARNING: Super-long comment

The Northern Expedition was a military campaign launched in late 1926 by the Guangzhou-based Nationalist government of China (led by Wang Jingwei) and it's National Revolutionary Army (NRA) against the rival Beiyang government, with the goal of reunifying China under it's leadership.

 The expedition was domestically supported by the United Front: the alliance between the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) and the Communist Party of China (CPC), and internationally by the Soviet Union and by the Comintern.

The Beiyang government meanwhile, was nominally civilian-led, but with the military de facto in charge.

 This military was divided into cliques led by its three main warlords. Sun Chuanfang and Wu Peifu led the two halves of the Zhili clique, controlling the central provinces. Meanwhile Zhang Zuolin and his Fengtian clique controlled the north. 

Out of these three, Zhang had established himself as the most influential one, after having defeated Wu's forces in the Second Zhili–Fengtian War of 1924.

The war began in October 1926 (four months after that Wang had secured his leadership of the Nationalist government by defeating Chiang Kai-shek) when border clashes broke out between the NRA and troops loyal to Wu Peifu. 

These clashes soon turned into a full scale invasion of Hunan province, which was fully under the control of the Nationalist government by the end of the year.

The disunited nature of the warlord forces in the first phase of the conflict meant that the NRA was free to fight the two halves of the Zhili clique separately.

 The mainstay of Wu Peifu's forces were defeated, and his stonghold of Wuchang had been surrounded by the time that Sun Chunfang entered the fight in late January 1927. 

The battle for the southern provinces of Jiangxi and Fujian lasted until May, before Sun was forced to retreat north in the face of the NRA that had significantly bolstered its ranks from mass desertions from the warlord armies.

It was at this point that the Fengtian clique first got seriously involved in the conflict, as it sent considerable reinforcements to aid the defense of Shanghai and Nanjing. Seeing the crumbling of the Zhili clique, Zhang Zuolin had formed the National Protection Army (NPA) in an effort to centralize the forces loyal to the Beiyang government under his leadership. 

Nevertheless the nationalist advance continued, with the NRA capturing Shanghai in early June when a communist uprising in the city made it's defense unfeasible.

 The arrival of Fengtian reinforcements however did manage to prevent the fall of Nanjing for the time being. 

This turn of events was contrary to the expectations of NRA command, which had not expected to encounter Fengtian forces in any significant number this early on and this far south.

This error of calculus from the Nationalist side was due to Zhang's preparations prior to the outbreak of hostilities. The NPA had officially been founded only during the NRA's advance through Zhili territory in the first half of 1927.

 In reality however, Zhang had already laid the foundations for an unified command of the forces of the Beiyang government, by reaching a deal with the Zhili warlords already in the aftermath of the recent war with the Guominjun.

 This was done because of the power struggle between Wang and Chiang was correctly interpreted as symptoms of the Nationalists preparing for the forceful unification of China.

The resulting stalemate lasted throughout the summer of 1927, up until the intervention of Feng Yuxiang's pro-KMT Guominjun first intervened in force by invading Henan province in August. This represented a real problem for Zhang, since the Gouminjun controlled large territories in the north-west, and could potentially threaten his own power-base in Manchuria as well as Beijing itself. This new threat, along with having to take account with a much lengthened front-line, forced the NPA to cancel a planned attack to retake Shanghai.

 Furthermore, holding any remaining territory south of the Yangtze became increasingly intangible for the NPA, leading to the NRA fully capturing Nanjing in September.

It was during this period also that Chiang Kai-shek's whereabouts became known for the first time since his disappearance following his defeat against Wang in the power-struggle in Guangdong more than a year earlier. 

The former Commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy was revealed to be residing in Ningxia, under the protection of the Hui warlord Ma Hongkui, whose support for Chiang was motivated by their common anti-communism.

The remainder of autumn consisted of a slow advance north of the Yangtze by the combined forces of the NRA and Guominjun. The nationalist side was once again boosted in December by the entry of Shanxi warlord Yan Xishan on their side

. Zhang responded to this latest adversary by throwing all available forces at Shanxi before Yan's forces could link up with their allies. 

Despite important victories, the mountainous terrain of Shanxi however meant that the NPA was unable to deliver the killing blow before begin forced to divert forces to the south, to Jiangsu province in order to defend against a new joint NRA-Guominjun offensive in January 1928.

If the nationalist army was not stopped here it would mean that Shandong province itself, meaning territory of the Fengtian clique, would be under threat. Furthermore, Shandong was also the base of the warlord Zhang Zongchang, one of Zhang Zuolin's most important allies as well as one of the NPA's best generals. 

The Beiyang government could not afford to lose the province, and so it world use all available resources to defend it, first and foremost Zhang Zongchang's own Shandong Army.

 After a period of regrouping and reorganizing, the NRA began it's long anticipated Shandong offensive in May. 

Despite stiff resistance from Zhang's troops, the numerical and material superiority of the NRA meant that it soon gained the upper hand yet again.

One of the Beiyang government's great disadvantages to its Guangzhou rival was the ever growing Soviet assistance for the nationalists. At the start of the conflict it was mostly limited to the Red Army sending medical- and intelligence personnel, advisors and only fairly modest material support. 

But these efforts had grown considerably in the later half of 1927, with large quantities of small arms and munitions being joined by artillery, armored vehicles and even aircraft.

At this stage, Zhang Zuolin hoped that he could even out the disparity between his army and Wang Jingwei's through diplomacy. Japan had been the Fengtian clique's long-time foreign backer, but had until now been fairly cautious about getting entangled in the conflict. 

However, this attitude changed rapidly once the frontline had reached Shandong, which Japan considered to be part of its sphere of influence. Other determining factors for Zhang gaining Tokyo's favor in the struggle against Wang was ideology and geostrategy. 

The continued participation of the CPC in the United Front, along with above mentioned Soviet support for the Nanjing, convinced the Japanese that the success of the Northern Expedition would mean that all of China would fall under the influence of Moscow.

On April 5, troops of the National Revolutionary Army and the Imperial Japanese Army clashed near a section of the rail north of Qingdao. The exact course of events remain unclear, with multiple conflicting accounts of the incident given by both sides. 

The Japanese claimed that the Chinese nationalist troops had tried to plant explosives to sabotage the rail. 

This was denied by the NRA, which in turn claimed that it's soldiers had just responded to unprovoked gunfire from the Japanese.Either way, both sides rushed reinforcements to the area, which practically immediately led to further clashes to flare up the same day.

 In the following days, the Nationalist government (which had by this point transferred to Nanjing) attempted to negotiate with the Japanese in order to avoid their entry to the conflict. All of these attempts failed, due to the Japanese government having by this point decided for the need to intervene on the side of the Beiyang government. 

Instead this time was used by the IJA to deploy reinforcements to it's garrisons in Shandong province. 

When soldiers of the NRA tried entering the city of Laixi on the 13th, they were rebuked by Japanese troops which had been stationed there in the days prior. At this point it became clear to the Nanjing government that Tokyo at this point had decided to intervene directly against it.

The following period saw no major clashes between the two, as the Chinese nationalist command concluded that the Japanese had solidified their positions in Shandong, and trying to take the peninsula by force would only bog the NRA down. 

Which would mean throwing away the initiative they still held, as they continued pushing the NPA northward. Instead it was decided that the main portion of the 1st Collective Army would remain in Shandong, ready to defend against a potential Japanese offensive into the interior, while the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Collective Armies would push North, hoping to capture Beijing before the Japanese could turn the tide in favor of Beiyang. 

Shandong's provincial capital, Jinan, was only partially occupied as the NRA tried to avoid further clashes with the IJA in order to not provoke the Japanese, hoping that the intervention was going to be a half-hearted one.


By the end of the year, Yan's inactivety began to seriously irritate his fellow NRA generals.

 The Nanjing government began to worry that the Shanxi warlord had betrayed the Nationalist cause, and a furious Wang Jingwei requested Yan to attack the NPA's western flank. 

In reality, Yan's troops had not been idle; the 3rd Collective Army had spent autumn reconstucing and preparing an offensive into Hebei.

 These efforts were however complicated by increased tensions with the Ma clique in the east, with repeated incursions by General Ma Zhongying's Tungan cavalry into Shanxi.

Ever since Chiang Kai-shek's reappearance in North-Western China, Wang Jingwei's government had been very suspicious of the Ma clique, despite it previously showing itself sympathetic to the nationalist cause.

 Ma Hongkui, Chiang's main ally during his exile, had worked to move the rest of the clique on anti-Nanjing positions, accusing Wang Jingwei to be "a puppet of Moscow".

When Yan finally launched his offensive in the first days of 1929, it threw the Fengtian clique and the Japanese Hebei Army off balance, as they scrambled to move reinforcements to the north-east. 

This redeployment did not arrive in time to stop the 3rd Collective Army from swiftly capturing Shijiazhuang, but it did prevent Baoding from falling as well, something which would have left Beiyang's forces seriously outflanked. 

Countering the offensive nevertheless left the NPA understrength on the Yellow River.

 While the 1st and 4th Collective Armies took the opportunity to recover, Feng Yuxiang took the initiative and launched the 2nd on its own offensive along the western portion of the river, where the nationalists still had a foothold on the northern shore.

In the north meanwhile, Yan Xishan had ordered the 3rd to halt and dig down in order to hold the gains made until the rest of the NRA could reach them.

Yan's caution was not unwarranted, as the Ma clique's raids had been replaced by full on invasion attempts ever since Ma Hongkui and Ma Zhongying managed to persuade the head of the clique, Ma Qi, to intervene against the United Front. 

For several months Yan's forces successfully fought a defensive two front war, as the NPA never managed to gather enough forces to retake Shijiazhuang, and countless attempts by Ma Clique forces to cross the Lüliang Mountains were intercepted, leaving Yan's Shanxi base safe.

This all changed in March, when a large force of Mongol mercenaries led by Colonel Li Shouxin marched into northern Shanxi and captured Datong.

 The attacking force crossed the Gobi Desert to reach their target, which had been impassible to the regular NPA troops, which had left Shanxi safe from attacks from this direction thus far. The surprise attack led to a severe destabilization of Yan's defences, as the Shanxi warlord had to hastly scrape together troops to counter the new threat from the north. 

The confusion in the 3rd Collecive Army's lines made it's adversaries renew their efforts, with Shijiazhuang and Lüliang falling to Fengtian and Ma forces respectively, all within two weeks after the fall of Datong.

In renponse to this, Feng Yuxiang halted his own force's advance in order to assist Yan.

It was probably in large part due to the reinforcements from the 2nd Collective Army that the provincial capital of Shanxi, Taiyuan, did not fall despite being surrounded from three sides. By the spring of 1929 both sides faced exhaustion after a long period of intensive action.

 For a couple of months the frontline was mostly static, this was until Yan Xishang launched a new offensive to retake northern Shanxi on his own volition in May-June.

 The offensive was initially successful, retaking large parts of the province, only stopping less than 100 km south of Datong before being pushed back, largely due to lack of support from the rest of the NRA, whose main focus once again lied further east, where a new NPA-IJA offensive was now aiming at uniting the Shandong peninsula with Beiyang-controlled Hebei.

This was achieved when the Zhang Zongchang's Shandong Army re-captured Weifang, and subsequently linked up with General Chu Yupu's Zhili Army, which had crossed the yellow river near it's mouth and captured the remaining coastline of the Laizhou Bay.

 A subsequent push on Jinan was thwarted after that the 1st Collective Army launched it's own counter-offensive to the south, forcing Zhang Zhonchang and his Japanese allies to redirect their forces to prevent the fall of Qingdao.


The last months of the war mostly consisted of both sides periodically trying to push on different portions of the front, as to probe for potential weak spots in the enemy lines to exploit. One of the more noteworthy offensives in this last stage was the NRA's push to reach the Yellow Sea and once again break the corridor connecting the Shandong Army with its allies.

 This last effort to achieve a strategic advantage by the Nanjing government initially showed potential, as it within two weeks retook the city of Zibo and pushed the NPA back to a corridor less than 20 km wide linking the Shandong peninsula to the north. 

However this last great effort too ran out of steam before it could reach its final objective, as the NPA counterattacked, managing to preserve the Shandong corridor, but was unable to recapture Zibo.

 It was at this point that a negotiated end to the conflict was increasingly sought by both sides, as neither was feeling confident anymore in their ability to break the stalemate and end the conflict militarially.

Furthermore the continuation of the conflict represented a risk for the solidity of both rival governments. 

While both governments tried to give an impression of being monolithic and united in order to win legitimacy, in reality, both their militaries largely still depended on de facto independent warlords. 

Shanxi's Yan Xishang and Shandong's Zhang Zongchang perhaps represented the most rebellious generals of the NRA and the NPA respectively, with both of them clashing with their own governments when their own dominions came under threat and often prioritized the preservation of their own power-bases over the overall war effort. For Jingwei, prolonging the war also meant risking that some malcontent NRA general might decide to throw their lot in with Chiang Kai-shek and offer the exile a way to power via a coup.

Furthermore both sides were increasingly dependent on their main foreign backers: the Soviet Union for Nanjing and Japan for Beiyang.

 Moscow had grown increasingly worried with the Northern Expedition ever since Japan's intervention, fearing that getting too entangled might lead it to a war with Japan in the Far East. 

This was a conflict which the Red Army was not confident in being ready to fight in 1929. 

The Japanese in turn had been mainly preoccupied with keeping key Chinese provinces such as Fengtian and Shandong in its sphere of influence. 

Tokyo, not having much interest in fighting a land war in China to see it reunited under the five-colored flag, began pressuring the Beiyang government to seek negotiations after the failure to breach the Yellow river defensive line.

On August 31, 1929; representatives of both sides met in Jinan's commercial district to negotiate an end to the conflict. 

While a localized ceasefire had been reached for the area of Jinan city, in order to facilitate negotiations, both sides ceased major offensive operation elsewhere along the front as well. Notable exception to this was on the easternmost portion, where Shanxi and Ma forces continued intensive fighting almost up until the final ceasefire.

 Negotiations were initially fruitless, as both sides took maximalist stances while not falling for the opposing side's bluff.A major breakthrough was reached on September 15, with the conclusion of a large-scale prisoner exchange, also held in the Jinan area.

On September 21 the two sides finally signed a nation-wide ceasefire, bringing the conflict to its end. 

Conclusively, the Northern Expedition was a partial success. 

It had failed at it's goal of uniting China under an unrivaled Nationalist government, but it had succeeded in securing all of southern China for the United Front, as the NRA had pushed the warlords of the Beiyang government 1500 km north.

It also marked the end of the Warlord era; as the defeat of the Zhili warlords made the "Old Marshal" Zhang Zoulin as the sole ruler of the north, while Wang Jingwei further consolidated his rule due to the growth of the NRA meaning that no single warlord was strong enough compared to the rest of the army to challenge central control. 

Both sides still relied on local warlords to draw their forces from, but these were no longer de facto independent provincial states.

 Notable exception to this were in western China, where the Ma clique still governed itself autonomously from Beiyang (despite aligning with it against the KMT), and the Xinjiang clique, which due to its isolation had managed to stay neutral.

On the international scene the events in China had major consequences. 

Before the Northern Expedition, the Beijing-based Beiyang government was the sole internationally recognized government of China. 

The dependency on Tokyo created by the struggle to fend off the NRA meant that it practically became a Japanese client-state. 

While major western powers like Britain, France and the United States also retained their recognition of Beiyang, other states less inclined to sustain the status quo in the international system, were quite sympathetic to the Chinese Nationalist cause. 

Other than the Soviet Union, which had actively supported the Northern Expedition as an anti-imperialist endeavor, Germany and Italy also switched recognition in favor of Nanjing.

The situation in China and broader Asia in 1929 was one of a standoff between the two rival governments, which reflected a power struggle over the region between the Soviet Union and Japan.

 Anyone observing this situation at the time knew that a new conflict in the near future was inevitable, the only questions left to answer where when and in what form.




It should be noted that not all of China was directly ruled from Nanjing. Wang Jingwei had already recognized Manchukuo as independent, and was ultimately forced to sell Hainan to Japan and accept the loss of Xinjiang and the greater Tibet region as well (both having declared independence after Chiang Kai Shek's defeat).

 Even within the Republic's de jure borders three major warlord cliques survived; Shanxi's "Model Governor" Yan Xishan had already signed a cease-fire with the Japanese, while the governor of Yunnan and the Ma warlord of Gansu were "replaced" by collaborators, both being betrayed by their relatives. 

The provinces of Zhili and Shangdong were administered by the "East Yi Anti-Communist Autonomous Administration," which was largely a front for continued Japanese control of the region. 

Most notably, the Mengjiang autonomy established in Inner Mongolia under Prince Demchugdongrub of the Genghis Khan-descended, Mongolian Imperial House of Borjigin was a de facto independent state, with the Nanjing Government prohibited by law from even sending soldiers into the territory.

P.O.D and Background: Warren G. Harding doesn’t die early, and the Teapot Dome Scandal leads to a democratic president in office to be blamed for the Great Depression. The Republican New Deal Coalition equivalent includes a cadre of isolationists which never alter the Neutrality Acts or embargo Japan.

Without US Aid, by 1946 the Soviets were pushed past the AA line. Revolts in the Middle East and India supported by Germany and Japan respectively forced a near bankrupt Britain to sue for peace.

A drastically weakened Soviet Union could do nothing when Japan seized Vladivostok and the rest of Outer Manchuria.

Chiang’s gamble of trading space for time holding out for western intervention failed when China ran out of both.

Clear American statements of isolationism emboldened Japan to seize European colonies, ignoring the Philippines (for now). The regional warlords of Tibet and Xinjiang were offered land concessions for lip service to the sphere and providing water and border security, respectively.

By 1948, Japan is hegemon over East Asia.

Bound only by a unified hatred of the British, with their common enemy gone, the Provisional Government of Free India was a chaotic mess of Regional Separatists, Muslim Nationalists, Hindu Nationalists, Pan-Indians, and Pan-Asians all ready to rip the new nation apart.

Thailand and the Empire of Vietnam quarrel over the influence of Laos and Khmer.