First United Front
After the Northern Expedition of 1927, Chiang and the KMT seized most of China's territories. The government established was in a degree of social crisis: there were tensions as Japan's conquest of Manchuria; Chiang had also formally split the First United Front, the alliance between the KMT and the CCP (Communist Party of China), turning the two parties against each other. The CCP had bases in the cities and to a lesser degree in the countryside, posing a threat to Chiang's government. The KMT itself was not of one mind; divided into several cliques, there were power struggles between Chiang, Hu Hanmin and Wang Jingwei. China was still scourged by corruption, poverty, and infrequent civil war.