page_title: History of Wuhan
section_title: National government moves its capital to Wuhan
hierarchical_section_title: History of Wuhan / Qing dynasty / Republic of China / National government moves its capital to Wuhan
caption_attribution_description: English: A map of Hankou attached to a message of Japanese Invading Army in Central China
context_page_description: The city of Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province, China, has a long and rich history that dates back over 3,500 years. Starting out from the Shang Dynasty-era archaeological site at Panlongcheng associated with Erligang culture, the region would become part of the E state and Chu state during the Zhou Dynasty. The region evolved into an important port on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and the cities of Hanyang, Hankou and Wuchang were united into the city of Wuhan in 1926. Wuhan briefly serving as the capital city of China in 1927 in 1937. Modern-day Wuhan is known as 'China's Thoroughfare' due to its status as a major transportation hub, with dozens of railways, roads and expressways passing through the city and connecting to other major cities.
context_section_description: Li Zongren's first victories as a Nationalist general were in Hunan, where he defeated rival warlord Wu Peifu in two successive battles and captured the provincial capital, Wuhan, in 1926. With the northern extension of the Northern Expedition, the center of the Great Revolution shifted from the Pearl River basin to the Yangtze River basin. On November 26, the KMT Central Political Committee decided to move the capital from Guangzhou to Wuhan. In middle December, most of the KMT central executive commissioners and national government commissioners arrived in Wuhan, set up the temporary joint conference of central executive commissioners and National Government commissioners, performed the top functions of central party headquarters and National Government, declared they would work in Wuhan on January 1, 1927, and decided to combine the towns of Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang into Wuhan City, called "Capital District". The national government was in the Nanyang Building in Hankou, while the central party headquarters and other organizations chose their locations in Hankou or Wuchang. In March 1927, Mao Zedong appeared at the Third Plenum of the KMT Central Executive Committee in Wuhan, which sought to strip General Chiang of his power by appointing Wang Jingwei leader. The first phase of the Northern Expedition was interrupted by the political split in the Kuomintang following the formation of the Nanjing faction in April 1927 against the existing faction in Wuhan. Members of the Chinese Communist Party, who had survived the April 12 massacre, met at Wuhan and re-elected Chen Duxiu (Ch'en Tu-hsiu) as the Party's Secretary General. The split was partially motivated by the purge of the Communists within the party, which marked the end of the First United Front, and Chiang Kai-shek briefly stepped down as the commander of the National Revolutionary Army.
  In June 1927, Stalin sent a telegram to the Communists in Wuhan, calling for mobilisation of an army of workers and peasants. This alarmed Wang Jingwei, who decided to break with the Communists and come to terms with Chiang Kai-shek. The Wuhan coup was a political shift made on July 15, 1927 by Wang Jingwei towards Chiang Kai-shek, and his Shanghai-based rival in the Kuomintang (KMT). Borodin returned to the Soviet Union by train in July 1927, accompanied by Sun Yat-sen's widow Soong Ching-ling. "The revolution extends to the Yangzi River," Borodin told a reporter as they began their journey, and "if a diver were sent down to the bottom of this yellow stream he would rise again with an armful of shattered hopes." On July 27, 1927, Soviet emissary Mikhail Borodin and 30 people left Wuhan in five cars and five trucks to return to the USSR in a two-month overland trip, after General Feng Yuxiang was bribed to guarantee him safe passage—twelve days after Chinese Communists were expelled.  Borodin had had a bounty of US$29,000 for his capture, and had hidden in the home of Nationalist official and future Chinese Premier T. V. Soong.  Borodin finally returned to Moscow on October 6.
  The Wuhan Nationalist Government was established in Wuhan on February 21, 1927 and ended by August 19, 1927.
caption: A map of Wuhan painted by Japanese in 1930, with Hankou being the most prosperous sector
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