Chiang Kai‐shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Jiang Zhongzheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China and the Generalissimo from 1928 to his death in 1975 – until 1949 in Mainland China and from then in Taiwan. Following the Kuomintang's defeat by the Chinese Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War, he continued to lead the ROC government in Taiwan until his death.
Born in Zhejiang, Chiang was a member of the Kuomintang, and a lieutenant of Sun Yat-sen in the revolution to overthrow the Beiyang government and reunify China. With help from the Soviets and the Chinese Communist Party, Chiang organized the military for Sun's Canton Nationalist Government and headed the Whampoa Military Academy. As commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army (where he came to be known as a Generalissimo), he led the Northern Expedition from 1926 to 1928, before defeating a coalition of warlords and nominally reunifying China under a new Nationalist government. Midway through the Northern Expedition, the KMT–CCP alliance broke down and Chiang massacred communists and KMT leftists inside the party, triggering a civil war with the CCP, which he eventually lost in 1949.
As the leader of the Republic of China in the Nanjing decade, Chiang sought to strike a difficult balance between modernizing China, while also devoting resources to defending the nation against the CCP, warlords, and the impending Japanese threat. Trying to avoid a war with Japan while hostilities with the CCP continued, he was kidnapped in the Xi'an Incident, and obliged to form an Anti-Japanese United Front with the CCP. Following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, he mobilized China for the Second Sino-Japanese War. For eight years, he led the war of resistance against a vastly superior enemy, mostly from the wartime capital Chongqing. As the leader of a major Allied power, Chiang met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S.