Jiangxi soviets
The early rural war.
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Scale72
Intensity76
Duration65
Tech shift40
Political impact88
Cultural memory52
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Quick answers
Are the scores a ranking of nations or armies?
No. Scores are browsing aids inside an era-bounded atlas — not live league tables of countries.
How many died?
A wide band, often about 6-10 million for civil-war related deaths across phases, overlapping the Japanese war and postwar campaigns. Treat any single number as a false census.
Did Japan pause the civil war?
It forced a united front and moved the main enemy, but both parties positioned for the next round. 1945 was a restart, not a blank slate.
Why did the Communists win?
Rural organisation, KMT inflation and corruption, Manchurian campaigns, and a more coherent political-military command. US aid was real and insufficient to offset legitimacy collapse.
What happened on 1 October 1949?
Mao proclaimed the PRC in Beijing. The ROC government relocated to Taipei. Both claimed to be the government of China.
How does this connect to the Korean War?
The new PRC intervened in Korea in October 1950. The US interposed the Seventh Fleet in the Strait, blocking an immediate Taiwan campaign.
Maps of Jiangxi, Yan'an, Manchuria 1948, and the Yangtze 1949 are the four images a reader needs.
A fifth map -- the Strait -- is the afterlife.
Maps
Long March route
A retreat as a national myth-map.
Manchuria 1948
The decisive theatre.
1949 proclamation map
Mainland control vs leftover islands.
Strait
The afterlife line.
Portrayals
PRC "War of Liberation" film
A large official corpus.
Taiwan older textbooks
A rival official corpus, later revised after democratisation.
US "who lost China" press
The English political portrayal of 1949-51.
Nixon in China (opera / TV)
A later cultural thaw image -- diplomacy, not 1948.
The Last Emperor-adjacent Hollywood
Rarely the civil war itself; more Qing and Japan.
Korean War museums
The accidental English sequel portrayal of the PLA/PVA.
Rituals
National Day (PRC)
1 October -- founding as annual theatre.
Double Ten (ROC)
10 October -- a different founding claim.
Martyrs' shrines (Taiwan)
KMT war dead in a later democratic society -- a changing ritual.
Sayings
English "Red China" cartoons of the 1950s are artefacts of fear, not maps of 1948 logistics.
Korean War museums that omit 1949 miss why Chinese armies were available to cross the Yalu.