KMT National Revolutionary Army
A party-army that became a state army and then lost the state's mainland.
The KMT fielded large conventional armies with German then US equipment. The PLA grew from guerrilla bases into a conventional force that won set-piece campaigns in 1948-49.
Manchurian railways and Japanese leftover stocks were as important as any doctrine pamphlet.
Systems
Red Army / PLA
From soviets to a conventional victor in 1949 -- historical evolution, not a current ORBAT.
United front politics
A force-multiplier and a trap, twice.
US aid mission
Equipment and advisers that could not buy legitimacy.
Soviet Manchurian factor
A time-limited geographic gift in 1945-46.
Taiwan militarised state
The ROC after 1949 as a garrison regime -- later democratised.
Meters
Population under the outcome
95
Political impact (atlas)
88
English cultural memory
45
Duration (interrupted)
80
Link to Korea
85
Tech shift
38
Hotspots
Shanghai 1927
The split as urban massacre.
Yan'an
The CCP wartime capital of myth and organisation.
Manchuria 1946-48
The decisive conventional theatre.
Huaihai
The central China annihilation campaign.
Taiwan Strait
The unfinished map.
Materials
Land and grain
Rural policy as a weapon of allegiance.
Rail and cities
1948-49 as a railway war.
Japanese leftover stocks
A one-time arsenal in the northeast.
Paper money
KMT inflation as a material collapse.
This is not a present PLA order of battle. It is a historical force picture of 1927-49.
US advisory missions and Soviet transfers are part of the force story, not the whole story.