First civil war
Split, soviets, encirclement, Long March.
Start-dates argue: 1927 is the usual split; some start with 1911 or the warlord wars. This page treats 1927-49 as the core civil war.
Omitting 1937-45 makes 1949 look like a sudden collapse. It was a restart after a world war on Chinese soil.
Timeline
- Shanghai massacre
KMT-CCP split; urban CCP crushed; rural struggle begins.
- Long March
CCP remnant reaches Yan'an; Mao's leadership consolidates.
- Japan full-scale war
United front; civil war subordinated, not forgotten.
- Japan surrenders
Race for cities and Japanese arms; Soviets in Manchuria.
- Marshall mission fails
Talks collapse; full-scale civil war resumes.
- Three campaigns
Liaoshen, Huaihai, Pingjin destroy KMT main forces.
- Yangtze crossing
Nanjing falls; the Nationalist capital is lost.
- PRC proclaimed
Mao in Beijing; a new state claims the mainland.
- ROC to Taiwan
Chiang's government completes the withdrawal.
- Korea and the Fleet
Korean War begins; US Seventh Fleet enters the Strait -- civil war and Korea lock together.
Eras
War of resistance
United front against Japan; both parties expand for later.
Failed peace
Chongqing talks, Marshall, Manchurian scramble.
Communist victory
Three campaigns, PRC founding, ROC retreat.
Strait standoff
Korea, crises, diplomacy -- history of an unfinished pair of states.
Milestones
Long March myth and fact
A retreat that became a state founding story.
1949 founding
The largest population shift of sovereignty in this atlas.
Korea lock-in
1950 tied the leftover civil war to a UN war.
1 October 1949 is a founding date, not a peace date. The Strait remained a military frontier.
Death figures must stay a band because civil war, anti-Japanese war, and later campaigns overlap in the records.