Central Plains War (simplified Chinese: 中原大战; traditional Chinese: 中原大戰; pinyin: Zhōngyúan Dàzhàn) was a civil war within the factionalised Kuomintang (KMT) that broke out in 1930. It was fought between the forces of Chiang Kai-shek and the coalition of three military commanders who were previously allied with Chiang: Yan Xishan, Feng Yuxiang, and Li Zongren. The war was fought across the Central Plains, a core region of China on the lower reaches of the Yellow River and the cradle of Chinese civilization.
In consolidating power for the Kuomintang in the Northern Expedition of 1927–1928, Chiang had forged alliances with the warlord armies of Yan, Feng, and Li, but relations soon soured, resulting in the war. The war almost bankrupted Chiang's Nationalist Government and cost over 300,000 total combined casualties, but allowed the victorious Chiang to further consolidate power as the undisputed leader of most of China.
Read more about Central Plains War: Preparations, Outbreak, Aftermath
Famous quotes containing the words central, plains and/or war:
“Sweet weight,
in celebration of the woman I am
and of the soul of the woman I am
and of the central creature and its delight
I sing for you. I dare to live.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“When I say artist I don’t mean in the narrow sense of the word—but the man who is building things—creating molding the earth—whether it be the plains of the west—or the iron ore of Penn. It’s all a big game of construction—some with a brush—some with a shovel—some choose a pen.”
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“... there was the first Balkan war and the second Balkan war and then there was the first world war. It is extraordinary how having done a thing once you have to do it again, there is the pleasure of coincidence and there is the pleasure of repetition, and so there is the second world war, and in between there was the Abyssinian war and the Spanish civil war.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)