Northern Expedition, 1926–1928

Launched from Guangdong in 1926, the Northern Expedition sent the National Revolutionary Army north against regional warlords. Its rapid advances depended on military force, local uprisings, propaganda and the temporary cooperation of Nationalists, Communists and Soviet advisers.

The campaign captured Wuhan, Nanjing and Shanghai, but political rivalry divided its leadership. Chiang Kai-shek’s break with the Communists and the creation of a Nationalist government at Nanjing transformed the expedition into both a reunification campaign and the opening phase of a new civil war.

The Emperor’s Bones places its protagonists among the expedition’s soldiers, agents and political organisers, following the movement from revolutionary promise to factional violence and the defeat of Zhang Zuolin’s northern regime.