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→The Xi'an Incident and the Second United Front: edit
=== The Xi'an Incident and the Second United Front ===
=== The Xi'an Incident and the Second United Front ===
In December 1936, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng, two KMT generals, kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek in Xi’an. This has since been referred to as the Xi’an Incident.
At the beginning of the incident, the leaders of the CCP wanted to kill Chiang Kai-shek, At that time, the CCP had a very weak base in northern Shaanxi province, and had been in danger of being completely eliminated in a single battle. The CCP instigated Zhang and Yang to revolt.
In order to pin down the Japanese and prevent them from attacking the Soviet Union, [[Stalin]] personally wrote to the Central Committee of the CCP, asking them not to kill Chiang Kai-shek, but to cooperate with him for a second time. Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai realized that they could not destroy the KMT with the limited strength of the CCP; if they killed Chiang Kai-shek, they would be defeated and even eliminated by the avenging KMT army. The CCP changed its tone. The CCP forced Chiang Kai-shek to accept cooperation a second time in the name of joint resistance against the Japanese.
The CCP used the opportunity to latch onto the KMT government for the second time. The Red Army was soon turned into the Eighth Route Army and grew bigger and more powerful than before.
More and more documents have revealed that many CCP spies had already gathered around Yang Hucheng and Zhang Xueliang before the Xi’an Incident. Liu Ding, an underground CCP member was introduced to Zhang Xueliang by Song Qingling, wife of Sun Yat-sen, a sister of Madame Chiang and a CCP member. After the Xi’an Incident, Mao Zedong praised that, “Liu Ding performed meritorious service in Xi’an Incident.” Among those working at Yang Hucheng’s side, his own wife Xie Baozhen was a CCP member and worked in Yang’s Political Department of the Army. Xie married Yang Hucheng in January of 1928 with the approval of the CCP. In addition, CCP member Wang Bingnan was an honored guest in Yang’s home at the time. Wang later became a vice minister for the CCP Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was these CCP members around Yang and Zhang who directly instigated the coup.
=== The Sino-Japanese War ===
=== The Sino-Japanese War ===