With the assistance of allied warlords including Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang, nationalist forces secured a series of decisive victories against the Beiyang Army. By April 1928, the nationalist forces had advanced to the Yellow River. The second phase of the Expedition began in January 1928, when Chiang resumed command. In an effort to mend this schism, Chiang Kai-shek stepped down as the commander of the NRA in August 1927, and went into exile in Japan. The split was partially motivated by Chiang's purging of communists within the KMT, which marked the end of the First United Front. The first phase ended in a 1927 political split between two factions of the KMT: the right-leaning Nanjing faction, led by Chiang, and the left-leaning faction in Wuhan, led by Wang Jingwei. The expedition was led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and was divided into two phases. The purpose of the campaign was to reunify China, which had become fragmented in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1911. The Northern Expedition was a military campaign launched by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT), also known as the 'Chinese Nationalist Party', against the Beiyang government and other regional warlords in 1926. Allied warlord armies ( Guominjun, Guangxi, Shanxi army, others).
Victory for the National Revolutionary Army
