When the first half of 1927 ended, the Chinese political landscape was a tinderbox. The Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had shared a tenuous United Front against warlords, only to watch it crumble after the brutal Shanghai massacre of April, when Nationalist troops slaughtered thousands of communist activists.
A Fractured Alliance and a Fiery Spark
Reeling from the massacre, the CCP resolved to strike back. In Nanchang, a city on the banks of the Gan River, left‑wing KMT officers formed a “Revolutionary Committee” intended to spark a peasant uprising across Jiangxi. Among the political architects were Deng Yanda, the indomitable Song Qingling, and the pragmatic Zhang Fakui, who would later lead the Nationalist forces that crushed the revolt.
At the same time, a cadre of military leaders prepared to turn rhetoric into artillery fire. He Long and Zhou Enlai commanded a force later known as the 2nd Front Army, bolstered by Zhu De, Ye Ting, Liu Bocheng, and the literary revolutionary Guo Moruo. Their ranks swelled to over 20,000 men, organized into the 9th, 11th, and 20th Armies and several divisions, each bearing a party representative.
The Dawn Assault: Nanchang Falls at 6 a.m.
At exactly 2:00 a.m. on 1 August, the communist commanders—Zhou Enlai, He Long, Ye Ting, Ye Jianying, Lin Biao, Zhu De, Chen Yi, and Liu Bocheng—launched a coordinated surprise attack from multiple directions. Within four hours, their disciplined infantry overwhelmed the Nationalist garrison, hoisting the red flag over the municipal hall.
"The rebels captured 5,000 small arms and roughly one million rounds of ammunition in the four‑hour battle."
Victory, however, was fleeting. By the afternoon, Nationalist reinforcements under Zhang Fakui encircled the city, and the communists faced a decisive counter‑offensive. The leadership debated a retreat; He Long warned against marching a thousand miles in the summer heat, but the Comintern urged a push toward the coastal stronghold of Guangzhou.
The Little Long March and Its Grim Aftermath
On 3 August, the beleaguered forces slipped out of Nanchang, beginning what would be dubbed the “Little Long March.” Their aim was to seize Guangzhou and rally the southern peasantry, but the march quickly turned into a desperate retreat through the Hakka uplands. By early October, the remnants were shattered at Chaozhou; the Nationalist‑affiliated troops routed them, leaving only a thousand men in a cohesive unit.
"From the original 20,000‑plus, only a regiment of about 1,000 survived the campaign."
Survivors scattered. Zhu De and Chen Yi, under assumed names, sought refuge with a local Hunan warlord. Liu Bocheng fled to the Soviet Union for military training. Zhou Enlai, Ye Jianying, and Ye Ting escaped to British Hong Kong, barely alive and carrying only two pistols between them. He Long, denied his own retreat plan, returned home alone, reduced from army commander to a wandering beggar.
From Rebel Band to the World’s Largest Army
In the spring of 1928, the remnants of the Nanchang survivors converged with Mao Zedong’s forces in the Jinggang Mountains. There, the battered regiment swelled again, eventually forming the core of what the CCP would rename the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Over the next two decades, the PLA grew from a handful of guerrillas into a disciplined force that, by 1949, secured the establishment of the People’s Republic of China.
Today, August 1 is celebrated across the People’s Republic as PLA Day, a reminder of the humble, blood‑soaked origins of the world’s largest standing army. Military parades, museum exhibitions, and school lessons recount the Nanchang Uprising not merely as a battle, but as the moment when a fragmented revolutionary cadre coalesced into a national military institution.
Did you know? The Nanchang Uprising was the first time the CCP deployed a coordinated army of more than 20,000 soldiers in a single offensive.
Did you know? He Long, who opposed the retreat, later became one of the PLA’s most celebrated marshals, earning the nickname “The General Who Never Surrendered.”
Did you know? The original capture of Nanchang yielded exactly five thousand rifles and one million rounds of ammunition—enough to arm a small army for months.
Watch: The Nanchang Uprising (August 1, 1927)
From the People's History of Ideas channel.
Sources and further reading: Wikipedia — Nanchang Uprising, Chinese Civil War, Kuomintang, Chinese Communist Party (CC BY-SA). Images: Wikimedia Commons.
