The Chinese Civil War | Animated History

Sign up for The Armchair Historian website today:

Sources:
China 1945: Mao's Revolution and America's Fateful Choice, Richard Bernstein
Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Civil War, Pak-wah Leung

Music:
The New Order by Aaron Kenny
Epic Battle Speech by Wayne Jones
Lau Tzu Ehru by Doug Maxwell
Sao Meo by Doug Maxwell/Zac Zinger

Twenty six variations on La Folia de Spagna, London Mozart Players
Matthias Bamert, conductor

[TheArmchairHistorian]

Thanks for watching! Corrections should be posted below.

1. "Repubic of China" instead of "Republic of China."
2. At 7:05, "1937" should have been "1945-1949"

Griff

[gso]

"China was once again balkanized"

Is it weird that I take a bit of pride in the fact that our region has basically become a synonym for "a clusterfuck of violence and chaos"?

[deathgamer]

comment section: 2% cold war propaganda, 2% this is such a good video, 96% LMAO zedong and chiang kai-SHREK

[sovietpotato]

"Mao capitalised..." is it legal to say such sentence?

[alibalyemez]

Who would win
Chiang-Kai-Shrek or
Lmao Zedong

[ZhangtheGreat]

One often overlooked aspect of how China became Communist is actually the aftermath of World War I. China had joined the Allies in 1917, hoping that an Allied victory would give them back German-controlled territories in China. Instead, the Allies transferred that territory to Japan (which had also fought against Germany). This angered the Chinese, who saw it as a betrayal, and for many, the idea of a Western-style republican government became an undesired vision for the country's future, so they turned to Communism as an answer. Two years after WWI ended, the Chinese Communist Party was born.

[iamtq]

As a Chinese(or Taiwanese for political reason), I have some minor correction for this video

0:25 Korea was not a part of Qing, only its vassal state
1:31 Some more northern provinces were still under Qing's control due to General Yuan
4:39 Actually there were tons of Chinese troops in Manchuria, but they didn't resist due to the order commanded by General Zhang Xueliang(張學良)

Nevertheless, It's a great video and I appreciate your effort!!! Hope to see more East Asian content in the future!!!(If you need someone who understand Chinese, I can offer some help whenever I can!)

[BLARGHALT]

My favorite tidbit about the Chinese Civil War is that Chiang was so rabidly anti-communist that his own generals arrested him and pretty much threatened to kill him unless he agreed to stop fighting the communists and actually concentrate on fighting the invading Japanese.

[Dragons_Armory]

A bit of factoid: A good amount of Japanese POWs were kept by both the Nationalists and CCP after the war, and a lot of them were impressed into Nationalist and CCP regiments when the 2nd civil war broke out. Since the Japanese slaughtered a good about of the native Chinese Pows during WW2 most of these regiments- including remnant of the Kwantung Army were deployed in areas of heavy attritional fighting. They also served as some of the best doctors and technicians in the CCP and Nationalist army. A great number of them would die in the heavy grind. After the war they were repatriated back to Japan but they were not welcomed and were seen as traitors.

A random but I think meaningful detail is that if you go to a lot of communist steles and memorials there are a lot of Japanese names carved on the steles. When I was little it raised my eyebrow- and was explained that they were technically also categorized as veterans. Quite a number of them came back to visit mainland during the 70s and 80s (ironically as "comrades")

Nationalist Chinese forces took the surrender of 1.2 million Japanese military personnel following the war. Over the next few months, most Japanese prisoners in China, along with Japanese civilian settlers, were returned to Japan.
The nationalists retained over 50, 000 POWs, most of whom had technical skills, until the second half of 1946, however. Tens of thousands of Japanese prisoners captured by the Chinese communists were serving in their military forces in August 1946 and more than 60, 000 were believed to still be held in Communist-controlled areas as late as April 1949. Hundreds of Japanese POWs were killed while fighting for the People's Liberation Army during the Chinese Civil War.

Following the war, the victorious Chinese Communist government began repatriating Japanese prisoners home, though some were put on trial for war crimes and had to serve prison sentences of varying length before being allowed to return. The last Japanese prisoner returned from China in 1964.

Lynch, Michael: The Chinese Civil War 1945–49
Straus, Ulrich (2003). The Anguish of Surrender: Japanese POWs of World War II.
Seattle: University of Washington Press.

[leonardblazevic]

"while the Japanese surrendered to the allies in 1945."
*year shows 1937*

[Gillan]

How to win a civil war

Let the stronger army bare the brunt of a stronger foe

Once they are recovering, zerg rush them

[PT-vefl]

I don't know where the rumors come from, says that CPC claims they defeated Japanese. As a China mainlander, our history textbooks show how both KMT and CPC fought hard against Japanese Invasions as Chinese soldiers. KMT definitely was the main power of home defense, but CPC was way much weaker on weapons and equipments than KMT, even they have more manpower. And at that time KMT was the official army, they got better training. CPC was responsible for guerrilla war and collecting intelligence behind lines, such as North East Anti-Japan alliance, fought tough battles against Japanese, cuz Japanese were well trained before they started the invasion. All I want to say is some people always claim that KMT was only one who fought against Japanese, but they just ignore how the others fought so hard against Japanese, even some warlords without political backgrounds. U can't ignore other fighters' contributions, and say KMT soldiers was the only one that fought against Japan, which is a huge disrespect to those heroes and real history!

[nas]

At 7:35, the amount of facial hair increases as one goes to from left to right.

[anthonypang]

How was there no mention of opium wars and the "century of humiliation"?

Obviously you cannot cover everything but these are very much key

[wikipediaintellectual]

Honestly if there could be an unbiased TV series about these events, this has potential to be one of the most epic stories of all time.

[wjbqmzl]

6:53 KMT had more army than CPC when the civil war starts. And about weapons, CPC doesn't have much and KMT had most of the Japanese weapons plus international support mainly from US and European nations (thousands of WWII even WWI tanks, American artillery, American guns, one British cruiser, some Japanese ships including Yukikaze destroyer). KMT (Chankaishek specifically) withholds the best, the most elite divisions (mostly were the armies which got the German training and equipment before WWII) at that time in China ( by putting them at a defensive position during the Sino-Japanese War, while the real fighting and sacrifice were mostly done by regional forces loyal to other warlords). The famous Ninth Army Group in the KMT army has the best divisions which fought among British and American forces in India and Burma, they have the best weapons, tanks, heavy artilleries and are motorized, making them probably the best offensive force in China at that time. By the way, the Ninth Army Group was defeated by the CPC army in Northeastern China (Manchuria), which mostly uses mosin and marches on foot.

[awwee]

5:12 You showed the Communists in Shaan'xi prior to the Long March, while that was where they ended up afterwards. Mao's forces were actually down south in Jiangxi and Fujian.

[peterkwolek]

EDIT: By "My book" I mean a book in my collection, not that I made a book, sorry to disappoint.
My book on Mao alone is like a medical textbook, the fact that you summed up everything in 8 minutes is very impressive. (I just hope everyone respects that this is a summary and there’s a ton more to learn on the subject for those interested.)

[privateaccountjds]

Hey，the KMT had gigantic advantages over CCP at the beginning of the war. It’s backed up publicly by the USA and equipped with both American and Japanese weapons. It has over 4 million military personnel including army, navy and Air Force. Chiang thought the war would be easy because CCP only has about 1 million military personnel scattered around the rural areas. But KMT has it’s own internal conflicts among the former warlords. And the morale grew increasingly low as the time went by since the soldiers weren’t feeling the cause of fighting.

[RichFromTheDuece]

Studied this war in college. Honestly, one of the best classes I took.