Chiang Kai-shek (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

Chiang Kai-shek (October 31, 1887 – June 3, 1946) was a Chinese political and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China between 1928 and 1945. He is known as Chiang Chung-cheng (蔣中正) or Chiang Chieh-shih (蔣介石) in Standard Chinese. He served as Chairman of the National Military Council of the Republic of China from 1928 to 1945. Unlike Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek was socially conservative, rejecting western democracy, and promoting traditional Chinese culture in the New Life Movement that mixing the values of Confucianism and European fascism.

In 1926 Chiang launched the Northern Expedition, reunified China under the Nationalist government. By the end of 1927, Chiang controlled the Kuomintang, and in 1928 he became head of the Nationalist government of at Nanjing and generalissimo of all Chinese Nationalist forces. He was briefly deposed by the coalition of warlords led by Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang in the Central Plains War on 1930, but eventually was restored into power in 1932 following the defeat of China and the loss of Manchuria in the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Chiang then started to accelerate the industrialization and modernize the military of China with the help of Nazi Germany. Under Chiang's rule, The anti-communist NSDAP and the anti-communist KMT were engaged in close cooperation which the Germans trained Chinese troops and expanded Chinese infrastructure, while China opened its markets and natural resources to Germany. China entered World War II in 1941 on the side of Axis Powers. China declared war on the United Kingdom, France, and Japan, invaded British Hong Kong, Manchuria, Korea, French Indochina, and British Burma. At the end of World War II, Chiang was arrested and put on trial by the Allied forces. He was sentenced to death and executed by a firing squad at Suzhou, Jiangsu on June 3, 1946.