Story Highlights
- Historical event:
- 6 October 1928
- Chiang Kai-shek's wife Soong May-ling was especially important for his career. She was a Christian and stemmed from an unusually influential family.
On this day in 1928, Chiang Kai-shek became the leader of the Chinese nationalist state.
This term includes the area under the control of the nationalist Kuomintang movement, which encompassed the central part of eastern China.
The capital of Chiang Kai-shek’s country was Nanjing, a large city on the Yangtze river, west of Shanghai.
It is interesting that the Western media usually addressed Chiang by the title of generalissimo, but today it seems that no such rank existed in China.
Chiang Kai-shek’s wife Soong May-ling was especially important for his career. She was a Christian and stemmed from an unusually influential family.
Namely, her father Charlie Soong was a Chinese man who had been educated in China and became a Christian missionary, but only for a short while.
He later became wealthy in the banking and publishing sector. He had three daughters, each of whom became incredibly influential.
One married the wealthiest man in the world, banker H. H. Kung. The second was the wife of Chinese nationalist leader Sun Yat-sen (co-founder of the Kuomintang), while the third married Chiang Kai-shek, who was Sun Yat-sen’s successor and brother-in-law.
