National Revolutionary Army

National Revolutionary Army (NRA) A Chinese army organized by Sun Yat-sen. It became the military arm of the Guomindang, though relations were always tense, as large contingents were provided by local warlords, and the loyalty of these troops remained with their sponsors, rather than with the Guomindang. None the less, its Guomindang officers became the power base of Chiang Kai-shek, who succeeded Sun as army leader in 1925. Once its reorganization, which had started in 1924 with the creation of the Whampoa Military Academy, was complete, it set out for the Northern Expedition, in the hope that it would be able to recruit further numbers along the way. Indeed, army strength increased from 150,000 in 1926 to 600,000 in early 1928, and to over two million in 1930. However, this was a source of weakness as well as strength, as its heterogeneity increased. Unlike the Communist Red Army, which was tied together by strict discipline and a common ideology, most of its individual contingents remained interested primarily in their own profit, so that the NRA was prone to corruption and graft, as well as lack of coordination. Thus, despite its superior strength (three million soldiers in 1946) it was too weak win the Chinese Civil War (1946–9).