Chian Kai-Shek: Visionary or Oppressor.Chiang Kai-Shek was Generalissimo of the national government of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 until his death in 1975, taking control of the Kuomintang (KMT) after Sun Yat-sen's death in 1925. Chiang led Nationalist troops in the Northern Expedition to unify China and end the warlord era. He emerged victorious in 1928 as the absolute leader of the Republic of China.[1] Chiang led China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, during which Chiang's stature within China weakened, but his international importance grew. Kai-Shek attempted to eradicate the Chinese Communists during the Civil War (1927–1949), but ultimately failed, forcing his KMT government to flee to Taiwan, where he continued to serve as President of the Republic of China and Director General of the KMT for the rest of his life. Chiang Kai-shek was born in Xikou, a city located approximately 20.5 miles (33.0 km) southwest of central Ningbo, in Fenghua County, Ningbo Prefecture, Zhejiang Province. However, his ancestral home, an important concept in Chinese society, was the city of Heqiao (å'Œæ©‹éŽ®) in Yixing County, Wuxi Prefecture, Jiangsu Province (about 38 km or 24 miles south- west of central Wuxi, and 10 km (6 miles) from the shores of the famous Lake Tai). His father, Chiang Zhaocong, and mother, Wang Caiyu, were members of an upper-middle-class salt merchant family. His father died when Kai-shek was only eight years old, and he wrote of his mother as "the embodiment of Confucian virtues". In an arranged marriage, Chiang married a fellow villager named Mao Fumei.[2] Chiang and Mao had a son Ching-Kuo and a daughter Chien-hua. Chiang grew up in an era when military defeats and civil wars between warlords had left China destabilized and indebted, and he decided to pursue a military career to save China. . He began his military education at the Baoding Military Academy, in 1906. He left for a preparatory school for Chinese students to join the Rikugun Shikan Gakko in Japan in 1907. There he was influenced by his compatriots to support the revolutionary movement to overthrow the dynasty Qing. and to establish a Chinese Republic. He befriended fellow Zhejiang native Chen Qimei, and, in 1908, Chen brought Chiang into the Tongmenghui, a precursor organization to the Kuomintang. Chiang served in the Imperial Japanese Army from 1909 to 1911. Chiang returned to China in 1911 after learning of the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising, intending to fight as an artillery officer..