On 11 October 1945, the Chinese Civil War formally reignited as hostilities escalated between Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) government and Mao Zedong's Communist Party of China (CPC).
Despite Japan's surrender marking the end of World War II, the deep-seated ideological rift between the KMT’s vision for a nationalist China and the CPC’s revolutionary socialist agenda reached its boiling point.
Both sides had previously cooperated in a united front against Japanese occupation, but the fragile alliance quickly dissolved as post-war China became a battleground for control.
The ensuing conflict, which would span years, saw ferocious battles and shifting territorial lines, eventually culminating in the Communist victory and the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, while the KMT retreated to Taiwan.
