Chiang Kuang-nai (1887-), a Kwangtung army officer, was active as a commander in the warfare after 1924, but won particular renown in the stubborn resistance of the Nineteenth Route Army to the Japanese at Shanghai in 1932. Chiang became in 1952 an official in the government at Peking.

Born into a fairly prosperous landlord family in Tungkuan, Kwangtung, Chiang Kuang-nai received a traditional education in his boyhood, but decided on a military career and entered a military school. He then studied at Paoting Military Academy, where he was graduated with honors.

Chiang's active military career began in 1923 when he became a battalion commander in the 4th Regiment of the 1st Division of the Kwangtung Army. Ch'en Ming-shu (q.v.) was the regimental commander. In 1924 Ch'en Mingshu was promoted to brigade commander, and Chiang rose to become a regimental commander. At that time Ts'ai T'ing-k'ai (q.v.) became a battalion commander under Chiang. This marked the first association between Ch'en Ming-shu, Chiang Kuang-nai, and Ts'ai T'ingk'ai, the trio who later became the acknowledged leaders of the Nineteenth Route Army. Li Chi-shen (q.v.) was then commander of the 1st Division of the Kwangtung Army.

After the army reorganization effected in 1925, Li Chi-shen became commander of the Fourth Army. Ch'en Ming-shu was promoted to commander of the 10th Division, with Chiang Kuang-nai as his deputy commander. The 10th Division, together with Chang Fa-k'uei's 12th Division, took part in the Northern Expedition in 1926, and the brilliant victories scored by these units laid the foundations for the success of the entire campaign. Both the 10th and the 12th divisions were then expanded into armies, Ch'en Ming-shu's becoming the Eleventh Army. Chiang Kuang-nai continued to be his deputy commander.

Toward the end of 1926, as disagreement grew between the Kuomintang leaders at Wuhan and those at Nanchang (who later moved to Nanking), a movement was launched in Wuhan to oppose Chiang Kai-shek. Ch'en Ming-shu found himself irreconcilably opposed to the Wuhan stand and left the Eleventh Army, placing it under the command of Chiang Kuang-nai. Chiang then found himself in a dilemma, and gathered his senior officers to discuss possible courses of action. The alternatives were to'go along with the Wuhan leaders, thus keeping the army intact, or to leave Wuhan and to join Chiang Kai-shek, who was then in Kiangsi. The officers feared that the second course would be hazardous, since it would lead immediately to internecine fighting with Chang Fa-k'uei. Chiang Kuang-nai left the army unannounced, and it was taken over by Chang Fa-k'uei, who then commanded both his own Fourth Army and the Eleventh Army. He assigned Ts'ai T'ing-k'ai, then deputy commander of the 24th Division, to be commander of the 10th Division. The commander of the 24th Division had also left the army, and the Communist Yeh T'ing (q.v.) was given the command of that division. By mid- 1927, after Chiang Kai-shek had established himselfin Nanking, relations between Wuhan and Nanking had deteriorated so much that both sides decided to settle their differences on the battlefield. Wuhan ordered an expedition against Chiang Kai-shek, and Chang Fa-k'uei soon took control of Nanchang. At that point the situation changed dramatically, and the Kuomintang leftists at Wuhan, led by Wang Ching-wei (q.v.), also decided to purge the Communists. On 1 August the Chinese Communists staged the famous Nanchang insurrection, which was led by Ho Lung and Yeh T'ing. Quick action by Chang Fa-k'uei suppressed the uprising within three days, and the rebels had to evacuate Nanchang. They made their way south with the objective of building a base in Kwangtung.

When the Nanchang uprising broke out, the Eleventh Army (actually the 10th Division under Ts'ai T'ing-k'ai, since the other division, the 24th, led by Yeh T'ing, was the originator of the plot) was forced to join the rebels. However, Ts'ai T'ing-k'ai, assigned to vanguard duty on the march southward, outmaneuvered the Communists and took his army to the Kiangsi- Fukien border. At this point Chiang Kuang-nai rejoined the army and resumed command. He marched the army into Fukien, and in November 1927 Ch'en Ming-shu rejoined the unit there. The trio—Chiang Kuang-nai, Ch'en Ming-shu, and Ts'ai T'ing-k'ai—brought the army back to Kwangtung, where Li Chi-shen remained in control. Toward the end of 1928, Ch'en Ming-shu succeeded Li Chi-shen as governor of Kwangtung, and Chiang Kuang-nai took over the command of the Eleventh Army from Ch'en.

Early in 1929, when Li Chi-shen was imprisoned by Chiang Kai-shek at Nanking, Ch'en Chi-t'ang became the chief military power in Kwangtung, and Ch'en Ming-shu, for a time at least, remained the civil governor. Eventually, with the reorganization of the military units in the province, Chiang Kuang-nai became commander of the 61st Division, and Ts'ai T'ingk'ai commander of the 60th Division. These two divisions were the immediate predecessors of the Nineteenth Route Army. They took part in defeating the forces of Chang Fa-k'uei and Li Tsung-jen (q.v.), which attacked Kwangtung toward the end of 1930. The two divisions then were transferred north in 1930. By this time they had been organized as the Nineteenth Route Army, with Chiang Kuang-nai as commander in chief and Ts'ai T'ing-k'ai as field commander.

After the defeat of the Yen-Feng coalition by early 1931, the Nineteenth Route Army took part in the first of the encirclement campaigns against the Chinese Communists, who were growing in strength in Kiangsi. Meanwhile, following Chiang Kai-shek's imprisonment of Hu Han-min (q.v.) in Nanking, a new secessionist movement was launched at Canton with the support of Ch'en Chi-t'ang (q.v.) and Li Tsung-jen, who was now in control of Kwangsi. Ch'en Chi-t'ang left his civil governor's post at Canton and was appointed to a post in the anti-Communist operations in Kiangsi. This move meant in effect that he was reunited with his troops, now the Nineteenth Route Army. It is possible that at this period Chiang Kuang-nai began to resent the demands on his forces, which had been in continuous combat in the successive campaigns. There were rumors that Nanking intended to use the Nineteenth Route Army as the vanguard force in an expedition against the Canton insurgents, which meant that the men of the Nineteenth Route Army would be called upon to fight their former comrades of the original Fourth Army. Chiang Kuang-nai suddenly became ill and had to be hospitalized in Shanghai for several months. Ts'ai T'ing-k'ai assumed command of the Nineteenth Route Army in his absence, and it was for that reason that Ts'ai was even better known than Chiang in connection with that army. The threat of civil war between Nanking and Canton was averted by the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in September 1931, which led to the reunification of rival Kuomintang factions; the Canton separatist movement was called off. Nanking then transferred the Nineteenth Route Army to the Shanghai area, with Ch'en Mingshu as garrison commander in chief of the metropolitan Shanghai zone and Chiang Kuangnai as commander of the Shanghai-Woosung area. This transfer was sometimes interpreted as a gesture on the part of Nanking toward the Cantonese leaders, for though the Nineteenth Route Army had taken no part in the Canton secessionist movement, the army itself was basically a Cantonese force.

It was at this juncture that the Nineteenth Route Army gained international attention through the stubborn resistance it offered when the Japanese marines attacked Shanghai during the night of 28 January 1932. Chiang Kuangnai and Ts'ai T'ing-k'ai became the outstanding individual heroes of the incident. But the action, while clearly patriotic, inevitably aroused suspicion at Nanking, and once more the army was sent to fight the Communists in Kiangsi. Later in 1932, it was again transferred to Fukien, where Chiang Kuang-nai was made pacification commissioner at Foochow, a position somewhat similar to the earlier post of military governor. Ts'ai T'ing-k'ai succeeded him as commander in chief, but the basic leadership and composition of the army remained intact. Chiang Kuang-nai's growing dissatisfaction with the National Government was demonstrated by his delay in assuming the new post. He first paid a visit to his native district in Kwangtung and remained there for several months. Ts'ai T'ing-k'ai finally saw Chiang and persuaded him to return to Fukien and assume his duties. At the end of 1932, apparently in a further attempt to gain his confidence, Nanking appointed him governor of Fukien and made Ts'ai pacification commissioner. Ts'ai retained his command of the Nineteenth Route Army.

Meanwhile, Ch'en Ming-shu had resigned from his National Government position as minister of communications and had made a tour of Europe. He returned to China early in 1933, and there followed immediately rumors of unrest in Fukien. It has since been established that Ch'en Ming-shu was the prime mover in the Fukien revolt in late 1933, and that he had the support of the Nineteenth Route Army because its leaders, principally Chiang Kuangnai, Ts'ai T'ing-k'ai, and Tai Chi, had been united since the early days of the 10th Division during the Northern Expedition. They had all pledged unswerving loyalty to Ch'en Mingshu. Although the details are obscure, the evidence appears to indicate that Chiang Kuang-nai participated actively with Ch'en Ming-shu in launching the Fukien revolt. Chiang paid a special visit to Canton to discuss with the Kwangtung leaders the matter of a new coalition against Nanking. Although Ch'en Chi-t'ang, who held control of Kwangtung, refused to cooperate in the plan, Ch'en Ming-shu and his associates proceeded with renewed activity. The Fukien revolt against Nanking was launched on 20 November 1933, and a people's government was established at Foochow, with Li Chi-shen as its chairman. Chiang Kuang-nai became a member of its 11 -man council and headed the finance commission of the regime. The Fukien rebels publicly denounced Chiang Kai-shek and adopted a platform calling for resistance to Japanese aggression and for democratic government in China. The Foochow venture collapsed in about two months. All its leaders, including Chiang Kuang-nai, fled to Hong Kong. The participants in the abortive revolt managed to maintain some organizational coherence in Hong Kong because Li Chi-shen organized a new political party called the Chinese National Revolutionary Alliance. In addition to the participants in the Fukien action, members of this new group allegedly included such anti- Chiang Kai-shek men as Feng Yü-hsiang. Other than his participation in this group, Chiang Kuang-nai remained inactive in Hong Kong until 1937.

The outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war brought unity to China's contending factions. Chiang Kuang-nai at once returned to China to offer his services to the war effort. However, he was not given any post of substantive responsibility, and he spent the war years as an aide, with the title of deputy commander, first under Chang Fa-k'uei and later under Yu Han-mou (q.v.), in various war areas. The surrender ofJapan promptly revived the activities of political factions, several within the Kuomintang itself, opposed to Chiang Kaishek's authority. In 1946 at Canton, Chiang Kuang-nai and Ts'ai T'ing-k'ai founded the Kuomintang Democracy Promotion Association, the members of which were recruited chiefly, though not exclusively, from among the southern military leaders. Soon Chiang Kuang-nai again found it expedient to leave the mainland and take up residence in Hong Kong. It is interesting to note that although Chiang Kuang-nai previously had always taken precedence over Ts'ai T'ing-k'ai, their positions were reversed in the new organization. In the autumn of 1949, Chiang Kuang-nai and Ts'ai T'ing-k'ai both attended the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference at Peiping as representatives of the Kuomintang Democracy Promotion Association. After the establishment of the Central People's Government in October 1949, Chiang was appointed a member of the Peking municipal government council. The Kuomintang Democracy Promotion Association, along with other groups which had defected from the Nationalist, was merged with the Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee headed by Li Chi-shen. Chiang then became a member of the central committee of the Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee. In 1952 Chiang Kuang-nai was appointed minister of textile industry. In 1954 he was elected a delegate from Kwangtung to the First National People's Congress; in 1959 he was reelected to the Second People's Congress. He was also elected a member of the Peking municipal committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.