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Cover page -- Halftitle page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Dedication -- Epigraph -- CONTENTS -- FIGURES -- MAPS -- ABBREVIATIONS -- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -- NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION -- 1949 CHRONOLOGY -- PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN 1949 -- Prologue -- Notes -- Introduction High noon in Nanjing -- Notes -- 1 Adversaries -- 'The enemy will not perish of himself' -- Making China 'modern' -- Raising the Red Flag -- Chiang's republic -- The Party and the peasants -- Yanan years -- Chiang: emboldened, embattled, eclipsed -- Notes -- 2 'The event on the horizon' -- Watching, waiting, plotting, fleeing -- Beiping besieged -- The last gasp of Chinese liberalism -- Shanghai sunset -- Power plays -- Notes -- 3 Peace postures -- Chiang's short goodbye -- 'Plucked like ripe fruit': Beiping surrenders -- Li 'takes charge' -- City life: Mao moves in -- The 'peace general' flies north -- 'This is your last chance. Don't lose it' -- Nanjing says 'no' -- Notes -- 4 'Offshore China' -- Taiwan: island refuge? -- Transferring the treasure -- Getting there -- Hong Kong: an imperial dilemma -- 'A bit of a riddle' -- Typhoon shelter -- Tightening control -- Notes -- 5 Crossing the river -- 'Oh, the South is great!' -- The Yangtze is 'worth 300,000 soldiers' -- A question of timing -- Agents of change: the 'south-bound cadres' -- Ships and sailors -- Crossings, crises, collapse -- Notes -- 6 Taking the cities -- 'Overturning heaven and earth' -- Last hours in Nanjing -- Interlude -- The new order -- The 'ex-ambassadors' -- Defence of a 'dying cause': the taking of Taiyuan -- The 'huge test': taking Shanghai -- Getting ready -- Nationalist end game -- 'Calculated among the liberated' -- Shanghai's new dawn -- Notes -- 7 Parallel worlds -- Li licks his wounds -- 'Chiang Kai-shek is our enemy': Guangxi's peace movement -- Lin Biao vs Bai Chongxi: a duel resumed.

On the 18 April 1936 General Li Zongren gave a stirring, patriotic interview to theCanton Gazette. In the current situation argued Li, China must stand and resist the Japanese since, "despite sacrifices, a war of resistance may pave the way for the regeneration of our nation." He was later even more emphatic, "… a war of resistance is essential for national regeneration." These seem rather prescient remarks in the light of subsequent events; a new type of society did emerge in parts of China during the war against Japan. Perhaps it should be noted in passing that the form of regeneration expedited by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was nevertheless hardly what Li Zongren had in mind in 1936. Indeed, he felt able to endorse it only late in life.

For the most part, the history of Communist Party activity in Guangxi before 1949 is one of modest success in difficult circumstances. Guangxi was the home base of one of the most formidable military factions of the Kuomintang. In association with Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), provincial leaders Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi and Huang Shaoxiong – the "Guangxi Clique" – played a major part in planning and executing the April 1927 Party purge and thereafter, throughout the Republican era, proved bitter opponents of communism.