both central and northern provinces of China. The limited acts passed by this government included the formal abdication of the Qing dynasty and some economic initiatives. The parliament's authority became nominal; violations of the Constitution by Yuan Shikai, who became president in March 1912, were met with half-hearted motions of censure, and Kuomintang members of the parliament who gave up their membership in the KMT were offered 1,000 British pounds. Yuan maintained power locally by sending military generals to be provincial governors or by obtaining the allegiance of those already in power. When Yuan died, the parliament of 1913 was reconvened to give legitimacy to a new government. However, the real power of the time passed to military leaders, forming the warlord period. The impotent government still had its uses; when World War I began, several Western powers and Japan wanted China to declare war on Germany, in order to liquidate German holdings. Nevertheless, it was widely seen as weak and unstable. There were also several warlord governments and puppet states sharing the same name. See also: Wang Jingwei Government, Warlord era, Chinese Soviet Republic. 1928–1949 After the successful Northern Expedition led by the Kuomintang (KMT) and its leader Chiang Kai-shek, the KMT managed to nominally unify China and established the National Government of the Republic of China (also known as the Nationalist Government; ) with its capital in Nanjing, whose authority was maintained till the full-scale outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Known as the Nanjing Decade, the government ruled as a one-party state, as laid out by Sun Yat-sen's "Three Stages of Revolution" and his policy of Dang Guo (literally: party-state). The first stage was military unification, which was carried out with the Northern Expedition. The second was "political tutelage" which was a provisional government led by the KMT to educate people about their political and civil rights, and the third stage was constitutional government. The KMT considered themselves to be at the second stage in 1928. Although the Nanjing decade was far more stable and progressive as compared to the Warlord period which preceded it, it was still marred with widespread violence, official corruption and the ongoing civil war with the communists. With the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the invading Imperial Japanese Army managed to capture Nanjing on 13 December 1937. The Japanese then proceeded to sack the city, and massacred hundreds of