into left-leaning trade unions, which grew to around 300,000 members by the end of the year. Trade unions also emerged in other NRA-held cities, while peasant uprisings spread throughout the countryside. Backed by these emerging mass-movements, members of the Kuomintang relocated from Guangzhou to Wuhan, and formed a new nationalist government in December. In order to consolidate the conquest, it was in the interest of the KMT to relocate from Guangzhou to Wuhan. Chiang initially invited the government to move to Wuhan but later demurred and tried to keep the members of the central committees in Nanchang, Jiangxi, where his headquarters was located. By the time the government moved to Wuhan with its left-leaning leadership including Sun Fo, Xu Qian, T. V. Soong, the peasant and labor movement led by communists and leftists of Kuomintang was in full swing in Hunan and Hubei. It was during this period that Mao Zedong prepared his Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan that severely criticized Party leadership. Chiang Kai-shek, who had been leader of the KMT since the Canton Coup in March 1926, opted to stay at his military headquarters in Nanchang. He did not want to become involved in the politics at Wuhan, instead preferring to focus on the conquest of the rest of China while maintaining his independence from other KMT leaders. In January 1927, violent protests broke out in the British concession at Hankou, resulting in its evacuation by the British and handover to the Chinese. Under such an atmosphere the leftists expanded control over the Kuomintang government in the Third Plenary Session of the Second Central Committee of Kuomintang. The party congress elected a majority of communists and leftists into the central committees, and therefore strengthened the Soviet hold on the party at the expense of Chiang Kai-shek. Areas under Wuhan's control, such as Changsha, were plastered with propaganda posters with slogans including: "Communism is the heart of China", "Foster the mother country of the proletariat — Soviet Russia", and "China and Russia are one". At the same time, Chiang was arresting communists as he advanced downstream the Yangtze River. It was widely suspected that the Chinese Communist Party and Soviet advisors in the Wuhan government used anti-imperialist and anti-foreign sentiments to instigate violent confrontations with foreign militaries in the Nanjing incident to strengthen the communists while simultaneously damaging the right-wing faction of the Kuomintang.