The fall of the Manchu Empire in 1911 ended thousands of years of Imperial rule and ushered in almost 40 years of strife and conflict. From the abdication of Pu-Yi, the last Emperor, the long march and the invasion by the Japanese, to the birth of the People's Republic of China, this book looks at the fighting men and women who fought for the communists, imperialists, warlords and the Japanese.