 As a result, Zhou was a prominent figure at most Academy meetings, often addressing the school immediately after commandant Chiang Kai-shek.He was extremely influential in establishing the political department/party representative (commissar) system which was adopted in Nationalist armed forces in 1925.Concurrent with his Whampoa appointment, Zhou became secretary of the Communist Party's Guangdong Provincial Committee, and at some point a member of the Provincial Committee's Military Section.