 It was defeated by Kuomintang forces and the survivors retreated to Jiangxi as well, forming the first elements of what would become the People's Liberation Army.By the time the CPC Central Committee was forced to flee Shanghai in 1933, Mao had established peasant-based soviets in Jiangxi and Hunan provinces, transforming the Communist Party's base of support from the urban proletariat to the countryside, where the People's War would be fought.In June 1928 the National Revolutionary Army captured the Beiyang Government's capital of Beijing, leading to the nominal unification of China and worldwide recognition of the Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai-shek as the legal government of the Republic.