The Northern Expedition, marked by the alliance between Nationalists and Communists, was the most dramatic reflection of the revolutionary and national consciousness which followed and grew out of the May 30 Movement(1925) and the great Canton-Hongkong strike. As such, it was regarded with great hostility by those who saw it as a direct threat both to foreign trade, Shanghai's very raison d'etre, and their own position and privileges, symbolised by extraterritoriality and underwritten by the Unequal Treaties - although they, or at least the North-China Daily News), were not so crass as to put it quite like this, preferring instead to identify their interests with those of the "real" China ( Figure 18).

While initially the Kuomintang, or more specifically the Kuomintang left, was regarded with some scorn (Figure 19), once the military expedition got under way the tone of commentary, and cartooning, became more serious, although at first considerable hope was placed in the capacity of the more reliable warlords, such as Wu Peifu, to put a stop to it (Figure 20). The taking of the British concession at Hankow in early 1927 came as a great shock, a shock that was further intensified for the North-China Daily News readership when Sir Austen Chamberlain told Parliament that Britain would not attempt to take it back. Sapajou caught the mood with "father" John Bull reproving his "son" Sir Austen, sheepish and in short trousers, with the words "and how could you say such a thing, sonny?" Just as alarming, however, were the demands being raised against foreign employers by the new authorities, which included militant unions - including that of the Hankow bank employees (Figure 21). As the revolutionary forces approached Shanghai, therefore, the foreign community prepared for the worst, and the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, boosted by the auxiliaries of Britain's far-flung Empire, dug in for the siege (Figure 22).

While preparations were made to meet the worst, however, readers of the North-China Daily News were aware that the revolutionary forces were by no means fully united, and that there were possibly grounds for hope as well as for concern. As his portrayal in Figure 20 indicates, in the early stages of the Northern Expedition Chiang Kaishek was seen as very much part of the problem. As late as September 1926, in a cartoon entitled "The obsession of General Chiang Kai-shek," he is shown waving a pair of revolvers, a hysterical expression on his face, attempting vainly to rid the Yangtze in the vicinity of Hankow of foreign gunboats. By early March 1927, though, he is shown in struggle with the Communists (represented by Borodin), but it is the latter that appear to be winning (Figure 23). This was all very confusing for the waiting andapprehensive foreigners, as a further cartoon published only a week later makes very clear (Figure 24). Two weeks after that, however, with Chiang having taken up arms against his former Communist allies, the situation appeared very different indeed (Figure 25), and by July, with the Communists apparently defeated and Moscow's plans in disarray, it was possible for Sapajou to show Chiang for the first - but by no means the last - time in an unquestionably benign, indeed heroic, light (Figure 26). All in all, a pretty good result for the readers of the North-China Daily New, and for China's trade and British mercantile interests: the two, naturally enough, being seen by the readership as essentially one and the same thing (Figure 27).