Nanchang is the capital of the inland province of Jiangxi, bordered to the east by Poyang Lake and to the west by the Jiuling mountains. Historically a commercial centre for trade as it facilitated overland routes to Canton from the north, its economic importance declined following the devastation of the Taiping Rebellion. It is in Nanchang where the Kuomintang and the Communists first came to blows in 1927, the latter successfully occupying the city for a few days before escaping a subsequent siege by National Revolutionary Army forces.

This Nationalist victory allowed Nanchang to become a stronghold for Chiang Kai-shek's government, meaning that even when it fell to the Japanese in the Spring of 1939 it would not submit so easily to military authority. Nor did it take well to the rule of the collaborators—the Jiangxi Provincial Government would have to move its operations to Jiujiang before the war's end, such was the fervour of resistance in the city.

Despite being eventually pacified, to this day many in Nanchang remain in discontent with the so-called Republic of China, and the central government in Nanjing certainly returns the sentiment, with every year bringing less funding for development. This money is instead spent on ensuring the local police have sturdier batons to knuckle heads together with. While still the nominal core of Jiangxi as its capital—and still strategically important for the central government— Nanchang is clearly a shell of its former self, while the new developing cities in the region such as Jiujiang and Ganjiang creep out of the shade to take their place in the sun.