Something I've always been curious about and which the Wikipedia articles on Chiang Kai-shek and Taiwan and any other readings I've seen only glaze over. Wikipedia states that in 1949 Chiang evacuated about 2 million people to Taiwan and doesn't elaborate from there. This leaves me with many many questions.

How exactly did Chiang get them all to Taiwan? Did the KMT have a navy it used to transport them? How and when was the decision that the war was lost made, and how did the decision to move to Taiwan come about? How did Chiang... Convince? Force? Two million people to leave their homes? Presumably these people were spread across a wide area, how was their evacuation coordinated? Also, I'm guessing Mao didn't just sit around and watch this happen. Were KMT forces just trying to slow Mao down to stall for time? Were many left behind to buy time for this evacuation?

Further, Wikipedia states that Chiang's last stand on the mainland was in Chengdu, far from the coast. While it does state that Chiang flew out from an airfield in Chengdu to Taiwan, I've got to imagine that Chengdu, being one of the last KMT strongholds, and the surrounding province were a power base for Chiang and that many of his supporters were there. How did those who were not fortunate enough to get on an airplane get out? I'm guessing the KMT airforce wasn't particularly large although I have no actual knowledge about this.