Other than Mao Dun's works, he also participated in Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition (1926–28) in an attempt to unify China, which was failed and he fled to Kuling, when the Kuomintang dissolved relations with the Chinese Communist Party. In the 1930s he was one of the key founders of the League of Left-Wing Writers, which was dissolved in a quarrel in 1936. After the initiation of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Mao traveled to many places and started a literary magazine in Wuhan. He edited the periodical "Literary Front" and the literary page of the newspaper "Libao" in Hong Kong and worked as a teacher. After 1943 Mao Dun did not produce any major works, but still wrote some articles and essays. In 1946 he visited the Soviet Union.