How did Modern Standard Chinese develop from Mandarin and the Beijing vernacular?

Modern Standard Chinese, or putonghua, emerged from a threefold foundation: the written post-Classical language, the spoken standard of Imperial times known as Mandarin, and the specific vernacular of Beijing.12

These idioms were historically related, but the transition to a unified national language was catalyzed by the May Fourth Movement in 1919. Influenced by the scholar Hu Shi, reformers rejected the traditional Classical Chinese (wenyan) as the standard written medium in favor of the vernacular.1

Following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the government implemented a large-scale linguistic plan to promote this standardized form. By integrating the Beijing-based dialect—which serves as the core of the modern standard—with broader Mandarin traditions, the state successfully imparted literacy and a common spoken language to millions of people across the country, regardless of their native regional dialects.123