state of civil war. Weapons used in armed conflicts included some 18.77 million guns (some claim 1.877 million), 2.72 million grenades, 14,828 cannons, millions of other ammunitions and even armored cars as well as tanks. Notable violent struggles include the battles in Chongqing, in Sichuan, and in Xuzhou. Researchers have pointed out that the nationwide death toll in violent struggles ranges from 300,000 to 500,000. The incidence of violence rose in 1967, reaching a peak in summer of 1967 before dropping suddenly. During 1967, casualties were relatively low as weapons used during violent struggles were primarily clubs, spears, and rocks until late July. Although firearms and heavier weapons began to spread among the combatants during summer, most combatants at that time were neither trained nor committed fighters and therefore casualties remained relatively low. The peak of collective violence in summer 1967 dropped sharply after August, when Mao became concerned about rebel attacks on local army units and thereafter made clear that his prior calls to "drag out" army commanders was a mistake and he would instead support besieged army commands. The greatest number of casualties occurred with the process of restoring order in 1968, although the overall number of violent conflicts was lower. Academic Andrew G. Walder states that while "rising casualties rom a smaller number of insurgent conflicts surely reflected the increasing scale and organizational coherence of rebel factions, and their growing access to military weaponry[,]" another important factor was that "[t]he longer that local factional warfare continued without the prospect of an equitable political settlement, the greater the stakes for the participants and the more intense the collective violence as factions fought to avoid the consequence of losing." In addition to violent struggles, millions of people in China were violently persecuted, especially in the struggle sessions. Those identified as spies, "running dogs," "revisionists," or coming from a suspect class (including those related to former landlords or rich peasants) were subject to beating, imprisonment, rape, torture, sustained and systematic harassment and abuse, seizure of property, denial of medical attention, and erasure of social identity. Intellectuals were also targeted. Many survivors and observers suggest that almost anyone with skills over that of the average person was made the target of political "struggle" in some way. At least hundreds of thousands of people were murdered, starved, or worked to death. Millions more were forcibly displaced. Young people from the cities were