the time of the offensive and the location of the offensive had turned the local populace from alienation to resentment, this third blunder had certainly turned the local population against the nationalists by driven their support firmly to the enemy side, and not only this contributed to the nationalist failure of this campaign, but it also paved the way for another nationalist defeat in the Campaign of Marching into the Dabie Mountains when enemy returned to the region a year later. The deployment of the warlords' troops also serious hindered the nationalist attempt to eradicate the enemy in that the warlords' objectives were completely different from that of Chiang Kai-shek. In contrast to Chiang Kai-shek's objective of exterminating the enemy within the region, the warlords' objective was purely eradication instead of extermination. Due to the worry (with justification) of Chiang Kai-shek's attempt to simultaneously solve the warlord problem that had plagued China for so long and the problem of the extermination of communism together, the warlords were well aware that their own forces will be significantly reduced if they were really to fight the enemy and once the enemy were exterminated as Chiang Kai-shek had hoped, their forces would be sent elsewhere in China to fight the communists. Consequently, their power and turfs would significantly reduced or even lost completely as the military strength was diminished. On the other hand, if the enemy were allowed to escape unharmed, they would create problem for Chiang Kai-shek in other part of the China and thus Chiang would not have the resource to confront the warlords. Furthermore, as the enemy was allowed to escape unscratched in the region, Chiang Kai-shek's own troops would be forced to bear the brunt of the fighting while the warlords would consolide the power in the newly gained territories. As a result, just like in the Long March, the warlords' had never put any real effort to fight the enemy and the majority of the nationalist casualties in this campaign were among Chiang Kai-shek's own troops. Again, Chiang Kai-shek and his followers were well aware the drawbacks of deploying warlords' troops but went on with the plan anyway, but Chiang Kai-shek did it for a reason, and in fact, a rather very good reason. As Chiang's sympathizers had accurately pointed out (and again agreed by Chiang's communist adversaries), it was already extremely difficult to convince the warlords to