of the troops left behind, and it was unlikely that they would fight the Communists with the same vigor as Nationalist forces with political motivation. Compounding this problem, due to the need of bandits' knowledge of the local area, leaders among the bandits were often granted higher ranks than the Nationalist troops left behind. As a result, the Nationalist regulars–turned–guerrillas often were unwilling to work in conjunction to the bandits they were once tasked to exterminate, especially as many of these forces had earlier engaged each other in combat during pacification campaigns. Similarly, the bandits were similarly willing to cooperate and attempted to expend those Nationalist troops when possible in order to spare their comrades. The retreating Nationalist government made another significant error which was financial in nature. Due to the lack of money, those bandits turned guerrillas were mostly provided with arms, but not sufficient supplies and money. The bandits turned guerrilla had no problem of looting the local population to get what they need, as they had done for decades, which inevitably drove the general popular support further into the communist side. The little financial support provided by the nationalist government was simply not enough to support such guerrilla and insurgency warfare on such a large scale. Another unexpected but disastrous result of the insufficient financial support was that it had greatly eroded the support of the nationalist government within its own ranks. The wealthy landowners and businessmen were the strong supporters of nationalist government and as their properties were confiscated by the communists and redistributed to the poor, their hatred toward the communist government was enough to cause many of them to stay behind voluntarily to fight behind the enemy line. However, the landowners and businessmen were also longtime victims of bandits due to their wealth, and many of them had suffered even more than the general populace who had far less wealth. As these former landowners and businessmen turned guerrilla fighters were ordered to join their former bandits who once threatened, looted, kidnapped and even killed them and their relatives, it was obvious that such cooperation was mostly in name only and could not produce any actual benefits, and the alienation and discontent toward the nationalist government harbored by these once ardent nationalists would only grow greater. Another problem for the nationalists was the strong disagreement among themselves over how to fight the war against their