plagued China alongside its efforts to combat the growing Communist threat together. The warlords who were allied with Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist government were only interested in retaining their power and defected to the Japanese side when Japanese invaders offered to let them keep their power in exchange for their collaborations. After the World War II, the forces of the Japanese puppet government realigned with the Nationalist faction, once more with the intention of retain their power as they had when collaborating with the Japanese. It was difficult for Chiang to effectively dispose of these warlords immediately upon their surrender to the Nationalists as such an action would have caused discontent among other Nationalist factions. Furthermore, the former Japanese–aligned warlords could aid the Nationalist cause by retaining control of their territory and combating Communist insurgents. This would have the added benefit of weakening both the Communists and the collaborators. Half a decade later, these bandits the Nationalist government had failed to exterminate were deemed undesirable candidates for evacuation to Taiwan, consequently their use as a force to combat the Communists appeared to be a logical alternative. If the bandits were able to undermine the Communist governance of mainland China, the Nationalist forces would have an advantage in their anticipated counterattack to retake China. On the other hand, if the bandits were subdued by the Communists then the Nationalists would have been spared the task of eradicating the bandit forces after retaking China. However the bandit forces were more interested in keeping their own power than suppressing the Chinese Communist Revolution, and thus did not devote any substantial effort to fighting the Communists. Furthermore, the eventual eradication of bandits by the Communist government only served to strengthen its popular support as the Communists had succeeded where previous governments as far back from Qing Dynasty had failed. Yet another strategic error by the Nationalist government involved the Nationalist forces left behind in mainland China. The Nationalist government required high quality and disciplined forces to defend Taiwan, the last Nationalist sanctuary. The forces which mainly comprised the forces of the Nationalist warlord allies were not the most suited to effect the last stand defense the Nationalist were preparing, and as such these forces were not given a high priority for evacuation. Instead, these forces were to remain on the mainland and continue to fight the Communists with guerrilla tactics. However this decision angered many