the nationalists and communists in china formed an alliance against chiang kai - shek.
who did the nationalists and communists in china form an alliance against?
chiang kai - shek
the second grave strategic miscalculation made by the retreating nationalists was also similar to the one the nationalists had made when it attempted to simultaneously solve the warlord problem that had plagued china for so long with the problem of the exterminating communists together: those warlords allied with chiang's nationalist regime were only interested in keeping their own power and defected to the japanese side when japanese invaders offered to let them keep their power in exchange for their collaborations. after world war ii, these forces of former japanese puppet regimes once again returned to the nationalist camp for the same reason they defected to the japanese invaders. obviously, it was difficult for chiang to immediately get rid of these warlords for good as soon as they surrendered to chiang and rejoined nationalists, because such move would alienate other factions within the nationalist ranks, and those bandits and former japanese puppet regime's warlords could still help the nationalists to by holding on to what was under their control and fighting off communists, and they and the communists would both be weakened. similarly, the bandits chiang's government had failed to exterminate were obviously not good candidates for neither joining the regular troops nor being honorably discharged, and using them to fight communists appeared to be the only logical alternative. if the communists were great weakened by the bandits, then it would the nationalists would have easier time in their counterattacks to retake china. if the bandits were defeated, then the nationalists would have easier job to eradicate them later after retaking china. however, just like those warlords, these bandits were mostly only interested in keeping their own power also, and thus did not put any real efforts to fight the communists like some of the nationalists who were dedicated to their political cause. the eradication of bandits by the communist regime only strengthened its popular support since previous governments dating back from qing dynasty had failed to do so.
campaign to suppress bandits in northeast china
communists, like their nationalist counterparts, also made a grave miscalculation, but in comparison to the nationalists, the communists were very quick in correcting their miscalculation and avoided disasters nationalists had suffered. the communist miscalculation was only made in the initial stage when they first ventured into northeast china after world war ii: during the start of their campaign to establish communist base in northeast china, communists were eager to expand their force in region, but most of the communist force sent to northeast china did not reach their final destination, especially after the defense of the great wall. although the communists managed to send more than 270,000 troops to northeast china, most of them were contained in rehe, chahar, and suiyuan by the nationalist forces. although most of these areas belonged to the communist northeast china military region, the communist force contained there was not much of help in supporting their comrades in the northeast. the problem of the lack of soldiers was further compounded by the need to enlist troops who knew the local area and as a result, the northeastern communists made a grave miscalculation in concentrating on expanding their numbers by enlist the help of local bandits. however, the economically deprived communists were obviously no match for the better conditioned nationalists who could provide more resources, and as a result, when the communists begun to abandon large cities in northeast china in their retreat, most bandits that first temporarily sided with communists defected to the nationalists in battalions and regiments, or even in brigades. for example, in a single communist base to the north of changchun alone, over 33,200 former bandit-turned communist troops turned against the communists by the end of december 1945.
campaign to suppress bandits in northeast china