Campaign to suppress bandits in southwestern China

Like other Nationalist futile attempts to wage guerrilla and insurgency warfare against the Communist forces after evacuation of the Nationalist government to Taipei, the first Nationalist strategic miscalculation made was at least an equal if not larger factor than the enemy's political and military pressure in the Nationalist defeat in this campaign. Immediately after World War II, the Nationalists had neither sufficient forces nor adequate logistical capabilities to secure the Japanese-occupied regions of China; the Nationalist government, unwilling allow these regions to fall into Communist control, ordered the Japanese and their Chinese puppet government not to surrender to the Communists and allowed them to retain their fighting capabilities to 'maintain order' in occupied regions which entailed resisting Communist forces. This decision incurred resentment from the populace in Japanese occupied territory, further eroding local support of the Nationalist government which was already blamed for the allowing the successful Japanese invasion in the first place. Half a decade later as the National Revolutionary Army was driven from mainland China, the Nationalists made another miscalculation in their desperation by enlisting the support of local bandits in the fight the Communists and ordered those Nationalist forces remaining in mainland China to join the bandits in combat against the communism. This decision proved unwise as the bandits were deeply feared and hated by the local populace which they preyed upon, and the sight of Nationalist forces joining the bandits further diminished the support for the Nationalist forces and solidified support for the People's Republic of China.

Another strategic miscalculation made by the Nationalists was similar to the one the nationalist government had made immediately after World War II, when it attempted to simultaneously address the warlord problem that had 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 communist revolution in China, 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 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 communist enemy. Military professionals preferred to fight a total war, incapacitate the enemy's ability to fight, but this inevitably conflicted with the interest of another faction of strong supporters of the nationalist government: the landowners and businessmen, who joined bandits to oppose such tactic. The reason was that landowners and businessmen supporting and joining the nationalist guerrilla firmly believed that the nationalists would be able to retake mainland China within several years and they would be able to regain their lost lands, businesses, and other properties that were confiscated and redistributed to the poor by the communists. As the nationalist military professionals in the guerrilla suggested and destroyed the production facilities and businesses as part of the total war, the landowners and businessmen would not be able to regain any valuable properties after the return of the nationalist government because those properties had been destroyed. The bandits agreed with the businessmen and landowners to oppose the idea of total war for a different reason: when the properties were destroyed and productivity dropped, they would not be able to loot enough supply to survive. As a result, despite the animosities between the bandits and landowners and businessmen, they were united together in the opposition to the military professional faction of the nationalists.

In contrast to the nationalists, the Communists had much simpler and more effective strategy aided by their lack of the same order of problems as the Nationalists: the Communist forces simply needed to eradicate bandits. The Communist forces exploited Nationalist error to their advantage. As with all other bandit eradication campaigns, the Communist strategy sought to mobilize the victim populations to against the bandits. Furthermore, the Communists were in position to custom tailor specific strategies to combat bandits in specific localities.