In 1929, the nationalists believed they had a chance to unite China simply because of their position relative to the rest of the country. Although they were outnumbered in area by the warlord clans, who had fifteen groups of warlord-controlled sectors of the country, the nationalist support was centralized on the coast of China. Specifically, they had control of the majority of the regions of Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and about half of Henan. This territory bridges the land between the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea, making it a powerful plot of land. Again, this is mainly due to coastline access, but population is much higher in this area as opposed to warlord groups closer to Tibet or in the south, like Li.
The nationalist strategy to defeat the communists led by Mao Zedong was to defeat the smaller groups of CCP Soviets in southern China first, in regions such as Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Fujian. By 1935, four of these Soviet groups were eliminated. The nationalists must have planned to confine as many Soviets as they could in Shanxi by chasing them out of their bases. Two of the four defeated Soviet groups migrated and eventually ended the march in the same place as the Front Army. For example, the Soviets in Anhui were defeated, so they moved to …show more content…
Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing had been captured by the Japanese already. Zhejiang to Manchuria was under Japanese control, and China was losing power. Without the coastline, China had no control over shipping. Without the capital, China had almost no control of the people. Mao and Chiang did not like each other, but they liked foreigners, like the Japanese, less. After realizing that China is at risk from a loss of the Japanese, Chiang and Mao decided to work together to protect China from outsiders before one