Central Plains War - Aftermath

Aftermath

The Central Plains War was the biggest armed conflict inside the Kuomintang party since the 1926-27 Northern Expedition. Many provinces were affected, and the sides committed over 1,300,000 troops combined, suffering over 300,000 casualties combined. As a result, the Nanjing government was nearly bankrupt. The troops that were originally tasked with destroying the Red Army were pulled away, which prevented Chiang from carrying out his plan to exterminate the Chinese Communist Party.

After the Northeast Army's entrance to Central China, Manchuria's defense was considerably weakened. It indirectly led to Japan's aggression in the Mukden Incident. In a wider view, this battle reflects the weakness behind the Nationalist government's unification. The Kuomintang was unable to resolve the internal dispute between the central government and the regional powers through political methods, and had to resort to military measures. Even though Chiang Kai-shek, who represented the central government, managed to achieve victory in the Central Plains War, the methods he used, including bribery of subordinates of the opposition, were not consistently effective. It did nothing to cement unity among the cliques in the party. The Xi'an Incident in 1936 and the collapse of the Kuomintang force in the Chinese Civil War are to an extent due the recurrence of this internal conflict.