| Abstract: | After the Japanese occupation of North China at the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War, the Nationalist government adopted the strategy of using the regular army to develop the battlefield to the rear of the enemy in order to sustain a protracted war. As a result, the Northwestern Army, which was organizing anti-Japanese forces in North China, became the Nationalist government's main military force in the occupied area. However, caught between Japanese and Communist troops, the Northwestern Army surrendered to the Japanese for the purpose of self-preservation and thus became a puppet army. From a nationalist point of view, the collaborationists who covered up their self-serving motives and later defended their actions as a crooked path to national salvation had a negative image. In response to Communist expansion, the Nationalist government acquiesced in the measure of collaborating with the puppet troops to annihilate the Communists. To reinforce the battles at the front, the Nationalist government also attempted to plot anti-Japanese mutinies among the puppet troops, but its plan was never implemented. The Northwestern Army forces planned to build an alliance in order to survive as a third force both in the confrontation between the Chinese government and the Japanese army and in the confrontation between the Nationalists and the Communists. Yet, due to the tight control exercised by the Japanese in North China, it was difficult for the Northwestern Army to gain momentum as a third force. After the end of the Anti-Japanese War, the Northwestern Army had to take sides in the Civil War, and this dilemma caused its final collapse. |
