Their occupation was largely nominal because armed bands of Guangxi loyalists began to gather under local commanders, calling themselves the Self-government Army.

With the support of Wu Peifu and the Zhili clique Lu Rongting slipped back into Guangxi in 1923 and began to try to rebuild his coalition.

Among the younger men who had been trained in military schools after the 1911 revolution there was a new appreciation for modern tactics, weapons, and political means.

In the confused power struggles following the Yue-Gui Wars, these local military men began to carve out territory in Guangxi and dominate it.

During the Yue-Gui wars, Huang Shaohong, then the commander of the Model Battalion of the 1st Guangxi Division, and Bai Chongxi his former deputy, attempted to stay neutral and relocated to Baise.

During the Yue-Gui Wars, Li Zongren had accompanied Lin Hu and Lu Rongting into Guangdong and led the rear guard when the Old Guangxi Clique forces retreated before Chen Jiongming's attack.

These were to be the equal of any force in China and more than a match for any number of bandits or Zhuang irregulars that Lu Rongting drew on in his war to re-establish his power in Guangxi.

Li Zongren also authorized the funding of middle class farmers to produce at full capacity, exporting additional rice to neighboring Guangdong province.

As was later true for Chiang Kai-shek's government, the taxes were collected via opium suppression offices, ostensibly created to destroy the trade.

Despite the heavy taxation, the New Guangxi Clique was extremely popular, and widely accepted by the citizens of the province Introducing a series of moderately scaled land, and economic reform, and minimal amounts of deregulation being experimented with in select counties and regions.

In April 1928, Li Zongren, with Bai Chongxi, who was credited with many victories over the northern warlords, led the Fourth Army group to advance on Beijing, capturing Handan, Baoding, and Shijiazhuang, by June 1.

At the end of the Northern Expedition, Chiang Kai-shek began to agitate to reorganize the army, the fact that it would alter the existing territorial influences among the Cliques in the party quickly aggravated the relationships between the central government and the regional powers.

Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi and Huang Shaohong of the Guangxi Clique were the first to break off relations with Chiang in March 1929, which started the confrontation that lead to the Central Plains War.

Following defeat in that civil war, Guangxi allied with Chen Jitang after he became chairman of the government of Guangdong in 1931, and turned against Chiang Kai-shek.