Japan allies with the Chinese warlords in a longer warlord period.

[Pauh the federalist]

With a post-1900 pod if the warlord period lasted longer and Japan allied with most of the cliques,
warlords and breakaway state, ect. with the primary motivation to eliminate China as a threat, by preventing it from uniting, by the method of dividing it between the warlords and its self, how would this affect Japans performance war against China?

(Japan can become involved anytime in-between 1916 the otl start of the warlord era and 1937 the otl start of the Japanese war on China)

(for reference)
Japanese troop numbers over time can be found here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Army#Growth_and_organization_of_the_IJA

Warlord factions can be found here (it does not label breakaway states like Tibet etc)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_..._cliques_in_the_Warlord_Era#Northern_Factions

 

[fasquardon]

With a post-1900 pod if the warlord period lasted longer and Japan allied with most of the cliques,
warlords and breakaway state, ect. with the primary motivation to eliminate China as a threat, by preventing it from uniting, by the method of dividing it between the warlords and its self, how would this affect Japans performance war against China?

(Japan can become involved anytime in-between 1916 the otl start of the warlord era and 1937 the otl start of the Japanese war on China)

The problem is, the Japanese did ally with warlords, and proceeded to comprehensively demonstrate their true colours, turning all of the warlords against Japan.

Japan acting to boost disunity among the Chinese will turn the Chinese against her.

The alternative is if Japan instead picked a side they figured they'd be more friendly to their interests and backed them and their allies to win, leading to a new all-China military government (if Japan backed a warlord). That might have led to Japan being the ally of all the surviving warlords. But that's not really what you're asking for.

fasquardon

 

[FillyofDelphi]

The warlords were fighting to take control of China, not break off from it. As fasquardon pointed out, Japan would need to honestly support a friendly client to win the civil war. Though you may be able to pull off a China that's deep in debt and has a more decemdecentered power structure, which might just be better in terms of limiting China as a threat. A broken China can be more easily brought under control by a strong, compitent centeralizer and modernizers than for said man to successfully climb the ranks of a corrupt but legitiment and functioning political ladder, since "flipping the table" and using any means nessicery is harder when there's standing and respected rules of political conflict