sentences:  Sun Yat-sen and Chen Jiongming soon split over the continuation of the Northern Expedition.Chen, however, aspired merely to be the warlord of Guangdong and after the Zhili clique in Beijing recognized his power in the south, he abandoned Sun Yat-sen. By May 1922 the Cantonese forces had evacuated Guangxi leaving a power vacuum.Lu Rongting could construct a political and military machine from the forces that composed the Self-government Armies, by calling on friendship, family, and Zhuang ethnicity, but the lack of such a leader led to a rapid collapse into localism, which occurred as the Guangdong forces withdrew.