 The remaining communists in his army used the confusion to launch the Guangzhou Uprising, which Zhang immediately quelled with three divisions.However, he was blamed for the fiasco and resigned his command.Before the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, he participated in a series of local conflicts in order to stop the growing influence of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Government in his province and was an active member during the Central Plains War against the Nanjing government.