In early 1934, Seeckt advised Chiang that to defeat the Chinese Communists was to wage a scorched earth policy, which required building a series of lines and forts around areas controlled by the Communists in the Jiangxi Soviet in order to force the Communist guerrillas to fight in the open, where the superior firepower of the Nationalists would give them an advantage.[87] Following Seeckt's advice, in the spring and summer of 1934 the Kuomintang built three thousand "turtle shell" forts linked by a series of roads while at the same time pursuing a scorched earth policy around the forts as part of the Fifth Bandit Extermination Campaign in Jiangxi.[2][87] It was Seeckt's tactics that led to a series of defeats suffered by the Chinese Communists that finally in October 1934 led to the famous Long March.[88]