 The Three (or Five) Ma took control of the region during the Warlord Era, siding first with the Guominjun and then the Kuomintang; they fought against the Red Army during the Long March and the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War.The Ma Clique controlled vast amounts of land in the northwest, included Xining and Hezhou.The Qing dynasty had granted Ma Bufang's family a yellow standard which had his family name "Ma" on it.