The Chinese Civil War began in earnest three years later, when the 
Northerns, who didn't have access to nanotech, started lobbing nukes. Not long 
afterward, the Muslim nations had finally gotten their act together and overrun 
much of Xinjiang Province, killing some of the Han Chinese population and 
driving the rest eastward into the maw of the civil war. Colonel Moore suffered 
an extremely dire infestation of primitive nanosites and was removed from the 
action and put on extended convalescent leave. By that time, the truce line 
between the Celestial Kingdom and the Coastal Republic had been 
established.