The Chinese civil war lasted up until 1955 when the Nationalists were finally pushed back the Taiwan. However, in the last five years of the war the Communists suffered heavy losses with the Nationalists resorting to slash and burn tactics a huge famine spreads over much of China for most of 1955 and 1956 killing millions and causing even more to desert the major cities in search of food. In 1955 at the outbreak of the Korean War, the Peoples Liberation Army and Navy is sent to help the North Koreans. (the events of the war are the same, just 5 years later, the status quo is maintained.)