"Our interest here is not in the war dead, but in the innocents and helpless who were slaughtered during, between, or after these wars. This because they happened to live on one side or the other, or were victims of the repression and terror of those armies or governments that occupied their land. Of those killed by warlords little need be said. Although some warlords were considerate of their subjects, ruling benevolently, generally they were tyrants brooking little opposition. Repression was often massive and massacres were not infrequent; opposition usually meant death. The figures on those killed by the warlords are the roughest of all in this book. Putting available information together and making some conservative guesses, however, I estimate that some 910,000 people likely were murdered by the warlords or their soldiers, perhaps even a third more than this."
More about this at moreorless : heroes & killers of the 20th century
Mao is still a hero to lots of people, see:
"THE PARTY-Red Line" from Italy and Reference Archive: Mao Zedong from Marxists.org and he is in the Time 100, but also is Tank Man, read and see more of this hero Frontline, and more about June 5, 1989, one day after the Chinese army's deadly crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing Here and even more on The Peking Duck.