Huaihai Campaign

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Huaihai Campaign
Part of the Chinese Civil War
PLA troops, supported by an M5 Stuart light tank, engage Nationalist lines
Date 6 November 1948 – 10 January 1949 Location Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan Result Decisive Communist victory; The Nationalists lost all the territories north of Yangtze River.
Belligerents
Republic of China Army Nationalist 7th Army 6th Army 2nd Army 13th Army 16th Army,12th army,8th army	People's Liberation Army East China Field Army, Central Plains Field Army
Commanders
Liu Chih (刘峙), Du Yuming (杜聿明), Huang Wei (黃維), Huang Baitao (黄百韬), Qiu Qingquan (邱清泉), Hu Lian(胡琏), Li Mi (李弥)	Liu Bocheng (刘伯承), Deng Xiaoping (邓小平), Su Yu (粟裕), Tan Zhenlin (譚震林), Chen Yi (陈毅)
Strength
920,000	600,000
Casualties and losses
~555,000 (including non-combat losses,327,000 of which surrendered)	134,000

Huaihai Campaign (淮海戰役) or Battle of Hsupeng (徐蚌會戰) (also Battle of Xu-Bang) was a military action during 1948 and 1949 that was the determining battle of the Chinese Civil War. It was one of the few conventional battles of the war. 550,000 troops of the Republic of China (under the Kuomintang) were surrounded in Xuzhou (Hsuchow) and destroyed by the communist People's Liberation Army (PLA). This campaign is one of the three campaigns that marked the end of Nationalist dominance in northern China, the other two campaigns being Liaoshen and Pingjin.

[edit] KMT deployment

After the provincial capital of Shangdong province fell in the fall of 1948 to the communists, Xuzhou became an exposed salient. The Huang (Huai) River in Shandong and Jiangsu provinces was close by as was the Longhai Railway. In order to counter communist advance toward Xuzhou, the gateway toward Nanjing and Shanghai, President Chiang Kai Shek gathered five of his best American-trained and American-armed armies, and deployed two armies as reinforcement, occupying crucial railways. As Chiang ordered Shangdong province to be abandoned to concentrate his troop strength, highly placed communists leaked important intelligence to the communist commanders.

[edit] PLA strategy

General Su Yu, acting commander of the Eastern China Field army proposed a message to the Communist war council to attacking the Nationalist 6th and 7th armies still stationed in Shangdong province, the council quickliy approved his plan and ordered the Central China field army under Liu Bocheng, Chen Yi and Deng Xiaoping to attack KMT forces in Henan and Anhui province to break the government stronghold there, the Huaihai campaign has begun.

[edit] The Three Phases of the Battle

The Huaihai Campaign is usually divided into three main phases.

[edit] Phase 1

As Nationalist 6th and 7th armies started retreating to Xuzhou by crossing the grand canal, they were behind their original schedule. General Huang Baitao had had to wait for three days before troops from the 9th pacification zone arrived and did not secure several bridgeheads before crossing. Two days later on November 8, two corps totaling 23,000 KMT troops under their commanders He Jinfeng and Zhang Kexia (both secret communists) surrendered to the communists. The flank of 7th army was exposed and its retreat route to Xuzhou was cut. 70,000 men of the 7th army were surrounded in Nianzhuang (碾庄) village east of Xuzhou, with another 30,000 wiped out during the river crossing by the communists. General Du Yuming, who had taken over the field command from General Liu Chih, the nationalist commander-in-chief of Xuzhou garrison, devised a new strategy. The KMT forces would attack to the west and defeat the Central China Area Army and recapture Su Xian (宿县), a key railroad junction from the communists and then save General Huang Baitao's seventh army. However, Chiang Kai-Shek and General Liu Chih overruled his plan as being too risky and ordered the Xuzhou garrision to save the 7th army. The communists anticipated this move from good intelligence (thanks to the moles) and correct reasoning, deployed more than half of the Eastern China Field Army to blocking the relief effort. More importantly, General Qiu Qingquan, commander of the 2nd Army, had a personal feud with General Huang Baitao and was not really eager to save him. General Li Mi did try but was blocked by the communists. The 7th army managed to hold out for 11 days without supplies and reinforcement and inflicted 49,000 casualties on the PLA forces before being destroyed. General Huang Baitao committed suicide in his headquarters on November 22,1948.

[edit] Phase 2

23 November to 6 January

With the 7th army gone, east of Xuzhou was exposed to the communists. The communist-placed moles persuaded to Chiang to order the Xuzhou garrison to retreat to the South. Meanwhile, the Central Area Field Army surrounded the General Huang Wei's 12th Army which had arrived from Henan as reinforcement, only to be caught in a well-placed communist trap when they tried to retake Su Xian from the communists. General Liu Ruming's 8th army and General Li Yannian's 6th army tried to helped their beleagued colleague but were blocked by the communist forces. After nearly a month of bloody seesaw battle, the communist forces finally succeeded in destroying the 12th army, and captured a number of much needed supplies and conscripted KMT prisoners to their ranks. Chiang Kai Shek tried to save the 12th army and ordered the three armies of the Xuzhou garrison to turn to southeast and relieve the 12th army before it was too late. However, the communist forces caught up with them and they were encircled as well.

[edit] Phase 3

On December 15th, the day which the 12th army was wiped out, the 16th army under General Sun Yuanliang broke out from the communist encirlement on his own, althrough he made safely back to Nanjing, most of his officers and men were killed and captured in the process, General Du Yuming decideed to hold out as Chiang has ordered, as one of the ablest strategists in the nationalist army, he came up with three differrent plans of the current hopeless situation: first,recall the KMT troops in Xi'an and Wuhan to battle the communists. Second, to wait for reinforcement; and third was to breakout on their own. He was disappointed when Chiang chose riskiest one, to order them to breakout. But there were more than 10 days of heavy snowfalls, which made the nationalist air force impossible to gave air support to the besieged ground units. As food and ammunition ran out, many KMT soldeirs killed their horses to fed themselves; communist forces used food to entice the nationalist forces to surrender,about 10,000 did so. On January 6, 1949 Communist forces launched a general offensive on the 13th army, remnants of the 13th army withdrew to 2nd army's defense area, four days later they captured General Du Yuming, and General Qiu Qinquan shot himself while trying to break out with his troops, only General Li Mi was able to escape. The 6th and 8th KMT armies retreated to the south of the Huai river, and the campaign was over.

[edit] Aftermath and Consqeunces

Because majority of Chiang Kai Shek's Whampoa clique troops were lost during this campaign, his position in the KMT government was greatly weakened as a result. Chiang's old political rivals such as Vice President Li Zongren and Defense Minister Bai Chongxi attacked him on his policies and forced him to resign 11 days later. The military strength of the communists were now dominant in North and Central China, and posed to conquer the entire country; the lose of KMT government's best troops and majority of their American equipment meant that they could no longer effectively defend the Yangtze river delta from further communist attacks. The American government under President Harry Truman completely lost his faith in Chiang Kai Shek and the nationalist government, therefore refused to gave any further military and financial aid to the nationalists, and hastened collapse of KMT regime on the mainland.

[edit] Movies

In the 1980s, the CCP made three epic war movies called the Three Great Campaigns to commemorate their victories and propagate the view that they created a new China based on communism. The recent film Assembly was also based on the Huaihai Campaign.

[edit] See also

• List of Battles of Chinese Civil War
• National Revolutionary Army
• History of the People's Liberation Army
• Chinese Civil War

[edit] External links

• http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/carl/download/csipubs/bjorge_huai.pdf
• http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-4/mswv4_43.htm
• 粟裕與淮海戰役