Huaihai campaign
| Huaihai campaign | |||||||||
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| Part of the M5 Stuart light tanks, attacking the Nationalist lines | |||||||||
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| 800,000[1] | 1,100,000 combatants - 600,000 regulars, 500,000 reserve militia[2] | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Total: 555,099[citation needed] of which 327,000 were either captured or went over to the Communists. | Total: 134,000[citation needed] | ||||||||
The Huaihai campaign (Chinese: 淮海戰役; pinyin: Huáihǎi Zhànyì), or Battle of Hsupeng (traditional Chinese: 徐蚌會戰; simplified Chinese: 徐蚌会战; pinyin: Xúbèng Huìzhàn), was one of the military conflicts in the late stage of the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The campaign started when the People's Liberation Army (PLA) launched a major offensive against the Kuomintang headquarters in Xuzhou on 6 November 1948, and ended on 10 January 1949 when the PLA reached the north of the Yangtze.
Background
After the
PLA strategy
Campaign
Encirclement of Xuzhou (6–22 November 1948)
As the Nationalist Sixth and Seventh Army began retreating to Xuzhou by crossing the Grand Canal, they were behind their original schedule. Lieutenant General
Shuangduiji campaign (23 November – 15 December 1948)
With the Seventh Army no longer in existence, the east flank of Xuzhou were completely exposed to Communist attack. The Communist sympathizer in the Nationalist government managed to persuade Chiang to move the Nationalist headquarters to the south.[3][page needed] In the meanwhile, the Communist Central Plains Field Army intercepted the Nationalist Twelfth Army led by Huang Wei coming from Henan as reinforcements. General Liu Ruming's Eighth Army and Lieutenant General Li Yannian's Sixth Army tried to break the Communist siege but to no avail. The Twelfth Army also ceased to exist after nearly a month of bloody conflicts, with many newly taken Nationalist prisoners of war joining the Communist forces instead.[3][page needed] Only Huang's deputy commander, Lieutenant General Hu Lien, riding in an armored tank, managed to penetrate the Communist encirclement with 8,000 survivors, but was badly wounded in the breakout.[3][page needed] Chiang Kai-shek tried to save the Twelfth Army. On November 30, 1948, he ordered the three armies still under the Suppression General Headquarters of Xuzhou Garrison to turn southeast and relieve the Twelfth Army before it was too late. However, the PLA forces caught up with them and they were encircled only 9 miles from Xuzhou.[3][page needed]
Fall of Xuzhou (23 December 1948 – 10 January 1949)
On December 15, the day which the 12th army was wiped out, the 16th army under General Sun Yuanliang broke out from the CCP encirclement on its own. Although Sun himself made it safely back to Nanjing, most of his officers and soldiers were killed or captured in the process. Du Yuming decided to hold out as Chiang had ordered. As one of the ablest strategists in the ROC army, Du Yuming came up with three different options for the current hopeless situation: first, recall the ROC troops in Xi'an and Wuhan to battle the communists; second, to wait for reinforcements; and the third was to break out on their own. He was disappointed when Chiang chose the riskiest one: order them to break out. There was more than a month of heavy snowfalls, which made the ROC air forces unable to provide air support to the besieged ground units. As food and ammunition diminished, many ROC soldiers killed their horses to feed themselves and communist forces used food to entice the ROC forces to surrender; about 10,000 did so. On January 6, 1949, communist forces launched a general offensive on the 13th army and remnants of the 13th army withdrew to 2nd army's defense area. Four days later, communist forces captured General Du Yuming; General Qiu Qinquan shot himself while trying to break out with his troops; only General Li Mi was able to escape back to Nanjing. The 6th and 8th armies of ROC retreated to the south of Huai river, and the campaign was over.[3][page needed]
Throughout the campaign, large amounts of ROC troops defected to the CCP.[4]: 204
Aftermath
The heavy losses suffered by Whampoa-trained troops under the direct command of Chiang significantly weakened the position of Chiang in the Nationalist government. With pressure from former political rivals such as Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, Chiang announced his temporary retirement. As the PLA approached the Yangtze, the momentum shifted completely toward the CCP side. Without effective measures against PLA advance across the Yangtze, the Nationalist government in Nanjing began losing their support from the United States, as American military aid gradually came to a stop. As a result, Chiang Kai-shek, the President of the Nationalist government, stepped down on January 21, 1949.
Films
In 1991, the August First Film Studio released the epic war trilogy Decisive Engagement in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the CCP, the second film of which was centered on the Huaihai Campaign, starring Gu Yue as Mao Zedong, Zhao Hengduo as Chiang Kai-shek, Fu Xuecheng as Liu Bocheng, Liu Xitian as Chen Yi, Xie Weicai as Su Yu, Lu Qi as Deng Xiaoping, Xu Zhengyun as Du Yuming, Xu Huanshan as Huang Baitao and Sheng Zhong as Qiu Qingquan. The 2007 film Assembly was also based on the Huaihai campaign. More recently the Shanghai Film Studio (上海电影制片厂) [5] made the 2009 film, The Founding of a Republic to commemorate the 60th year of the CCP; there was a scene dedicated to this campaign, also Assembly was initially set on this part of campaign, which the protagonist's group was sacrificed to save the whole regiment.
See also
References
Citations
- ^ Chien, Jimmy (2015). Analyzing Two Key Points of the Huaihai Campaign Using Sun Tzu's Net Assessment (MA). University of Massachusetts Amhers. Retrieved 22 April 2022.
- ^ Chien, Jimmy (2015). Analyzing Two Key Points of the Huaihai Campaign Using Sun Tzu's Net Assessment (MA). University of Massachusetts Amhers. Retrieved 22 April 2022.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Bjorge, Gary. Moving the Enemy: Operational Art in the Chinese PLA's Huai Hai Campaign (PDF). Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-03-26.
- ISBN 978-1-009-29761-5.
- ^ "The Founding of a Republic (2009)". IMDb.
Sources
- Eastman, Lloyd E. (1986). The Nationalist Era in China, 1927–1949. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-38591-1.
- Koga, Yukiko (2016). Inheritance of Loss: China, Japan, and the Political Economy of Redemption After Empire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226412139.
- Lary, Diana (2015). China's Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107054677.
- Taylor, Jay (2009). The Generalissimo. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-03338-2.
- Westad, Odd Arne (2003). Decisive encounters : the Chinese Civil War, 1946–1950. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-4478-5.
- Worthing, Peter (2017). General He Yingqin: The Rise and Fall of Nationalist China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107144637.
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