Huaihai Campaign (Chinese: 淮海戰役; pinyin: Huáihǎi Zhànyì) or Battle of Hsupeng (simplified Chinese: 徐蚌会战; traditional Chinese: 徐蚌會戰; pinyin: Xúbèng Huìzhàn, also Battle of Xu-Beng) 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.
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After Jinan, the provincial capital of Shandong 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 PLA advances toward Xuzhou, the gateway toward Nanjing and Shanghai, Chiang Kai Shek gathered five of his best American-trained and American-armed armies, and deployed two more armies as reinforcements, occupying crucial railways. As Chiang ordered Shandong province to be abandoned to concentrate his troop strength, highly placed communist moles in the KMT Army leaked important intelligence to the PLA commanders.
Su Yu, acting commander of the Eastern China Field army proposed an operational plan to the Communist war council. The plan was to attack the Nationalist 6th and 7th armies still stationed in Shandong province. The council quickly approved his plan and ordered the Central Plains field army under Liu Bocheng, Chen Yi (Commander of the Eastern China Field Army and liaison to the Central Plains Field Army) and Deng Xiaoping (Political Commissar of the Central Plains Field Army) to attack KMT forces in Henan and Anhui provinces in hopes of breaking the government stronghold there. The Huaihai campaign had begun.
The Huaihai Campaign is usually divided into three main phases.
As Nationalist 6th and 7th armies started retreating to Xuzhou by crossing the grand canal, they were behind their original schedule. Huang Baitao of the 7th army 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 Jifeng 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. The deputy commander-in-chief of Suppression General Headquarter of Xuzhou Garrison General Du Yuming, who had taken over the field command from 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 Plains Field Army and recapture Su Xian (宿县), a key railroad junction from the communists and then save Huang Baitao's seventh army. However, Chiang Kai-Shek and Liu Chih overruled his plan as being too risky and ordered the Xuzhou Garrison to rescue the 7th army directly. The communists anticipated this move from good intelligence (thanks to the secret agents) and correct reasoning, deployed more than half of the Eastern China Field Army to blocking the relief effort. More importantly, Qiu Qingquan, commander of the 2nd Army, had a personal feud with Huang Baitao and was not really eager to save him. The 13th Army commanded by 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. Huang Baitao committed suicide in his headquarters on November 22, 1948.
23 November to 6 January
With the 7th army gone, east of Xuzhou was exposed to the PLA forces. The communist-placed secret agent persuaded Chiang to order the Suppression General Headquarter of Xuzhou Garrison to retreat to the South.[1] Meanwhile the Central Plains Field Army surrounded 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. Liu Ruming's 8th army and Li Yannian's 6th army tried to helped their trapped KMT armies but were blocked by the PLA forces. After nearly a month of bloody seesaw battles, the PLA forces completely destroyed the 12th army, and captured a number of much needed supplies and conscripted KMT prisoners to their ranks. Only Huang's deputy, Hu Lian, riding in an armor tank, managed to penetrate the communist encirclement but was badly wounded. Chiang Kai Shek tried to save the 12th army and ordered the three armies still under the Suppression General Headquarter of Xuzhou Garrison to turn southeast and relieve the 12th army before it was too late. However, the PLA forces caught up with them and they were encircled as well.
On December 15, the day which the 12th army was wiped out, the 16th army under Sun Yuanliang broke out from the communist encirclement on its own. Although Sun himself made safely back to Nanjing, most of his officers and men were killed or captured in the process. Du Yuming decided to hold out as Chiang has ordered. As one of the ablest strategists in the nationalist army, Du Yuming came up with three different options for the current hopeless situation: first, recall the KMT troops in Xi'an and Wuhan to battle the communists; Second, to wait for reinforcements; and the third was to breakout on their own. He was disappointed when Chiang chose the riskiest one: order them to breakout. Unfortunately, there were more than one month of heavy snowfalls, which made the nationalist air forces impossible to provide air support to the besieged ground units. As food and ammunition ran out, many KMT soldiers killed their horses to feed themselves and 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 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 KMT retreated to the south of Huai river, and the campaign was over.
Because the majority of Chiang Kai Shek's Whampoa troops were lost during this campaign, his position in the KMT government was greatly weakened. 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 poised to conquer the entire country; the loss 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 give any further military and financial aid to the nationalists, and hastened collapse of KMT regime on the mainland.
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.
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