Huaihai Campaign

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Huaihai Campaign
partof=the Chinese Civil War


caption=People's Liberation Army during the Huaihai Campaign
date=6 November, 1948 - 10 January, 1949
place=Shandong, Jiangsu
result=Decisive Communist victory; The Nationalists lost all the territories north of Yangtze River.
combatant1= Nationalist 7th Army 6th Army 2nd Army 13th Army 16th Army,12th army,8th army
combatant2=flagicon|China|army People's Liberation Army East China Field Army, Central Plains Field Army
commander1=Du Yuming, Wu Shaozhou, Huang Wei, Huang Baitao, Qiu Qingquan, Li Mi
commander2=Liu Bocheng, Deng Xiaoping, Su Yu, Tan Zhenlin, Chen Yi
strength1=920,000
strength2=600,000
casualties1=~555,000 (including non-combat losses,327,000 of which surrendered)
casualties2=134,000

Huaihai Campaign (淮海戰役) or Battle of Hsupeng (徐蚌會戰) (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. 500,000 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 (The other two being Liaoshen Campaign and Pingjin Campaign) campaigns that marked the end of nationalist dominance in northern China.

Although the Kuomintang nationalists had air superiority, the Communists used concentrated artillery effectively and were thus victorious.

Terrain and infrastructure

Xuzhou was an exposed salient. The Huang (Huai) River in Shandong and Jiangsu provinces was close by as was the Longhai Railway.

PLA strategy

Su Yu proposed in a message of 22nd January, 1948 that a "sudden-concentrate, sudden-disperse" strategy of three PLA armies (Liu, Chen, Su Yu) might allow for the sequential destruction of several KMT armies.

Su Yu's operational proposal of 24th September, following the fall of Jinan, suggested the isolation of the Jin-Pu railroad in order to force the Nationalists to fortify the area near the railroad and the Yangtze. Su Yu's plan for the Huaihai Campaign was approved on 25th September 1948.

The Three Phases of the Battle

The Huaihai Campaign is usually divided into three main phases.

Phase 1

An assault by the East China Field Army beginning on 6th November surrounded the Nationalist Seventh Army Group.

On 8th November, two corps (with 23,000 troops) led by He Jifeng and Zhang Kexia, deputy commanders of the Third Pacification Zone of the Kuomintang army (who were actually underground Communist Party members) suddenly revolted on the battlefield. The Seventh Army was able to hold out for 12 days without supplies. The two armies ordered to relieve the Seventh were delayed. On 22nd November, the 100,000 troops of the Seventh Army (not Army Group) were wiped from the Nationalist order of battle.

Phase 2

23rd November to 6th January

Communist forces from the east and west captured Xuzhou (Hsuchow), a key railway junction, on 1st December. On 6th December, following a PLA breakthrough, the Nationalist Sixteenth Army Group was eliminated. On the same day, the PLA initiated an attack on the Twelfth Army Group.

The Central Plains Field Army, in coordination with the main force of the Eastern China Field Army, surrounded and wiped out the army under Huang Wei at and around Shuangduiji, southwest of Suhsien. On 15th December, it succeeded in defeating these 120,000 troops in Shuangduiji Campaign, and capturing the nationalist commander Huang Wei alive.

Phase 3

On 6th January 1949, the PLA initiated a general attack on the surrounded troops of Du Yuming, eliminating the Thirteenth Army Group. The remnants of defeated troops retreated toward the Second Army defense area. On January 10, the PLA achieved a breakthrough and the Second Army Group was annihilated. Second Army Commander Qiu Qingquan committed suicide and Du Yuming was captured.

ee also

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

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