Huaihai Campaign 1948-1949: A Decisive Chinese Civil War Battle

The Huaihai Campaign was a decisive battle of the Chinese Civil War, fought from 6 November 1948 to 10 January 1949 around the city of Xuzhou in east-central China. Communist armies encircled and destroyed the main Nationalist forces north of the Yangtze River, inflicting losses of roughly half a million men. The victory left the Nationalist capital, Nanjing, open to attack and sealed the outcome of the war.

Background

After the Second World War, the Chinese Civil War resumed between Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists (Kuomintang) and Mao Zedong’s Communists. The Nationalists began with larger, better-equipped armies, but inflation, corruption and over-extended garrisons weakened them, while Communist forces grew through land reform, recruitment and captured weapons.

In autumn 1948 the Communists launched three great campaigns. The first, the Liaoshen Campaign in Manchuria, ended on 2 November 1948 with the loss of around 470,000 Nationalist troops. Attention then turned south to Xuzhou, a railway junction where the Tianjin-Pukou and Longhai lines crossed, guarding the northern approaches to Nanjing.

Opposing forces

The Nationalists concentrated several army groups around Xuzhou under Liu Zhi, with Du Yuming as his deputy and field commander. The Communists brought together the East China Field Army, under Chen Yi and his deputy Su Yu, and the Central Plains Field Army under Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping. A General Front Committee, with Deng as its secretary, coordinated them.

Each side fielded roughly 500,000 to 800,000 regular troops, with the Nationalists somewhat stronger in numbers, artillery and air power. The Communists, however, could rely on the support of millions of peasant labourers and had better intelligence and morale. Nationalist command was also hampered because Chiang Kai-shek frequently intervened from Nanjing, issuing orders that overrode or contradicted his generals in the field.

Course of the campaign

The campaign opened on 6 November 1948. Two days later, Nationalist generals He Jifeng and Zhang Kexia, secret Communist sympathisers, led around 20,000 troops over to the Communist side, opening a gap in the northern defences. Huang Baitao’s Seventh Army Group, withdrawing towards Xuzhou, was surrounded at Nianzhuang and destroyed by 22 November; Huang died in the fighting.

Communist forces then cut the railway south of Xuzhou. The Nationalist Twelfth Army Group under Huang Wei, sent from central China as a relief force, was encircled at Shuangduiji. Despite air supply and attempts at a breakout, it was destroyed on 15 December, and Huang Wei was captured.

On 30 November Du Yuming abandoned Xuzhou and led about 300,000 men south-west, but his columns were trapped near Chenguanzhuang in Yongcheng county. One army group under Sun Yuanliang was destroyed while trying to break out in early December. The rest endured weeks of siege in freezing weather and short of food. The final Communist assault began on 6 January 1949, and resistance ended on 10 January. Qiu Qingquan, commander of the Second Army Group, was killed, and Du Yuming was captured.

Losses and the role of civilians

Communist sources state that about 555,000 Nationalist troops were killed, wounded, captured or defected, figures that Western historians treat as broadly plausible though not precise. Communist casualties are usually given as about 130,000–135,000.

The campaign is famous for its logistics. Several million peasant labourers carried grain, ammunition and wounded soldiers using wheelbarrows, carts and carrying poles. Communist commander Chen Yi later observed, in a well-known paraphrase, that the victory had been pushed forward by the people’s wheelbarrows.

Consequences

Together with the Liaoshen Campaign and the Pingjin Campaign, which ended with the peaceful surrender of Beiping (Beijing) in January 1949, Huaihai broke the back of the Nationalist army. Chiang Kai-shek stepped down as president on 21 January 1949, leaving Vice President Li Zongren to seek a negotiated peace.

Talks failed, and on 20–21 April 1949 Communist armies crossed the Yangtze River. Nanjing fell on 23 April. The founding of the People’s Republic of China was proclaimed in Beijing on 1 October 1949, and the Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan in December.

Timeline

• 1948, 2 November: The Liaoshen Campaign ends in Manchuria.
• 1948, 6 November: The Huaihai Campaign begins.
• 1948, 8 November: He Jifeng and Zhang Kexia defect with their troops.
• 1948, 22 November: Huang Baitao’s army group is destroyed at Nianzhuang.
• 1948, 30 November: Du Yuming evacuates Xuzhou.
• 1948, 15 December: Huang Wei’s army group is destroyed at Shuangduiji.
• 1949, 10 January: Du Yuming’s forces are defeated at Chenguanzhuang; the campaign ends.
• 1949, 21 January: Chiang Kai-shek steps down as president.
• 1949, 23 April: Communist forces capture Nanjing.

Why it matters

The Huaihai Campaign was the largest and most decisive battle of the Chinese Civil War’s final stage. By destroying the Nationalists’ best remaining field armies, it made Communist victory on the mainland almost certain and set the stage for the division between the People’s Republic and the Republic of China on Taiwan. In China it is commemorated as a model of mass mobilisation, and it remains a classic case study of operational warfare.