Battle of Huaiyin–Huai'an

Date	August 21, 1946 - September 22, 1946
Location	Huaiyin and Huai'an, Jiangsu, China
Result	Nationalist victory

Belligerents

National Revolutionary Army

Chinese Red Army

Commanders and leaders

Chen Cheng

Zhang Lingfu

Chen Yi

Su Yu

Strength

110,000

80,000

Casualties and losses

14,000

Several thousand

Battle of Huaiyin-Huai'an is also called by the Campaign to Defend Huaiyin-Huai'an (两淮保卫战) by the Communist Party of China, and it was a struggle between the nationalists and the communists for the control of Huaiyin and Huai'an, the two richest cities in China during the Chinese Civil War in the post World War II era, and resulted in the Nationalist victory.

After the Battle of Si County, the nationalists redeployed the Reorganized 74th Division and a brigade of the reorganized 26th Division to Huaibei from Huainan, and by the middle of August 1946, the nationalists had taken regions including Chaoyang Village (Chao Yang Ji, 朝阳集) and Temple Mountain Yu (Miao Shan Yu, 庙山圩). On August 19, 1946, the nationalist commander-in-chief of the region, Chen Cheng, held a military conference at Xuzhou, and decided the nationalist strategy of the next stage: 4 nationalist divisions under the command of the nationalist commander Li Yannian (李延年) would push eastward across the Tianjin-Pukou Railway in Huaibei. On August 21, 1946, the nationalists began their push toward Suining (睢宁), Xiuqian (宿迁), and Taier Village (Tai Er Zhuang, 台儿庄).

On August 26, 1946, Chen Yi telegraph the communist high command to report the three options for the communist force from Shandong under his command to fight in Huaibei: First, the 2nd Division, 7th Division and the 8th Division of the communist force in Shandong would attack the nationalist 28th Army. Second, the communist force in Shandong would regroup at Siyang (泗阳) and the eastern bank of the Grand Canal of China to have a monthlong break. Third, all of the communist force in Shandong would go south to join forces with the communist force under Su Yu’s command to concentrate their forces. Chen Yi and his subordinates preferred the second option because they could strike in north, south or west when they wanted. The communist high command telegraphed back on August 29, claiming that the nationalists had struck eastward across the Lanzhou-Lianyungang Railway and thus threatened Huaiyin and Linyi, so it was impossible to for the communist troops to rest for a month continuously. The communists would be in a bad position if they were not to actively engaging the enemy. The communist force from Shandong under the command of Chen Yi should strike eastward to Suining region and fight enemy, and then rest for a short period, and repeat the process, so that morale would remain high. September was a good time to engage the enemy and the communist force under the command of Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping and the communist force under the command of Li Xiannian had all wished your corporation (to engage and tie down the nationalists). If there was no battle, then the enemy (nationalist) would gain more lands, and thus further boost their morale, and our morale would suffer as a consequence. Therefore, we must engage the enemy to decrease their morale and increase ours by annihilating a regiment or a brigade a time, and after five or six times, the situation would turn for the better for us.

...
Wikipedia