Battle of Yiwu
| Battle of Yiwu (伊吾) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Chinese Civil War | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Republic of China Army |
 People's Liberation Army |
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
 Yulbars Khan Abdullah |
 Hu Qingshan |
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| Strength | |||||||
| 700+ | 600+ | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 700+ | ? | ||||||
The Battle of Yiwu (伊吾) is also called the Battle to Defend Yiwu (伊吾保卫战) by the Communist Party of China, and resulted in the communist victory. After the local nationalist commanders in Xinjiang defected to the communist side, many nationalists loyal to Chiang Kai-shek refused to join the communists, and one detachment of these loyal nationalists decided to take the town of Yiwu to turn it into a guerrilla base in order to fight on until the eventual return of Chiang.
The 2nd Company of the 46th Regiment of the communist 16th Division with less than 100 men were stationed at the town of Yiwu, 200 km northeast of Hami, and over 700 nationalists under the nationalist Hami special envoy commissioner Yulbars Khan and the former nationalist county head Abdullah (艾拜都拉) of Hami planned to take the town in late March 1950. The nationalist attack on the town was launched according to schedule on March 29, 1950.
The nationalists were confident in that the town could be taken within a little as three days and on the first day of the battle, the nationalists had succeeded in taking the northern and southern peaks next to the town, thus seriously threatened the enemy defenders within the town. Realizing the serious situation, the enemy defenders sent out four squads to retake both peaks, and thus solidified the defense of the town, threatening the nationalists instead. The nationalist attempts to take the two peaks back was met with disastrous failure after several dozens assaults were beaten back with heavy losses. Realizing the tactic must be changed in order to avoid further casualties and the two hilltops must be taken, the nationalists adjusted their tactic of small scale assaults to launch a coordinated large scale attacks on April 5, 1950. After the five-hour-long battle that lasted from 3:00 AM to 8:00 AM, the nationalist again suffered defeat with great loss due to favorable terrain the enemy defenders enjoyed. It was the last large scale attack the nationalists were able to muster and the defeat cost the nationalists so much that nothing on the similar scale could be repeated again in the battle.
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Wikipedia