Campaign of the North China Plain Pocket

Campaign of the North China Plain Pocket
Part of Chinese Civil War
Date June 22, 1946 – August 31, 1946 Location Southern North China Plain, China Result Communist victory
Belligerents
National Revolutionary Army	Chinese Red Army
Commanders and leaders
Liu Shi Cheng Qian	Li Xiannian Wang Zhen
Strength
300,000	60,000
Casualties and losses
10,000	10,000

The Campaign of the North China Plain Pocket, also called the Breakout on the Central Plains (Zhongyuan Tuwei, 中原突围) by the Communist Party of China, was a series of battles fought between the nationalists and the communists during the Chinese Civil War, resulting in a successful communist breakout from the nationalist encirclement. The campaign marked the beginning of the full-scale civil war fought between the communists and the nationalists in the post-World War II era.

The communist victory was largely attributed to their ability to surprise the nationalists with movements and avoid battle in locations with overwhelming Nationalist forces. In a sense, the Nationalists did not evenly distribute their forces, which created pocket holes in their encirclement. The Nationalists were also easily distracted by small Communist forces used to draw attention away from their main forces. The communist was able to locate the relatively weaker defended points of the Nationalist defense and break them. Communists also engaged in close-quarters combat in order to limit the power of the Nationalist artillery and air force, making them less effective than they could have been.

The communist base in this region was established in the mid of World War II along the border area of the Hubei, Hunan, Henan, Jiangxi, and Anhui provinces after the communists had successfully driven the Japanese invaders from the countryside and remote mountainous regions. After the end of World War II, the returning nationalists were determined to eliminate the communists in the region and after more than 240 offensives with a mobilized force of 300,000, had successfully blockade the communist base and divided it into three isolated pieces, and the nationalist headquarters at Zhengzhou was tasked with the job to completely eliminate the enemy in the region with the help of the nationalist Wuhan headquarters.

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Wikipedia