Ningxia Campaign

Part of the Chinese Civil War

Date	September 5, 1949 – September 24, 1949
Location	Ningxia, China
Result	Communist victory

Belligerents

National Revolutionary Army

People's Liberation Army

Commanders and leaders

Ma Dunjing 马敦静

Yang Dezhi

Li Zhimin 李志民

Strength

75,000

Casualties and losses

40,000+

Low

The Ningxia Campaign (宁夏战役) was a series of battles fought between the nationalists and the communists during Chinese Civil War in the post World War II era, and resulted in the communist victory.

Nationalist order of battle:

The following units were deployed in the beginning, but later on, did not participate in fightings:

Communist order of battle:

After their defeat in Lanzhou Campaign, Ningxia was no longer the concern of the nationalist commander-in-chief of northwest China Ma Bufang, who was busy worrying protecting his home base Qinghai. The nationalist deputy commander-in-chief of northwest China Ma Hongkui fled to Hong Kong via air, and left his son, Ma Dunjing (马敦静) in charge to make a last stand against the communists. The nationalists organized three lines of defense in the regions including Zhongwei, Lingwu, Tongxin (同心), Jingyuan (靖远), Jingtai (景泰), Zhongning (中宁) and Jinji (金积), and deployed over a hundred sixty thousand troops for the upcoming campaign, but the nationalist strategy was ruined by the disagreements among themselves. Five out of the eight armies deployed were Ma Bufang’s force, and they were much more concerned about keeping their own strength to retreat to and guard the inevitable communist advance to their home base in Qinghai, and thus did not put in any real effort to protect Ma Hongkui’s Ningxia. These troops of Ma Bufang simply felt that they had done more than enough as they did the bulk of fighting in Lanzhou Campaign, and was worried that if they devote fully in fighting in Ningxia, they would risk being cutting off by the enemy and would never be able to return home. Consequently, Ma Bufang’s force refused to take any orders from Ma Dunjing (马敦静) and never participated in any fighting at all, despite being deployed initially by Ma Dunjing (马敦静) under previous agreements between Ma Bufang and Ma Hongkui. As a result, only seventy five thousands nationalist troops did the fighting, and the result was disastrous as the nationalists could achieve neither the numerical nor the technical superiority.

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