Prelude
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 headquarter.
In the mid June 1946, Chiang Kai-shek issued a secret order to the Liu Zhi (刘峙), the nationalist Commander-in-chief of Zhengzhou headquarter and Cheng Qian (程潜), the nationalist Commander-in-chief of Wuhan Headquarter, giving the general direction of the operation by mobilizing the nationalist blockade force to launch a decisive assault on the besieged communists. Since both sides were still officially at peace, the nationalist forces under the command of Wuhan headquarter would be transferred to the command of the Zhengzhou headquarter in order to avoid the blaming by the general public. At 2:00 PM on June 20, 1946, Liu Zhi (刘峙) issued the order to every unit of the nationalist force under his command, and the general objective was to mass troops with absolute numerical and technical superiority to concentrate on the communists in the border areas of Henan and Hubei provinces, eliminating the enemy forces after separating them into smaller pockets by attacking them from southern and eastern Henan. The communist force at/near Xinyang, Jingfu (经扶), Huangchuan (潢川) regions, especially those at Xuanhua Hotel (Xuanhua Dian, 宣化店) and Pobo (泼陂) River regions would be the most wanted target.
Read more about this topic: Campaign Of The North China Plain Pocket
Famous quotes containing the word prelude:
“I got a little secretarial job after college, but I thought of it as a prelude. Education, work, whatever you did before marriage, was only a prelude to your real life, which was marriage.”
—Bonnie Carr (c. early 1930s)
““We’re all friends here” is a prelude to fraud. “I am sincere” is a prelude to lying.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)