Dingtao Campaign - Prelude

Prelude

After the defeat of Longhai Campaign, the original nationalist plan of completely annihilating Li Xiannian’s communist force in the North China Plain pocket was disrupted and the scheduled completion had to be postponed due to the need to redeploy nationalist forces to eradicate communist forces under the command of Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping in southwestern Shandong. The nationalists concluded that the overwhelming numerical and technical superiorities over Li Xiannian’s communist force in the North China Plain pocket was sufficient enough to withstand a troop reduction, so three army-sized reorganized divisions originally deployed in southern Shaanxi and western Henan were redeployed to the region where Dingtao Campaign was about to take place. Additionally, two army-sized divisions from Xuzhou and another army from Huainan were also redeployed to the region. The eight army-sized nationalist reorganized divisions already stationed here in the regions of Zhengzhou, Xinxiang, and Shangqiu were reinforced by these additional six units, totaling more than three hundred thousand troops, and the nationalists were confident that the enemy would be annihilated quickly and their bases overran.