Linjiang Campaign - First Stage

First Stage

On December 17, 1946, the nationalists send out six divisions, including the 2nd division and the 195th Division of the 52nd Army, the 91st Division of the 71st Army and one Division from each of the Newly Organized 1st Army, the Newly Organized 6th Army and the 60th Army to launch the first offensive against the communist base south of Songhua River, and two more Divisions were deployed as reserves. The initial nationalist objective was to linkup Tonghua with Ji’an (集安) so that the enemy could be further squeezed into the mountain. In response, on December 18, 1946, the communist 4th Column struck the regions between Fushun, Huanren and Benxi behind the enemy line, and after more than a dozen days of fighting, succeeded in taking over more than twenty positions from the nationalists, including the critical ones at Alkaline Factory (Jian Chang, 碱厂) and Master Field (Tian Shifu, 田师付), and killing more than 3,000 nationalist troops in the process. The nationalist 91st Division of the 71st Army was forced to withdraw to reinforce the rear, and this weakened the nationalist thrust by exposing the two divisions of the nationalist 52nd Army, which were ultimately badly mauled by the enemy who seized the opportunity and attacked with great efficiency and speed, resulting in the regions south of Tonghua newly taken by the nationalists earlier in the initial stage of the offensive falling back into the enemy hands.

In the north, the communists massed three columns and three independent divisions to cross the Songhua River on January 5, 1947 to besiege the nationalist strategic location of Pagoda Wood (Tamu, 塔木), forced the nationalist offensive into a complete halt and then redeploying two attacking divisions to reinforce Pagoda Wood (Tamu, 塔木). However, when the nationalist reinforcement reached the region between Zhangmazi Ditch (Zhangmazi Gou, 张麻子沟) and the Jiao Family’s Ridge (Jiajia Ling,焦家岭), they learned that Pagoda Wood (Tamu, 塔木) had already fallen into the enemy hands, with the entire garrison consisted of a security force regiment and two regiments of the Newly Organized 1st Army being completely annihilated by the enemy. The enemy consequently returned to north of the Songhua River on January 19, 1947.

Achieving their objectives when the nationalists stopped their assault on Linjiang, the communists withdrew to their original bases and the nationalists could not pursuit the enemy anymore due to the sudden change of the weather when the temperature suddenly dropped to forty degrees below zero.