Liu Bocheng - Chinese Civil War

Chinese Civil War

At the end of the war against the Japanese, the war-scourged Chinese people pleaded for peace. Chiang then invited Mao to Chongqing for peace talks, during which, Yan Xishan sent his armies to attack CPC territories in Shanxi under Chiang's authorisation. Liu and Deng led the Shangdang Campaign and defeated 13 divisions of Yan’s troops totaled more than 35,000, and then headed east and annihilated another of Yan's army corps in the Handan Campaign. These two campaigns were the first experiences of the CPC army's shift from bushfight to campaign in movement, and proved to be valuable practice for the army groups campaign of CPC armies. They assisted in the CPC’s quick occupation of Manchuria, and won advantageous status for Mao and his peace talk delegation in Chongqing. Under immense pressure, Chiang was forced to sign a peace agreement with Mao in October 1945.

The peace, however, was fragile, and civil war broke out in 1946. Liu and Deng led several campaigns in movement, undermining the strategic attack of KMT armies. In 1947, when the territories controlled by the CPC could no longer sustain so many troops, Mao decided to send part of his army to the territories controlled by KMT, in order to relieve the heavy burden on his own territories, and to position enemies at the gates of the KMT. He ordered Liu and Deng to lead their armies from their northern China base in Henan, Shanxi and Hebei, to Anhui in southern China. This involved sending 100,000 soldiers across the Yellow River, and marching over 1000 kilometers into central plain. Liu and Deng both saw it as a gamble rather than a strategic move, and even Mao himself was not certain if such gamble would pay off by openly discussing the three possible outcomes:

1. The communist force could not even reach Dabie Shan.
2. The communist force would be driven out by the Kuomintang force after reaching Dabie Shan.
3. The communist force would be able to establish new base in Dabie Mountain.

Although many expressed their concerns, Mao would not change his mind. During the expedition, they faced elite KMT armies. Liu launched the Southwestern Shandong Campaign defeating over nine brigades of KMT troops. Under this plot and cover, Liu’s army promptly moved south and went into the Dabie Mountain areas. Liu’s armies suffered great losses; half of the troops were wiped out and all of their heavy artilleries were lost, which greatly weakened their military abilities in later campaigns. Liu and Deng's troops survived further rounds of attack. Far away from the power base, with few support armies and supplies, Liu led self-sufficient soldiers and broke rounds of heavy blockade, while boosting his strength back to the original 100,000. Mao and his associates were very impressed by Liu's achievement and it was only then did they begin to maintain that the direct threat to Nanjing and Wuhan was a great achievement; a knife into the heart of KMT governance. Liu's success was indeed forced the nationalists to redeploy nearly two dozen brigades against him, disrupting Chiang Kai-shek's original plan, thus relieved nationalist pressure on other communist forces. Mao's gamble had paid off with Liu's clever military strategies.

Liu's success did not end there, he carried out to expand his initial victories over the nationalists by carrying out several campaigns with armies led by Chen Yi and Su Yu, another army led by Chen Geng (陈赓), to annihilate a great number of KMT troops led by two prominent generals, Chen Cheng and Bai Chongxi. After ten months of hard work, Liu and Deng had significantly enlarged the area of central plain area occupied by the CPC, and forced the KMT armies into strategic defense, as Chiang no longer had enough troops for attack. In Nov 1948, Liu, Deng, Chen, Su and Tan Zhenlin (谭震林) together formed the Military Committee to command the massive Huai Hai Campaign, which was carried out by CPC troops in East China and the central plain to fight against the KMT main forces in Xuzhou and Anhui. In this decisive battle, more than 500,000 KMT soldiers were annihilated; among the POWs was General Du Yuming, Chiang's most distinguished protégé.

In April 1949, after illusive peace talks between the CPC and the KMT were broken, Liu led his armies across the Yangtze River and conquered huge areas of Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Fujian, taking over Nanjing, the capital of the KMT. Liu was appointed mayor of Nanjing for a short while. With assistance from He Long, Liu and Deng launched new campaigns to liberate vast areas in Southwestern China, by using long distance bypass and siege strategies. Among the areas conquered were his and Deng’s own hometowns, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan and Xikang.