Liu Chih - Rise and Fall in The KMT Government

Rise and Fall in The KMT Government

He was instrumental in defeating Chiang's rival warlords in the Central Plains War and expanding KMT military power throughout the 1930s by defeating Chinese Communist forces in Henan Province. Chiang Kai Shek rewarded him by appointing as governor of Hennan Province and named a county after him. When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out, Liu was named as deputy commander of the first war zone and commander-in-chief of the 2nd Army Group. By this time he seemed to gradually lost his military prowess when the Imperial Japanese Army easily overwhelmed his forces and breakthrough the Chinese defensive lines despite being greatly outnumbered. Liu was forced to abandon much of Hebei province in North China and this defeat contributed to the 1938 Yellow River flood and he was relieved from his posts by Chiang. When the nationalist government retreated to Chongking, Chiang again named him as commander of the city's air defense, when but the Japanese air force started the bombing of Chongking, Liu proved to ineffective to provide much leadership to stop the Japanese terror raids and raise civilian morale, plus dismissed in 1942. In 1942 he succeeded General Li Zongren as commander-in-chief of the fifth war zone. When War with Japan was over, he was named as pacification director of Zhengzhou garrison, controlling first and fifth war zones. When the Campaign of the North China Plain Pocket broke out in the summer of 1946, he failed to destroyed the communist forces under Marshal Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping and was relieved of his command once more. In the fall of 1948, He became the commander-in-chief of the Suppression General Headquarter of Xuzhou Garrison, controlled some 920,000 nationalist soldiers, but when his capable deputy commander-in-chief Du Yuming was recalled to Manchuria to salvage the nationalist positions there when Marshal Lin Biao launched the Liaoshen Campaign on September 12, 1948. He was panicked and did not organized an effective defensive line when communist commander Su Yu attacked Xuzhou in the Huaihai Campaign, although President Chiang Kai Shek again dispatched Lieutenant General Du Yuming to save the situation, but Liu's ineffective leadership and timidness has already doomed KMT position in central China. When the communist forces finally defeated the nationalist troops the next year and deputy commander-in-chief Du Yuming was captured, Liu was again fired by Chiang Kai Shek, who was lucky enough to escape Xuzhou via plane.