Meridian Ridge Campaign - Strategies

Strategies

As the communist 4th Column headquarter with its 6th Cavalry Division entered the Nine Steep Hills (Jiu Xian 九岘) Town in the heart of the Meridian Ridge (Zi Wu Ling, 子午岭), they were detected by the nationalist scouts in the western part of the mountain. Nationalist response was immediate: once the intelligence from the scouts was received on August 13, 1947, the nationalists sprung into action to exterminate the enemy. The nationalist strategy planned by Ma Jiyuan (马继援) was to first encircle the enemy within 24 hours, and then annihilate the enemy within the encirclement. Ma Jiyuan (马继援) would personally lead the campaign. In order to achieve the objective, the entire nationalist Reorganized 82nd Division was mobilized in the following manner:

• The nationalist Independent 5th Cavalry Regiment would be the vanguard in the center
• The nationalist Reorganized 100th Brigade would be at the right flank
• The nationalist Reorganized 8th Cavalry Brigade would be at the left flank
• Ma Jiyuan (马继援) would personally lead 4 battalions following the main forces

Once the pincer movement was completed, encirclement of the enemy was achieved and it would only be a matter of time before the enemy would be completely annihilated. The nationalist Reorganized 82nd Division begun its move on August 13, 1947.

The original communist strategy was to disengage the enemy and not to fight, because after Yulin Campaign, the communist 4th Column was tasked to penetrate behind the enemy line to cut off the Lanzhou – Xining Highway, thus threatening the nationalist flank in the rear so that the nationalist force there would be tied down and could not be deployed against communists in other areas. After the communist scouts first discovered the nationalist troops camping at the regions of Teeth Village (Ya Cun, 牙村) and Golden Village Temple (Jin Cun Miao, 金村庙), the commander of the communist 4th Column, Wang Shitai (王世泰) originally planned to follow his order by disengaging the nationalists by retreating, but the strong opposition of local communists forced him to change his mind. Following the defeat of communists in Heshui Campaign, the victorious nationalists immediately launched eradication operations against the local communists and their bases in the Meridian Ridge. In the two months-long struggles, the local communists (including local garrison force and guerilla forces) had suffered greatly in the hand of nationalist Reorganized 82nd Division. Local communists strongly wanted the field commanders to organize a counteroffensive against the nationalist Reorganized 82nd Division to avenge the death of their comrades. Communists such as the deputy communist party secretary of the Guanzhong region, Zhao Boping (赵伯平) claimed that they could not left the civilian behind, and consequently, Wang Shitai (王世泰) sent out scout to check out the enemy strength.

However, the communist scouts had made a grave error in that they mistakenly believed advance guard of the nationalist vanguard, the Independent 5th Cavalry regiment was the entire nationalist force deployed, not realizing that the entire nationalist Reorganized 82nd Division was soon to follow, and reported back that the enemy strength was only a regiment strong. Based on this erroneous report, Wang Shitai (王世泰) the communist commander was confident that with the current communist strength, they were able to annihilate the enemy and made plans accordingly to ambush the nationalists to the west of Nine Steep Hills (Jiu Xian 九岘) Town:

• The 2nd Regiment of the communist 1st Garrison Brigade was deployed to the west of Nine Steep Hills (Jiu Xian 九岘) Town.
• The 3rd Regiment of the communist 1st Garrison Brigade was deployed to New Village (Xin Zhuang, 新庄)
• The 5th Regiment of the communist 3rd Garrison Brigade was to outflank the enemy from the north of Nine Steep Hills (Jiu Xian 九岘) Town and cutting off the escaping route of the enemy
• The 6th Cavalry Division of the communist 4th Column was deployed to Peach Tree Village (Tao Shu Zhuang, 桃树庄) act as reserve

The communists begun their deployment in the early morning of August 15, 1947.