Chinese Civil War
After the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chen became the Chief of the General Staff and commander-in-chief of the navy. He followed Chiang's orders and began to raid the "liberated" areas by Red Army which launched the Chinese Civil War.
In 1947, Chen moved to Manchuria to command the Nationalist force against the Communists in that area. He made the crucial mistake to dissolve the local security regiments, because they served in the Manchukuo Imperial Army, as result the total nationalist strength in Manchuria fell from 1.3 million to less than 480,000. He also dismissed some of the most capable nationalist commanders, such as Du Yuming, Sun Li-jen, Zheng Dongguo and Chen Mingren. As a result he suffered a series of major defeats and Chiang Kai-shek replaced him with Wei Lihuang as commander-in-chief of Manchuria and Fan Hanjie as deputy commander-in-chief and director of Jinzhou forward command center. Chen took a sick leave in Taiwan to treat his chronic stomach ailment.
Read more about this topic: Chen Cheng
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil and/or war:
“... there was the first Balkan war and the second Balkan war and then there was the first world war. It is extraordinary how having done a thing once you have to do it again, there is the pleasure of coincidence and there is the pleasure of repetition, and so there is the second world war, and in between there was the Abyssinian war and the Spanish civil war.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“I’ve never been afraid to step out and to reach out and to move out in order to make things happen.”
—Victoria Gray, African American civil rights activist. As quoted in This Little Light of Mine, ch. 3, by Hay Mills (1993)
“Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)