Communist Strategies
The Communist high command, the central military committee of the Communist Party of China, directed the Fourth Field Army to be very careful in planning the takeover of the island, which would be best completed in the spring and summer of 1950. The XV Corps of the Fourth Field Army - headed by its commander-in-chief Deng Hua (邓华) and political commissar Lai Chuanzhu (赖传珠) - had a strength of more than 100,000 troops, and was deployed to the Leizhou Peninsula and adjacent coastal regions. The 40th and 43rd Armies of the XV Corps were tasked as the vanguard of the campaign to take the island in December, 1949. The Communists mobilized a total of 2,130 junks and over 4,000 civilian sailors for their cause, and the 15,000 man Communist Qiongya Column (琼崖纵队) on the island itself was ordered to fight a campaign against the Nationalist island garrison in order to tie them down, which would result in insufficient resistance on the beachheads when the actual landing took place.
On February 1, 1950, Ye Jianying (叶剑英), commander-in-chief and political commissar of the Guangdong Military Region, held a conference at Guangzhou with the officers of the XV Corps of the IV Field Army. It was decided at the conference that small-scale landings would be conducted first to probe the weakness of the island's defense, and to strengthen the Qiongya Column on the island in coordination with the landing forces.
Read more about this topic: Landing Operation On Hainan Island
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