Longhai Campaign - Outcome

Outcome

It must be said that unlike the nationalist propaganda that exaggerated the communist threat, despite being threatened, Kaifeng remained firmly in the nationalist hands throughout the campaign, and even the Communists themselves had never planned to take the city, fully aware that it was an impossible task for them at the time. It should also be noted that another gravely exaggerated communist threat was the nationalist loss once announced by the local nationalist defenders themselves in order to draw more help / reinforcement, the nationalist loss was only sixteen thousands, (which was agreed by the enemy), it was never as high as ninety thousand, a number that was dismissed even by the enemy. Furthermore, the true casualty of sixteen thousand was only a drop in a bucket, totaling less than 10% of the total nationalist force deployed for this campaign, and though it was too late for most of them to participate in actual fighting, they would have the chance later in the Dingtao Campaign soon to come.

For the Communists, just they had expected, Longhai Campaign they launched had successfully achieved its objective in relieving the pressure of their comrades in other theaters, namely, Li Xiannian’s communist force in the Campaign of the North China Plain Pocket and Su Yu’s communist force in the Central Jiangsu Campaign. The communist victory in Longhai Campaign forced the nationalists to redeploy their troops in the other two campaigns in an effort to reinforce Longhai theater, thus the reduced nationalist strength in the other two theaters had contributed respectively to the successful escape of Li Xiannian’s the Communists force in the Campaign of the North China Plain Pocket and Su Yu’s victory in Central Jiangsu Campaign. In addition, the Communists had taken five towns, more than a dozen railroad stations, and huge amount of supplies.