Winter Offensive of 1947 in Northeast China - Outcome

Outcome

The nationalists lost a total of eight divisions plus one defected to the communists, totaling 156,000 troops, and 17 cities and towns fell into the communist hand. The nationalist troops in northeast China was compressed into three isolated regions around Jinzhou, Changchun and Shenyang as a result of the three-month long Winter Offensive of 1947 in Northeast China, and the communist paved the way for the later victory in Liaoshen Campaign and Changchun.

Chen Cheng cannot be blamed for the nationalist failure because as early as 1946, he had already realized the situation in northeast China was impossible for the nationalist and correctly suggested to abandon the region to free more troops, so that when the situation in other parts of China had improved, the salvaged troops could be used to retake the region. However, Chen Cheng’s good suggestion was denied because it was simply impossible for Chiang Kai-shek and the nationalists to give up northeast China, one of the richest region in China, and they were infatuated with holding on to the land as long as possible, and gain more land as much as possible. This doctrine stretched the nationalist troops thin and provided the excellent opportunity for the enemy to eliminate the nationalist garrisons one at a time, and as Chen Cheng faithfully carried out Chiang’s impossible task, the failure was inevitable.

Chiang Kai-shek realized this mistake somewhat and thus did not punish Chen Cheng by simply transferring him out of northeast China and Chiang corrected his mistake by giving Chen Cheng’s successor, Wei Lihuang full authority to direct the campaign, which Wei did to his best ability with great result. Hence, not only the lost of territory in the latter stage of the campaign cannot be simply regard as nationalist failure, but a nationalist success, because it was part of strategy to take the initiative by concentrating the force by giving up the territory that was impossible to defend, and defending on to the strongholds that were easy to protect against enemy’s assaults. However, once the initiative was achieved, the nationalist high command begun its usual interference with local command once again by completely changing the strategy into something brand new and totally impossible, and such interference due to the strategic disagreement between the local commanders and the high command at Nanjing lasted all the way into the Liaoshen Campaign, not only negating the initiative achieved, but also resulting in greater failure later.