Civil War
Throughout 1946-48, Yang faced very strong Nationalist forces in the area between Beiping (not yet renamed Beijing), Tianjin and Manchuria. In August 1946, Yang and Xiao Ke retreated in the face of an onslaught by three reinforced Nationalist corps concentrated on the rail lines between Beiping and Shenyang. In April 1948, Yang commanded the 2nd Army (later redesignated the 19th) under the North China Military Region of Nie Rongzhen and Xu Xiangqian. His deputy was Geng Biao and the political commissar Lo Ruiqing.
The 19th Group Army, established in August 1947, brought together several officers who would take prominent roles in post-liberation China. Among these were Geng Biao, Luo Ruiqing, Yang Chengwu, Pan Zili and Yang Dezhi.
In the Spring of 1949, Yang’s now 19th Army besieged Taiyuan, where Yang worked closely with Xu Xiangqian’s 18th Army. Following that battle, Yang reinforced Peng Dehuai at Lanzhou and remained with him into Ningxia through 1949. Yang Dezhi established the Ningxia Military Control Committee and Commanded the local Military District as the Civil War drew to a close.
Read more about this topic: Yang Dezhi
Famous quotes by civil war:
“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)
“The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)