Lüliang Campaign
1946 Communist victory

The Lüliang campaign, also called Southwestern Shanxi campaign, was a series of battles fought between the nationalists and the communists in Lüliang region in southwestern Shanxi during the Chinese Civil War in the post World War II era, and resulted in the communist victory.

In early November 1946, Hu Zongnan, the commander-in-chief of the nationalist 1st War Zone in an attempt to concentrate nationalist force to attack the communist capital Yan'an, redeployed two nationalist reorganized divisions Shaanxi from southern Shanxi. Only two nationalist divisions were left for the local defencse of southern Shanxi, and in Lüliang region with a total of ten counties, there was only one regiment of the nationalist 2nd War Zone, assisted by local security brigades totaling ten thousand. The communists decided to take this opportunity by taking the region and annihilating the nationalist garrison in the process.

The nationalists lost over 10,000 troops in this defeat, which disrupted the overall plan to attack the communist capital Yan'an, and the original offensive schedule had to be postponed, thus providing the enemy with ample time to evacuate. Furthermore, the southwestern Shanxi was constantly under the enemy threat as a result of the nationalist defeat. The lack of corporation among nationalists themselves was also an important contributor to the enemy's success: the local Shanxi nationalist warlord Yan Xishan was always fearful of Chiang Kai-shek's takeover and thus refused to send out any of his own troops for reinforcement under the excuse of local areas would be threatened if his troops were sent to southwestern Shanxi to help Hu Zongnan.

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