The Yanzhou campaign was a series of battles fought between the nationalists and the communists for the control of the town Yanzhou, which is today under the administration of Jining, and the region to the north of the town in Shandong, China during the Chinese Civil War in the post World War II era, and resulted in communist victory. The nationalists suffered more than 63,000 casualties in their defeat, and a dozen cities/towns including Qufu, Jining, Tai'an, Zou County, and Yanzhou had fallen into the enemy hands. The nationalist garrison in Jinan was further isolated and the enemy succeeded in combining the previously separated communist bases in central and southern Shandong and western Shandong into a new one of much greater size. The fall of the strategically important railroad junction Yanzhou also meant that both Xuzhou in the south and Jinan in the north controlled by the nationalists were threatened by the enemy, and communist victory also helped their Eastern Henan Campaign by tying down the nationalists forces in Shandong.