The Siping Campaign (四平战役) was a nine-month struggle between the communist and the Nationalists for Siping in Jilin, China during the Chinese Civil War in the post World War II era, and resulted in communist victory.
Prelude By the early June 1947, the communists had successfully isolated Siping (city) in their Summer Offensive of 1947 in Northeast China, the communists decided to take the city despite the fact that they had totally lacked the experience of taking strongly defended cities that are heavily fortified, and it was obvious to both sides that the isolated city would be the next battlefield. Siping (city) was defended by three divisions belong to two separate armies and the commander of the nationalist 71st Army, Chen Mingren (陈明仁) was named as the nationalist commander-in-chief of the urban defense. All three nationalist divisions suffered greatly in earlier battles and none of them was fully manned. However, the communists had eradicated nationalists in the region from Tieling in the south and Changchun in the north, and most of these nationalist forces had retreated to Siping (city). Chen Mingren (陈明仁) successfully recruited and incorporated these forces into his force, and every able bodied-man who had a governmental job was also recruited into the local garrison. Construction for additional fortifications and strengthening the current ones was also completed in very short span of time, and in a devoted effort, many bunkers were built by sacks full of wheat and starch of American aid. On June 3, 1947, Chiang Kai-shek flew to Shenyang and personally wrote to Chen Mingren (陈明仁) stating that Siping (city) was a very important location in Northeast China and if lost, the nationalists would not only lose Northeast China, but also endangering the rest of China, so the city must be defended at all cost, and Chen Mingren (陈明仁) was determined to hold the city, and the nationalist reporters claimed the city as Chen Mingren (陈明仁)'s fortress after witnessing the extensive defensive complex built.
On June 9, 1947, the enemy had completed its regroup outside the city for the upcoming attack. However, the communist made a serious intelligence blunder in underestimating the defenders' strength by only assessing the total nationalist strength as 18,000, and even Lin Biao had erroneously believed that there were only four fully combat capable nationalist regiments with full strength in the city. The enemy had missed the significant intelligence including the defenders receiving airdrop of 400 tons of supplies and weaponry in more than 200 sorties from Shenyang, and the rapid new construction of the fortifications. The defenders' recruitment of previously defeated nationalist forces into the local garrison was completely undetected by the enemy, and enemy did not expect the nationalist air force would actively participate in the first stage in support of the ground troops defending the city either. This serious intelligence blunder would have to be paid with an extremely heavy price later in the first stage of the campaign.
Order of battle Defenders: Nationalist order of battle: First stage (more than 35,000 troops total): The 87th Division of the 71st Army The 88th Division of the 71st Army The 54th Division of the 13th Army Second stage: Nationalist units with more than 19,000 troops
Attackers: communist order of battle: The 1st Column The 7th Column The 6th Column (First stage) The 3rd Column (Second Stage)
First stage On June 11, 1947, the communists begun their assault on the nationalist positions outside the city, and on the same night, the airport at the western suburb of the city was taken by the communist 7th Column. On June 13, 1947, the communist 1st Column took Xinlitun, and the nationalist air force begun to attack enemy ground positions at a rate of near twenty sorties per day in order to support the defenders of the city. On June 14, 1947, Lin Biao ordered the 11th Division and the 12th Division of the communist 4th Column to strike south toward Shenyang and Fushun to distract nationalist forces stationed in those cities from reinforcing Siping (city), and to take Fushun if possible. At 8:00 PM on June 14, 1947, the assault on the city itself had begun with five communist artillery battalions with near a hundred large caliber artillery pieces starting to bombard the city, even the 12 anti-aircraft artilleries in the communist inventory were deployed to shell the city. The shelling shocked the nationalist defenders since merely a year ago, artillery was still an extremely rare commodity for the communists, yet a year later the communist artillery firepower was greater than that of Japanese during World War II. Under the cover of intense artillery shelling, the communist 1st Column and 7th Column attacked the defenders from multiple directions.
Forty minutes after the assault begun, the 2nd Division of the communist 1st Column breached the defense in the southwest, and by 2:00 AM on June 15, 1947, the 1st Division of the communist 1st Column also penetrated into the city from Haifeng Village (Haifeng Tun, 海丰屯). However, the communist 7th Column and the 3rd Division of the communist 1st Column failed to breach the defense, and nationalist reserve launched multiple counterattacks on the enemy under the air cover, which had increased into more than twenty sorties per day. By June 16, 1947, the communists 1st Division and the 2nd Division inside the city had beaten back defenders' counterattacks for more than a dozen times, but in doing so, each suffered more than 1,500 casualties. The regions inside the city taken by the enemy was relatively small and only a thousand or so defenders were captured alive by the enemy, but situation for the defenders worsened on June 18, 1947, when the communist 7th Column breached the defense in northwest. The nationalists had underestimated the enemy's resolution to take the city, and defenders' stubborn resistance was equally out of expectation of the attacking communists as battle raged on with heavy casualties on both sides. By June 19, 1947, Lin Biao was forced to send the 17th Division and the 18th Division of the communist 6th Column to reinforce the communists fighting inside the city. With the newly arrived help, the enemy was able to take nationalist strongholds at the Telecommunication Building, the Municipal Building, and the Central Bank Building, and the nationalist headquarters of the 71st Army that was also the headquarters of the urban defense was besieged.
There were many brick buildings in Siping (city) and bricks made from black earth were extremely tough that when hit by 60 mm mortar rounds, there was only a dent left. The defenders capitalized on these strong buildings and turned them into formidable fortifications, and the nationalist 71st Army headquarters was located in one of such bunkers, with the entrance sealed by a jeep. In addition to wide field of view, there were also dozens bunkers and pillboxes protected by minefields around the buildings to strengthen the defense. On June 20, 1947, the 17th Division of the communist 6th Column unleashed its assault on the nationalist headquarters, and by the evening, the enemy was dangerously close. Chen Mingren (陈明仁), the nationalist commander-in-chief inside the headquarters was forced to evacuate into another alternate headquarters in a different bunker in the eastern half of the city, while his brother, Chen Mingxin (陈明信), the regimental commander of the Specialized Duties Regiment of the nationalist 71st Army, was left to defend the original headquarters. After three hours of fierce fighting, the headquarters fell and its defenders were annihilated. Chen Mingxin (陈明信), the regimental commander of the Specialized Duties Regiment of the nationalist 71st Army, was captured alive by the enemy, and the stronghold that the nationalists claimed to withstand enemy attack for more than a month fell in just three short hours. The fall of the nationalist 71st Army headquarters had signaled the fall of the western half of the city into the enemy hands, but the enemy had paid a very heavy price: the 1st Division and the 2nd Division of the communist 1st Column, and the Independent 1st Division and the Independent 2nd Division of the communist 7th Column suffered heavy casualties that they were forced out of action, and Ma Renxing (马仁兴), the divisional commander of the 1st Independent Division of the communist 7th Column, became the highest ranked communist officer killed in the campaign.
After more than a week of fierce fighting, the enemy finally took western half of the city with heavy loss. Only then did the enemy realize the serious blunder of the underestimation of the defenders: the nationalists defending the city was not 18,000 like previously thought, but almost twice, totaling more than 35,000. On June 21, 1947, the enemy was forced to send their reserves to join the fight: the 16th Division of the communist 6th Column and the Independent 3rd Division of the communist 7th Column join the assault on the eastern half of city, and Hong Xuezhi, (洪学智), the commander-in-chief of the communist 6th Column succeeded Li Tianyou (李天佑), the commander-in-chief of the communist 1st Column in the last part of the fighting as the communist commander in charge of taking the city. Chen Mingren (陈明仁), the nationalist commander-in-chief of the urban defense, concentrated his remaining 20,000 strong force in the eastern half of the city, and by the evening of June 21, 1947, had successfully beaten back all enemy attacks. For the communists, it was impossible to achieve numerical superiority after sending in two divisions following the withdraw of four divisions, and the Independent 1st Division of the communist 7th Column withdrawn earlier was forced to be back in action again. The highest point in the Siping (city) was a water tower, and the nationalists turned it into a formidable bunker manned by tough veterans of the Chinese Expeditionary Force in Burma and India during World War II, and these sharpshooters armed with light machine guns had successfully beaten back attacks by an entire enemy regiment for four times. After concentrating over a dozen machine guns suppressing the nationalist fire from the loopholes of the bunker to cover sappers setting up the explosives, the enemy finally neutralized the bunker in its fifth attempt.