Siege of Changchun

lightspeed · Jul 30, 2012

solarz said:
So I very much disagree with your assessment that the Communists were inexperienced and untrained. It is true that they were poorly equipped compared to the Nationalists. Jiang had access to vast amounts American military aid, while the Communists could only get their hands on what the Japanese left behind. However, the fact that they were able to hold their own against the Nationalists shows that they were all but "inexperienced and untrained".

This actually ties in to the Communists' contributions in the war against Japan. Remember that the Nationalists had access to American hardware by the end of the war against Japan. 1.2 million untrained peasants would have been only so much cannon fodder against WW2 weaponry. Therefore, it is clear that the communist troops were battle hardened and experienced veterans. How they gained that experience? There's only one logical answer to that.

the Chinese Communists were mostly inexperienced and untrained at ww2 end. most of their military equipments were indeed from what the Japanese left behind. the Japanese Officers and NCO gave the Communists valuable training on how to use and operate the weapons and equipments. the Japanese technicians taught the Commies how to maintain and repair the hardware. it took a long time to train the Commies soldiers in these two areas. that’s one of the reasons why General Lin Biao’s relatively untrained troops suffered some early defeats in the battles against General Sun Liren’s forces. by end of 1946, most of the Commies troops were well-trained and sufficiently equipped. the tide of war started to turn in favor of the Communists. the Chinese Communists also received some US lend-lease supplies ( Europe ), Russian military equipments all given by the Soviet.

how much effective United States military aid was given to the Nationalist from 1941-1949? was a controversial issue in the US policy toward China during that period. the pro Nationalist China group ( the General Chennault, Senator McCurran, Congressman Judd…) vigorously accused the US State of Department of not giving sufficient and useful military aid to the Nationalist. Secretary Acheson and General Marshall representing State Department hit back strongly against those accusations.
( when i was there, not a single battle was lost by the Nationalist to the Communist due to a lack of military equipments ) by General Barr, Head of China mission 1948. but the mission deputy General Brink had the opposite view of Barr.
the Nationalist, especially from 1947 onwards kept on complaining to the US about inadequate military equipments / severe shortage of ammunition and emphasized the immediate urgency which the US must give more military supplies for their besieged troops in the North East. so 各说各话?

1.2 million regular troops or 1.2 million regular + guerilla troops? i believe the CCP had 300-500K regular + guerilla troops by ww2 end.
when Mao Zedong met with Generalissimo Chiang in Chunking ( late 1945 ), he talked about guns for his troops and accidently revealed that the Communist had a 350K regular army. i read that if you add up all the PLA commanders and their units by ww2 end, it’s not possible to have a 1.2 million troops figure.

according to author Anthony Kubek ( How the Far East was Lost ), the 1.2-1.5 million CCP troops strength was first invented by US Communist Earl Browder. there’s a interesting story behind it.

vesicles · Jul 30, 2012

solarz said:
Vesicles, Lin Biao was only one of the commanders of the PLA. In the early stages of the Civil War, the CCP and the KMT were engaged in a seesaw of battles. Both sides won some and lost some.

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So I very much disagree with your assessment that the Communists were inexperienced and untrained. It is true that they were poorly equipped compared to the Nationalists. Jiang had access to vast amounts American military aid, while the Communists could only get their hands on what the Japanese left behind. However, the fact that they were able to hold their own against the Nationalists shows that they were all but "inexperienced and untrained".

This actually ties in to the Communists' contributions in the war against Japan. Remember that the Nationalists had access to American hardware by the end of the war against Japan. 1.2 million untrained peasants would have been only so much cannon fodder against WW2 weaponry. Therefore, it is clear that the communist troops were battle hardened and experienced veterans. How they gained that experience? There's only one logical answer to that.

Oh, and here's a page from a Taiwanese school book:

View attachment 6680

The PLA vets themselves admitted in documentaries that they knew nothing about fighting a conventional war at the beginning of the civil war. Most majority of the low-level officers in PLA were consisted of Nationalist POWs. They had to train PLA soldiers how to do the most basic things. The interviewed PLA vets even said "the Nationalists knew how to fight on the battlefield, while all we had was bravery..."

solarz · Jul 30, 2012

lightspeed said:
the Chinese Communists were mostly inexperienced and untrained at ww2 end. most of their military equipments were indeed from what the Japanese left behind. the Japanese Officers and NCO gave the Communists valuable training on how to use and operate the weapons and equipments. the Japanese technicians taught the Commies how to maintain and repair the hardware. it took a long time to train the Commies soldiers in these two areas. that’s one of the reasons why General Lin Biao’s relatively untrained troops suffered some early defeats in the battles against General Sun Liren’s forces. by end of 1946, most of the Commies troops were well-trained and sufficiently equipped. the tide of war started to turn in favor of the Communists. the Chinese Communists also received some US lend-lease supplies ( Europe ), Russian military equipments all given by the Soviet.

how much effective United States military aid was given to the Nationalist from 1941-1949? was a controversial issue in the US policy toward China during that period. the pro Nationalist China group ( the General Chennault, Senator McCurran, Congressman Judd…) vigorously accused the US State of Department of not giving sufficient and useful military aid to the Nationalist. Secretary Acheson and General Marshall representing State Department hit back strongly against those accusations.
( when i was there, not a single battle was lost by the Nationalist to the Communist due to a lack of military equipments ) by General Barr, Head of China mission 1948. but the mission deputy General Brink had the opposite view of Barr.
the Nationalist, especially from 1947 onwards kept on complaining to the US about inadequate military equipments / severe shortage of ammunition and emphasized the immediate urgency which the US must give more military supplies for their besieged troops in the North East. so 各说各话?

1.2 million regular troops or 1.2 million regular + guerilla troops? i believe the CCP had 300-500K regular + guerilla troops by ww2 end.
when Mao Zedong met with Generalissimo Chiang in Chunking ( late 1945 ), he talked about guns for his troops and accidently revealed that the Communist had a 350K regular army. i read that if you add up all the PLA commanders and their units by ww2 end, it’s not possible to have a 1.2 million troops figure.

according to author Anthony Kubek ( How the Far East was Lost ), the 1.2-1.5 million CCP troops strength was first invented by US Communist Earl Browder. there’s a interesting story behind it.

You're contradicting yourself.

1- If the CCP had less than 1.2 million troops, then it is all the more evidence that they were *NOT* inexperienced and untrained. The KMT had 4.6 million troops. If they couldn't take out 350k Communists with inferior equipment and no combat experience...

2- Of *course* the Nationalists will complain about insufficient aid, since they're losing battle after battle. Nothing remarkable about that. There's a reason Jiang was known as General "Cash-my-check" in the US.

The Japanese surrendered on August 14, 1945. The hostilities between CCP and KMT resumed on June 26th, 1946. 200k KMT troops surrounded 60k CCP troops at the border of Hubei and Henan. The Communists broke out of the encirclement. Is that the possible with inexperienced troops?

Between those 2 events, only 10 months have passed. Factoring in the time it takes to actually take control of surrendered Japanese equipment, the Communists would only have had a few months to train in Japanese equipment *AND* somehow acquire enough combat training to manage the above feat. That is if we stick with your idea that the Communists didn't do anything useful during the war against Japan.

solarz · Jul 30, 2012

vesicles said:
The PLA vets themselves admitted in documentaries that they knew nothing about fighting a conventional war at the beginning of the civil war. Most majority of the low-level officers in PLA were consisted of Nationalist POWs. They had to train PLA soldiers how to do the most basic things. The interviewed PLA vets even said "the Nationalists knew how to fight on the battlefield, while all we had was bravery..."

Yes, you're right, the individual soldiers didn't have much experience fighting a conventional war. That's why the early stages of the Civil War saw numerous back and forths between the two sides.

However, the Communists *DID* have extensive combat experience, and it was with that combat experience that they were able to survive the initial KMT onslaught and quickly acquire the know-how to fight back. That would not have been possible if the Communists were freshly recruited peasants.

vesicles · Jul 30, 2012

solarz said:
Yes, you're right, the individual soldiers didn't have much experience fighting a conventional war. That's why the early stages of the Civil War saw numerous back and forths between the two sides.

However, the Communists *DID* have extensive combat experience, and it was with that combat experience that they were able to survive the initial KMT onslaught and quickly acquire the know-how to fight back. That would not have been possible if the Communists were freshly recruited peasants.

When did they fight back? The time when they were soundly defeated in the Nanchang rebellion? The time when they were chased 3000+ miles to the Shanxi? or the time when they were completely surrounded by the Nationalists in Shanxi and were only bailed out by the Japanese invasion? The PLA never did any fighting back until mid 1947. At that time, they were chased off to the North of the Heilong river and about to hide in the forest. Jiang bailed them out by calling Sun Liren back and disbanding his New 1st army. Lin Biao got a breather and fought back. That was the first time PLA ever fought back.

Most of the PLA involved in the first two main battles, battles of Liaoshen and Pingjin, was actually freshly recruited peasants from mainly Shandong province. The main troops stationed in Shanxi or Jiangsu (a small force in the tens of thousands) were not sent to Manchuria. Lin Biao was sent to Shandong to start the recruitment when the Soviets finally agreed to allow the CCP to enter Machuria. The new recruits were then immediately sent to Manchuria for training. At the time of the recruitment, people were not told that they would be sent far away from home. Most of them thought they were fighting in Shandong. So many deserted when they found that they would go to Manchuria. Also because no one was allowed to carry any equipment into Manchuria, the walk (literally walking) to Manchuria was very difficult. Many deserted on the way to Manchuria.

Most of the battles of Laioshen and Pingjin were fought by these new troops. It was this new force that eventually ballooned to over 1 million. The main forces (again, the small force only about 10,000)stationed in Yanan did not join the fight until much later when Mao "strategically" pulled out of Yanan under heavy attack. The most experienced PLA troops should be the New 4th army stationed in the north part of Jiangsu province led by Su Yu who pretty much fought the last and the biggest battle in the civil war on his own. Yet, he was not promoted to the rank of Marshal later because he was not with Mao during the hard times (WWII). Almost all the generals who later became Marshals were with him in Yanan during the WWII.

solarz · Jul 30, 2012

vesicles said:
When did they fight back? The time when they were soundly defeated in the Nanchang rebellion? The time when they were chased 3000+ miles to the Shanxi? or the time when they were completely surrounded by the Nationalists in Shanxi and were only bailed out by the Japanese invasion? The PLA never did any fighting back until mid 1947. At that time, they were chased off to the North of the Heilong river and about to hide in the forest. Jiang bailed them out by calling Sun Liren back and disbanding his New 1st army. Lin Biao got a breather and fought back. That was the first time PLA ever fought back.

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There are more here than I ever realized:

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You're focusing on one campaign where the Nationalists gained some successes while ignoring a plethora of other campaigns where they basically got their arses kicked by the PLA.

Check out this article:

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There were 5 major clashes in the latter half of 1945. While the PLA failed in the siege of Baotou and was defeated in the Northwest, they wiped out 17 Nationalist divisions and conquered large swathes of Shandong.

vesicles · Jul 30, 2012

solarz said:
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There are more here than I ever realized:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

You're focusing on one campaign where the Nationalists gained some successes while ignoring a plethora of other campaigns where they basically got their arses kicked by the PLA.

Check out this article:

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There were 5 major clashes in the latter half of 1945. While the PLA failed in the siege of Baotou and was defeated in the Northwest, they wiped out 17 Nationalist divisions and conquered large swathes of Shandong.

Almost all of these battles were fought between PLA and, as the Wikipedia describes: "the former nationalists turned Japanese puppet regime force who rejoined the nationalists after World War II". these were definitely NOT the kind of formal Nationalist units everyone has in mind, who were bravely fighting the Japanese head-on. In fact, these troops would be the ones whom the actual Nationalists would fight against in WWII. These units surrendered to the Japanese during WWII and then surrendered back to the Nationalists when the war was over. These troops were cowards in every sense of the word. So defeating units like these would not be considered an achievement.

solarz · Jul 30, 2012

vesicles said:
Almost all of these battles were fought between PLA and, as the Wikipedia describes: "the former nationalists turned Japanese puppet regime force who rejoined the nationalists after World War II". these were definitely NOT the kind of formal Nationalist units everyone has in mind, who were bravely fighting the Japanese head-on. These units surrendered to the Japanese during WWII because they were cowards to begin with. So defeating units like these would not be considered an achievement.

Not at all. I guess you just looked at the first few links. Those battles in the early 1945 were mostly against former puppet forces, which makes obvious sense since they were the closest to the Communist forces.

If you look at the later campaigns, especially the large ones such as Shangdang, Handan, Houma and Southern Datong-Puzhou, they were all against regular KMT troops. Especially the

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, where 60k Communist troops broke out and defeated an encirclement by 300k KMT troops, is an undeniable testament to the battle prowess of the early PLA.

vesicles · Jul 30, 2012

solarz said:
Not at all. I guess you just looked at the first few links. Those battles in the early 1945 were mostly against former puppet forces, which makes obvious sense since they were the closest to the Communist forces.

If you look at the later campaigns, especially the large ones such as Shangdang, Handan, Houma and Southern Datong-Puzhou, they were all against regular KMT troops. Especially the
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, where 60k Communist troops broke out and defeated an encirclement by 300k KMT troops, is an undeniable testament to the battle prowess of the early PLA.

Yes, it was the regular KMT units fighting in the Campaign of the North China Plain Pocket. However, if you look at the description of KMT commander, Liu Shi, this guy can only be considered a loser commander. He lost to alomst everyone he fought. He was actually fired by Jiang in 1942 because of his incompetence in fighting the Japanese. I don't think defeating an enemy like that shouldn be something that the PLA should be proud of. It's the battle against capable units that counts. However, at the beginning of the war, the PLA was completely ineffective.

solarz · Jul 30, 2012

vesicles said:
Yes, it was the regular KMT units fighting in the Campaign of the North China Plain Pocket. However, if you look at the description of KMT commander, Liu Shi, this guy can only be considered a loser commander. He lost to alomst everyone he fought. He was actually fired by Jiang in 1942 because of his incompetence in fighting the Japanese. I don't think defeating an enemy like that shouldn be something that the PLA should be proud of. It's the battle against capable units that counts. However, at the beginning of the war, the PLA was completely ineffective.

Come on, what? The PLA wiping the floor with thousands of former puppet forces is "completely ineffective"? One of the earliest battles, Yetaishan, was against regular KMT troops. 6k PLA defeated 20k KMT. How is that "completely ineffective"?

If you keep saying that the KMT was led by a complete loser every time the Communists win, then shouldn't it be the KMT who are "ineffective", considering the number of battles they lost?

You've been focusing on the battle between Sun Liren and Lin Biao and portraying it as the entire early stage of the Civil War, when the simple fact is, the PLA was more than holding its own against the KMT in even the early stages, and completely steamrolled the KMT from 1947 onwards.

Siege of Changchun

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