1.3 Flexible military strategies and tactics

The determinant of the Communist victory in the revolution was war, and to a great extent, winning a war depends on the proper use of military strategies and tactics.

During 1927—1937，when both parties confronted each other, the Communist Party of China, given that its weak military forces, chose guerilla warfare in the mountains and guerilla-based mobile warfare, which limited the display of the Kuomintang's grand tactics. Mao Zedong generalized the principle of guerilla warfare into 16 Chinese characters, i.e.,“We retreat when the enemy advances; we harass it when the enemy camps, we attack it when the enemy is tired; and we chase after it when the enemy retreats”. The main principle of mobile warfare was to lure the enemy to the center of the revolutionary base, after which the Communist Party of China could take advantage of its familiarity with local terrain and local people to take concealed actions, bring together the advantaged military forces, attack the enemy from afar, beat the weak enemy first, and wage annihilation warfare. Under the above principle, the Communist Party of China successfully crashed the “encircling and annihilation (referring to repeated campaigns of the Kuomintang against the communists from 1930 onwards)”. Members of the Red Army under its guidance once reached more than 100,000 in number.

During the anti-Japanese War, according to the contrast of the Chinese and Japanese military forces and the characteristics of national war, the army led by the Communist Party of China changed the movement warfare to independent mountain guerillas. Furthermore, at the outbreak of the anti-Japanese War, it's barely possible for the more than 40,000 troops of the Communist Party of China with extremely decrepit equipment to be brought together to squarely confront the bulky Japanese troops which were better equipped. The role of such an army did not lie in concrete battles, but the full use of its advantage of being flexible and good at guerilla warfare, its rapidity and extensiveness, its harassment of the enemy rear and supplies of the Japanese troops so as to cooperate with the Kuomintang army on the frontline battlefield. It's safe to say that the strategic idea conforms to both the real military strength of the Communist Party of China and the demands of the anti-Japanese War. It's rightly under the guidance of the strategic idea that the army of the Communist Party of China went deeper into the enemy rear, mobilized and organized the masses, and expanded its anti-Japanese revolutionary base and anti-Japanese armed forces. Ultimately, after the victory of the anti-Japanese War, it had set up a military force of over 1 million troops at an area with 100 million population, which later became a decisive force in China after the anti-Japanese War, also the sole force capable of fighting the Kuomintang on the battlefield.

Utterly decrepit equipment of the Communist Party of China

In 1946, at the outbreak of the Civil War between both parties, the Communist Party of China had 1.2 million troops and decrepit equipment, while the Kuomintang had 4.3 million troops and advanced equipment. However the result was the Communist Party of China defeated the Kuomintang, during which the proper use of strategies and tactics served as a very important factor. When the Kuomintang launched strategic offensive, the Communist Party of China set the correct guideline of giving priority to annihilating the enemy's effective strength and not protecting or guarding fixed areas, striking heavy blows at the Kuomintang troops; when the Kuomintang's military attack had not been stopped, the Communist Party of China made a bold decision to launch strategic counteroffensive, sent troops in three dispatches in succession, made strategic deployment in Jianghuai area, and brought the war into areas occupied by the Kuomintang, threatening the rear and central zones of the Kuomintang and dragging the Kuomintang troops into a passive state; since the autumn of 1948, the Communist Party of China organized Liaoxi-Shenyang, Huai-Hai and Peiping-Tientsin campaigns, through which it annihilated the main force of the Kuomintang troops on the battlefield in Northeast China, North China and East China. After the Campaign of Crossing the Yangtze River,Which is ended in April, 1949, the Communist Party of China made wide diversions and outflanked the Kuomintang troops in the vast areas of south of the Yangtze River, annihilating most the Kuomintang troops on the battlefield in East China, Central South China, South China and Southwest China. Only a few residue the Kuomintang troops fled to Taiwan. In the three years from 1946 to 1949, the Communist Party of China annihilated more than 8 million the Kuomintang troops. Of course, such an enormous military victory rested with not only the proper formulation and application of military strategies and tactics, but also the endeavoring spirit of the Communist troops, the leading role of the the Communist military leaders and the vigorous logistic supports from the civilians to the troops of the Communist Party of China. The perspective is indispensable to investigate the victory of the Communist Party of China on the battlefield and analyze why it could always launch wonderful battles with a force inferior in number.

The Liaoxi-Shenyang Campaign