HW #2

For Tuesday, 2/2, identify three major land, air or sea practices of the Chinese Civil War. (Write a paragraph on each)

Reading to complete HW 2: China Since 1900 Chapters 5-11; Modern World History 409-414

Three Major Land Practices of CCW:

Taking Cities:

The Red army was inferior to the Nationalists in terms of manpower and supplies, which made them an easier target for the Nationalist Army. and had suffered through the war. In order to eliminate the Communist threat, Chiang Kaisheck would attack and capture Communist-held cities. The Guomingdang army attacked Red-controlled Shanghai, and Chiang Kaisheck ordered all the communists rounded up and killed. This happened again in Guangzhou later that year, and forced thousands of Communists into the country. This strategic use of the nationalist army's superior power led to Communists being expelled from nearly all the major cities. The Reds retreated to the Jiangxi and Hunan countrysides where they had less influence over government matters. This also put Chiang Kaisheck himself in control of cities and "at the head of the government in Nanjing, now... ready to conquer the rest of China.

Extermination Campaigns:

Kaisheck had not managed to gain control of the Jiangxi province, because when the Communists fled to the province they won the support of the peasantry. Chiang Kaisheck considered this even more of a threat to his power than warlords or bandits, so he launched the Extermination Campaigns (1930-34). His army outnumbered the Reds. The first four were failures because he sent his armies directly into Red territory, but in the fifth campaign he used a new method of attack advised to him from General Hans von Seeckt of Germany. This tactic was similar to the trench warfare of WWI: the Nationalist armies surrounded the Jiangxi soviet and slowly moved forward while building blockhouses and digging trenches and putting up barbed wire fences. This was highly successful, and by October 1934 the Communists had lost over half their territory, 60,000 soldiers, were running out of food and fuel and weapons and ammo, and their territory was still being taken.

Guerilla Warfare:

Although the Red Army was smaller than the Nationalist army, the first four Extermination Campagins against the Reds were failures because the Reds successfully employed guerilla warfare tactics. In the first four extermination campaigns, the Reds never fought the Nationalists head to head; rather they lured them into Communist territory and then attacked each Guomingdang unit separately, "knocking them out in deadly ambushes". Mao's guerilla tactics that he controlled his army with were:

1. "When the enemy advances, we retreat!"

2. "When the enemy halts and encamps, we trouble them!"

3. 'When the enemy seeks to avoid a battle, we attack!"

4. 'When the enemy retreats, we pursue!"

These tactics met criticism because they allowed the Nationalists to take peasant villages as they went through the territory, which ultimately led to the deaths of more than a million peasants. However, these tactics were highly effective because they were used to outwit the plans of the Nationalist Army successfully, even though the nationalists were superior in numbers.