Civil War
Throughout 1946-48, Yang faced very strong Nationalist forces in the area between Beiping (not yet renamed Beijing), Tianjin and Manchuria. In August 1946, Yang and Xiao Ke retreated in the face of an onslaught by three reinforced Nationalist corps concentrated on the rail lines between Beiping and Shenyang. In April 1948, Yang commanded the 2nd Army (later redesignated the 19th) under the North China Military Region of Nie Rongzhen and Xu Xiangqian. His deputy was Geng Biao and the political commissar Lo Ruiqing.
The 19th Group Army, established in August 1947, brought together several officers who would take prominent roles in post-liberation China. Among these were Geng Biao, Luo Ruiqing, Yang Chengwu, Pan Zili and Yang Dezhi.
In the Spring of 1949, Yang’s now 19th Army besieged Taiyuan, where Yang worked closely with Xu Xiangqian’s 18th Army. Following that battle, Yang reinforced Peng Dehuai at Lanzhou and remained with him into Ningxia through 1949. Yang Dezhi established the Ningxia Military Control Committee and Commanded the local Military District as the Civil War drew to a close.
Read more about this topic: Yang Dezhi
Famous quotes related to civil war:
“One of the greatest difficulties in civil war is, that more art is required to know what should be concealed from our friends, than what ought to be done against our enemies.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“A war between Europeans is a civil war.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“Colonel Shaw
and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry
on St. Gaudens shaking Civil War relief,
propped by a plank splint against the garage’s earthquake.”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“Luxury, or a refinement on the pleasures and conveniences of life, had long been supposed the source of every corruption in government, and the immediate cause of faction, sedition, civil wars, and the total loss of liberty. It was, therefore, universally regarded as a vice, and was an object of declamation to all satyrists, and severe moralists.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)