Battle of Xuzhou

Battle of Xuzhou

Part of: Second Sino-Japanese War

date	May 1938
place	Xuzhou and the surrounding area
output	Japanese victory

Parties to the conflict
China	Japan
Commander
Li Zongren Han Fuqu † Pang Bingxun Sun Lianzhong Sun Zhen Tang Enbai Wang Mingzhang † Zhang Zizhong	Terauchi Hisaichi Hata Shunroku
Troop strength
600,000 men in 64 divisions	240,000 men in 8 divisions
losses
~ 100,000	~ 30,000

The Battle of Xuzhou took place in May 1938 and was a battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War between armies of the Chinese Kuomintang and the Japanese Empire . It marked the end of a month-long campaign to capture the important Xuzhou transportation hub .

background

Japanese conquests in China by the end of 1937 (Xuzhou marked here as Suchow )

The actions that led to the battle can be dated back to December 1937. The regional army northern China had after the Battle of Beijing-Tianjin in the summer of 1937, the Chinese 29th Route Army along the north-south from Tianjin to Pukou running Jinpu railway pushed back. In December 1937, the regional army of central China had captured Nanjing , the defending Chinese troops had withdrawn towards central China. The Japanese high command was now planning to capture the important Xuzhou railway junction in Jiangsu Province , where the Jinpu Railway crosses the Longhai Railway, which runs west from the port city of Lianyungang . From this position one would have been able to advance from Xuzhou both further west to Zhengzhou and Xi'an and further south to Wuhan .

course

Due to the pressure exerted by the Japanese troops on the defending Chinese units , the KMT leadership pulled together 64 divisions around Xuzhou. At that time, the headquarters of the KMT's 5th War Zone was in Xuzhou .

The Japanese decided to besiege and encircle Xuzhou. For this purpose, the Japanese regional army of North China with three divisions was available in the north and the Japanese Central China Expedition Army with four divisions in the south . The 1st and 2nd Japanese tank battalions were stationed on the western flank of the city to prevent the Chinese from retreating west. The 5th Japanese Tank Battalion was available to support the infantry .

The Central China Expeditionary Army advancing from the south on Xuzhou was stopped in heavy fighting on the Huai He in January 1938 , while the Northern China Regional Army advancing from the north fought its way through southern Shandong until March . At the end of March and beginning of April 1938, the Chinese under Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi succeeded in inflicting a serious defeat on the Japanese advancing from the north on Xuzhou, in particular the 5th Japanese Division under Itagaki Seishirō , in the battle for Tai'erzhuang . The Japanese were forced to withdraw and regroup.

Towards the end of April, reinforcements reached the Japanese troops, which could now prepare for the final battle for Xuzhou. The Japanese troop strength around Xuzhou grew to 400,000 men during this time. The Japanese then advanced on Xuzhou from three directions, north, east and south. On May 9th, they captured Mengcheng , where the troops advancing from the south split up. Some advanced west and then north to separate the Longhai Railway west of Xuzhou. The Japanese coming from the north gathered in the Jining area to advance again. An amphibious landing at Lianyungang finally completed the containment ring. On May 17, Japanese artillery began bombarding Xuzhou city.

At that time, Li Zongren, in consultation with Chiang Kai-shek, had already decided to withdraw from the city and the evacuation of the civilian population had begun. The troops were to withdraw in smaller groups in a south-westerly direction. The plan was to regroup in the Dabie Shan Mountains to defend Wuhan . The Chinese benefited from a sandstorm that obscured their retreat. Between 200,000 and 300,000 men were able to successfully break away by May 21. Two days earlier, the Japanese had marched into Xuzhou under Hata Shunroku .

Losses and consequences

The Japanese were able to win the difficult battle, but most of the Chinese soldiers escaped the cauldron and Chinese units had not been wiped out because the Japanese troops were too small. The Chinese lost around 100,000 soldiers and the Japanese around 30,000.

As the general war situation had developed extremely badly for the Chinese, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the demolition of the dikes of the Yellow River in order to stop the advancing Japanese. In doing so, however, he also accepted high casualties among the civilian population and extensive devastation of cities and villages.

See also : Flooding of the Yellow River in 1938

literature

• Stephen R. MacKinnon: Wuhan, 1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China. University of California Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-520-25445-9 .