Word: huai
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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While Red armies swept unchecked toward Canton, news came of a jolt to Communist hopes in China's far Northwest. Last month 120,000 Reds under General Peng Teh-huai had chased an old Nationalist adversary, moody General Hu Tsung-nan, from the stronghold of Sian (see map). The way to rich Szechuan province and its famed capital Chungking seemed open. Instead, Communist Peng's men, thrusting on from Sian, rushed into a trap; it was the Chinese Red army's first defeat since the start of their all-out offensive...
Last week, by what the Chinese press called polite insubordination, Pai rudely defied the Gimo. He ignored an order to send one of his armies to the Huai River front, where the Communists were attacking less than 100 miles north of Nanking. He even requested the return of two armies he had previously "lent" to Chiang. Rumors swept Nanking that crafty Pai was delaying river-borne supplies to the capital, that he was shifting troops southward to fortify his lao chia (old home) in Kwangsi. If true, it would be a severe blow to Nationalist hopes of holding the Yangtze...
...military crisis was not easing. On the central front all action had bogged down in snow and mud. Bad weather prevented government planes from dropping supplies to their forces trapped north of the Huai. South of the river, Nanking's wretched defenders struggled eastward to block a Communist thrust to the Yangtze between the capital and Shanghai...
Just before last week's Communist stab through the Nationalist Huai River defense line (see above), TIME Correspondent Frederick Gruin made a visit to the Huai front. His report...
...front lay about ten miles north of Pengpu. Next morning in a curious military vehicle-an old rail coach converted by iron plates into an "armored car"-we clanked across the quarter-mile steel bridge spanning the Huai. The river's northern shore was buttressed at the bridgehead with zigzag trenches and barricades of sharp wooden stakes. It had been cleared of all sampans lest the Communists seize them for a crossing...