In the end, the repeated "suppression" operations conducted by massive Kuomintang forces were defeated. Deployed in a triangle in the middle of the Changjiang, Huaihe, Huanghe and Hanshui rivers three armies-the one led by Liu and Deng and two field armies newly arrived in the south, one led by Chen Yi and Su Yu, the other by Chen Geng and Xie Fuzhi-pinned down some 90 of the more than 160 brigades of enemy troops stationed on the southern front. They pushed the battle line south from the Huanghe to the north bank of the Changjiang and made the Central Plains, which had served as the rear of the Kuomintang troops in their offensives on the liberated areas, the base from which the PLA would advance to nationwide victory. This was a success of great strategic importance. In May 1984 the Central Committee appointed Deng Xiaoping First Secretary of its Central Plains Bureau and Political Commissar of the Central Plains Military Command.
With the launching of the successive Liaoxi-Shenyang, Huai-Hai and Beiping-Tianjin campaigns, the War of Liberation finally entered decisive stage.
In November 1948 the Huai-Hai Campaigns began. It was to last 65 days.
The battlefield of the Huai-Hai Campaign, centered on Xuzhou, covered a wide area, from the shores of the Yellow Sea in the east to the borders of Henan and Anhui provinces in the west, and from the areas along the Longhai Railway in the north to the Huaihe River in the south. For the Communist-led forces, this enemy-occupied area constituted a barrier to the Changjiang and to Nanjing, the capital of the Kuomintang government. After the fall of Jinan, the Kuomintang government drew back its forces and assembled in the Xuzhou area all the best troops on the southern front that were operating under its direct control-five armies and the troops from three pacification zones, totaling 800,000 men.
On the PLA side, seven columns of the Central Plains Field Army (later named the Second Field Army), 16 columns of the East China Field Army (later named the Third Field Army) and some local armed forces, or a total of 600,000 men, participated in this decisive campaign. They were supported by 5.4 million volunteer laborers, who-using carts, wheelbarrows, shoulder-poles, boats, and any other means at hand -transported 200,000 tons of grain and 7,000 tons of ammunition and other military materiel. At this point, it was truly a people's war. Deng Xiaoping was appointed Secretary of the General Front-line Committee, which was to command both the Central Plains Field Army and the East China Field Army and to take charge of everything at the front. The other members of the Committee were Liu Bocheng, Chen Yi, Su Yu and Tan Zhenlin. Deng and his fellow commanders made prudent dispositions in accordance with the strategy outlined by the Central Committee and with the policy decisions of Mao Zedong. Once operational plans were decided upon, Deng was to help organize their execution and to share command at the front.