The Huaihai Campaign was a military action during 1948 and 1949 that was the determining battle of the Chinese Civil War. It was one of the few conventional battles of the war with both sides using tanks, many captured from the Japanese or American tanks remaining from World War II. This campaign was one of the three campaigns that marked the end of Nationalist dominance in northern China, the other two campaigns being Liaoshen and Pingjin. 550,000 troops of the Republic of China (under the Kuomintang) were surrounded in Xuzhou (Hsuchow) and destroyed by the communist People's Liberation Army (PLA). Gongchen was the designation of a Japanese-built Type 97 Chi-Ha tank which served as the first tank of the PLA.
