Saturday, October 11, 2008

Typhoon Saomai

Typhoon Saomai was a powerful typhoon that affected areas of Taiwan and the of the People's Republic of China. It was the eighth tropical storm, fifth typhoon, and third super typhoon of the 2006 Pacific typhoon season recognized by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, Saomai was the seventh tropical storm and fifth typhoon of the season. The name "Saomai" was submitted by Vietnam, and is from the word for "morning star" , a reference to the planet .

The typhoon brought heavy rain and wind to areas of the Mariana Islands, the Philippines, Taiwan, and the east coast of China. It was responsible for 458 deaths and $2.5 billion in damage. Saomai affected many of the same areas affected by Tropical Storm Bilis a month earlier, and the China Meteorological Administration reported that Saomai was the strongest typhoon that ever occurred over China's offshore region as well as the most powerful typhoon ever to make landfall over Mainland China.

Meteorological history



A tropical disturbance formed east of Chuuk on July 31 and gradually increased in organization over the next several days as it moved northwestward. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center issued a Tropical Cyclone Formation Alert on the system on August 4, it was designated a tropical depression by both the JTWC and the Japan Meteorological Agency later that day. The depression strengthened into a tropical storm on August 5, and the JMA designated it Tropical Storm Saomai.

Saomai continued moving toward the northwest and passed over the Mariana Islands on August 6 while continuing to strengthen, and was upgraded to a severe tropical storm by the JMA later that day. The storm then began organizing and intensifying more rapidly, becoming a typhoon early on August 7. Saomai moved into the area of responsibility of on August 8, and was designated Typhoon Juan. Rapid intensification continued, and Saomai reached its peak intensity of 105 s on August 9 north of Miyakojima.

After passing to the south of Okinawa, Saomai turned westward and brushed the northern coast of early on August 10, before making landfall in later that day. Gradual weakening ensued as Saomai moved further inland, and it weakened into a tropical depression on August 11, dissipating later that day.

Preparations



The United States National Weather Service issued a for Guam as Tropical Storm Saomai approached the island on August 6. Military bases in northern Guam entered Tropical Cyclone Condition of Readiness 1, meaning that winds of 50 s or higher were expected within 12 hours. The rest of the island was placed under Condition of Readiness 2, meaning that such winds were possible within 24 hours. Several bases were temporarily closed.

The Central Weather Bureau of the Republic of China issued land and marine typhoon warnings for areas of northern Taiwan in anticipation of Saomai's outer bands. The warnings had been upgraded from lesser warnings issued for , which made landfall in southern Taiwan the day before.

In China, 990,000 people in Zhejiang and 569,000 people in Fujian were evacuated to shelters prior to Saomai's landfall. Over 20,000 soldiers and police were mobilized to aid in cleanup and rescue efforts.

Impact


While still a tropical storm, Saomai passed over Guam, bringing rain and wind to the island, but no damage or deaths were reported.


The core of the typhoon passed to the north of Taiwan, but the island still experienced heavy rain and wind that disrupted traffic and cancelled flights to and from Taipei. No serious damage or casualties were reported. Afterwards, Saomai made landfall in Zhejiang province, where 87 deaths were reported, mostly in Wenzhou. Over 18,000 homes were destroyed, and major highways in the province were flooded out. Saomai was responsible for 4.9 billion in damage in Zhejiang. Strong winds and flooding destroyed 37,000 houses and flooded 380 km? of farmland, and economic damage amounted to 6.3 billion yuan.

Another two people were killed in Jiangxi. One person was washed away in floodwaters while inspecting damage, while another person was killed when a damaged building collapsed. Six reservoirs in the province were destroyed, and 348 million in damage was reported.

Aftermath


The made an appeal for almost 6 million Swiss francs to assist stricken families in the . As of August 11, 2006, about 1.8 million Chinese yuan worth of relief items and financial assistance had been given to the victims. The PRC government also allocated 120 million yuan for disaster relief in areas affected by Saomai and earlier storms. The funds were used to provide food and water for displaced victims and pay for the rebuilding effort in Zhejiang and Fujian.

The name ''Saomai'' was retired at the 39th annual meeting of the ESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee in Manila in December 2006. In December 2007, the committee selected the name ''Son Tinh'' to replace Saomai on the s beginning in .

Minyue

Minyue was an ancient kingdom located what is now the province of Fujian in Southern China. It was a contemporary of the Han Dynasty. Its inhabitants were from diverse ethnic groups including the Baiyue. The state survived roughly from 334 BC to 110 BC. According to the ''Shiji'', the founders were members of the royal family who fled after that state was defeated by and in 334 BCE.

Minyue was partially conquered by the Han Dynasty by the end of the 2nd century BCE. However its position made it almost impossible for the Han people to establish a strong grip over this area. An ancient stone city located in inner mountains of Fujian is said to have been the Minyue capital. The nearby tombs show the same funerary tradition as the state of Yue. Hence, it is concluded that the city was a Minyue center.

Kucheng Massacre

Kucheng Massacre was a great massacre of Western Christians that took place at , Fujian, on August 1, 1895. At dawn of that day, in Gutian made a carefully arranged attack upon missionaries who were then taking summer holidays at Gutian Huashan, killing eleven people and destroying two houses. Kucheng Massacre is considered one of the worst outrages against foreigners in China prior to the Boxer Movement in 1899-1901, the only comparable event in being the Tianjin Massacre in 1871.

Background



The secret sect of Vegetarian in Gutian was set up in 1892. Within three years' time, the number increased to more than three thousand, most of which were deprived people drawn from the bottom of society. Dissatisfied with the reality, they banded themselves against the Qing government and for some time caused great uneasiness both to the governing authorities and to missionaries. In 1895, the humiliating defeat of China during the Jiawu War apparently fermented their fury and led to their brutal outrage against foreigners. The last letter from the murdered English missionary Robert Warren Stewart, dated April 8, describes the critical situation of affairs at Gutian:

:

Events



On August 1, 1895, at the time of the initial outbreak, the family of Robert W. Stewart and the other ladies were still asleep in their hill village at Gutian Huashan . Entirely without provocation, the Vegetarian mob broke in, speared the victims to death, and burnt down the houses. Only five persons survived the attack, two of whom were Mr. Stewart's children: one had one knee broken, and the other, a baby, had an eye gouged out. Those murdered at Huashan were:



Aftermath



The Qing government had suppressed the news for three days before an official telegraph was sent out from Shanghai on August 4. Western countries strongly condemned China for its connivance with the brutality and indignantly urged the guilty be punished. Under the pressure of foreign military force, the Qing government appointed a Commission of Enquiry consisting of both Chinese officials and British diplomats. All principals were soon executed, and other accessories were either banished or sentenced to life imprisonment. The supervisor of Gutian county Wang Rulin was also dismissed from office.

Stephen Livingston Baldwin, Secretary of the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society in China, commented on the massacre in an interview from ''New York Times'':
:

The bodies of the victims were buried at the mission cemetery of Fuzhou.

Fujian People's Government

The People's Revolutionary Government of the Republic of China , also known as the Fujian People's Government , was a short-lived anti-Kuomintang government in the Republic of China's Fujian Province. The rebellion that led to its formation and its collapse are known as the Fujian Incident or Fujian Rebellion.



In November 1933, some leaders of the National Revolutionary Army's 19th Route Army including Cai Tingkai, Chen Mingshu, and Jiang Guangnai, who had gained fame for their role in the January 28 Incident, were deployed to southern China to suppress communist rebellion, but instead they negotiated peace with the rebels. In alliance with other Kuomintang forces under Li Jishen, the 19th Route leaders broke with Chiang Kai-shek and took control of Fujian where they were stationed and, on November 22 1933, proclaimed a new government. The chairman of the government was Li Jishen, Eugene Chen was foreign minister, Jiang Guangnai was finance minister, and Cai Tingkai was military head and governor of Fujian Province. A flag of red over blue with a yellow star was used and the Chinese era name of the new state was "Republic of China" with its founding being year one.

The rebels were motivated by, among other things, personal disagreements with Chiang Kai-shek, opposition to perceived appeasement of , and their assignment to the then relatively poor Fujian. The goals of the new government included the overthrowing of the Kuomintang government in Nanjing, various social and political reforms, and a stronger resistance to foreign interference in China. The rebellion brought a temporary halt to the central government's Fifth Encirclement Campaign in southeast China. However, implied or promised aid to the rebellion from the 's Jiangxi Soviet failed to materialize and the effort began to collapse.

The Kuomintang responded to the rebellion first with air attacks and, in January 1934, with a ground offensive that quickly led to the defeat to the formerly prestigious 19th Route Army. On 13 January 1934, the government was defeated and its leaders fled or defected to Chiang Kai-shek's forces.

References and further reading


*William F. Dorrill. ''The China Quarterly'', No. 37. , pp. 31-53.
*Frederick S. Litten. ''Republican China'', vol. XIV, number 1, November 1988, pp. 57-74. Accessed 20 February 2007.

Early western influence in Fujian

That people from the Western hemisphere have been visiting China from before the Christian era is beyond doubt. The first known name of a westerner is that of Alopen and he came from Syria in about 635. He may have been a Nestorian priest and his visit is recorded on the Nestorian Stone tablet, now in Xi’an. But before that it is recorded that an unnamed ambassador from the Emperor Marcus Aurelius arrived in Beijing in 166. The scarcity of records of Western visitations means little, since it is known for example that the upper classes in the Tang dynasty favored the employment of westerners as servants. When Alopen arrived in Chang An it is very unlikely that he would find himself the sole representative of a foreign land as did many later arrivals in the last couple of centuries.

The first tangible record, for what it is worth, of Westerners in Fuzhou is that of Marco Polo, in about 1285 when he visited Fujiu. He observed that the people were the subjects of Kublai Khan, were ‘idolaters’, and much engaged in commerce and manufacture. ‘In these parts the tigers are of great size and strength. Ginger and galangal are produced in great quantities as well as other drugs.’ He did not seem to be very impressed with Fuzhou and barely gives the city a mention other than to remark that, ‘The people in this part of the country are addicted to eating human flesh, esteeming it more delicate than any other, provided that the person has not been occasioned by disease … They are a most savage race of men, insomuch that when they slay their enemies in battle, they are anxious to drink their blood and afterwards they devour their flesh.’

Given that Marco Polo dictated his book in prison several years after he returned from China, the accuracy of his remarks may be suspect. Either his memory was clouded by that time, or his ghost writer was more imaginative than he was. Some suggest that he did not visit this part of China at all. Nevertheless, he was impressed with Quanzhou, two hundred kilometres to the south of Fuzhou and according to Marco Polo, fifteen miles from Guangzhou. He claims to have visited Quanzhou, after leaving Fuzhou and making a detour that takes in Guilin and Guangzhou. He found to be Quanzhou a bustling port, was impressed by the quantity of pepper imports and noted that sugar was produced.

"There is a remarkable passage by Rustichello of Pisa, the "as-told-to" author of The Travels of Marco Polo, that appears to have escaped the attention of Jewish historians altogether. It tells how, when Messer Maffeo, Marco's uncle, and Messer Marco himself were in the city of Fu-Chau, there was in their company a certain Saracen who spoke to them as follows: "In such-and-such a place there is a community whose religion nobody knows. It is evidently not idolatrous, since they keep no idols. They do not worship fire. They do not profess Mahomet. And they do not appear to observe the Christian order. I suggest that we should go and have a talk with them. "Marco Polo and his uncle did just that. At first, writes Rustichello, the members of this mysterious community were reluctant to talk, for they were afraid that their visitors had been sent by the Great Khan to make this investigation in order to get them into trouble. But Maffeo and Marco attended the place regularly day after day, familiarizing themselves with these people and inquiring about their affairs. They discovered that they did indeed hold the Christian faith. For they possessed books and Maffeo and Marco, poring over them, began to interpret the writing. Translating it word by word from one language to another, till they found that they were the words of the Psalter.

They inquired from what source they had received their faith and their rule; and their informants replied: "From our forefathers." It came out that they had in a certain temple of their three pictures representing three apostles of the seventy who went through the world, preaching. They declared that it was these three who had instructed their ancestors in this faith long ago, and that it had been preserved among them for 700 years. For a long time they had been without teaching, so that they were "ignorant of the cardinal doctrines." In other words, it seems that their ancestors in China were practicing a form of Judaism but were unaware of the events of the Christian era.

The Moroccan traveller Ebn-e Batutta visited the port of Zaytun - and still known as Citong - in the mid-fourteenth century. He encountered a certain Shaykh Borh? noddin who gathered donations for the Sufi congregation of the Shrine of Abu Es’h? q-e K? zeruni in K? zerun, Iran.

During the period of the Mongol Yuan dynasty, China was open for trade and foreign intercourse of all kinds, including religious tolerance. The Jesuits were most successful in introducing Christianity, but the inroads made and the accumulated trust that might just have encouraged trade were lost when the Pope decided to undo a couple of hundred years of the work of his missionaries by countermanding their acceptance of ancestor respect .

The Mongol empire fell and China officially closed its doors to foreign trade for 500 years. Many tried to engage in trade throughout the and the early parts of the Qing dynasties, but the Chinese simply did not require to trade with the West or any other foreign trader, being satisfied that their own products satisfied their needs. For centuries the West failed to appreciate the validity of such a position and did not recognise the highly sophisticated systems that existed for trade and commerce in China. In 1000 years the only contribution that the West made was through the correction of the calendar by the Jesuits. Many an Emperor told Western ambassadors that he was not interested in the gadgets and toys that the West had to offer.

It was not until the 17th Century that Fujian started to feel pressure from the West to trade. The first probably came in the form of the Portuguese based in Macao who were not averse to raiding and pillaging along the southeast coast. When Portuguese influence was in decline, the Dutch in 1602 made their mark when the viceroy of Fujian Province reported to the Court in Beijing that the ‘Hong Mao’ , had attempted to establish a base. He reported to the Emperor that they had been dissuaded from doing so. Whether they established a base or not, the Dutch were apparently in Fuzhou long enough to be able to make an extraordinarily detailed and accurate survey of the mouth of the Min River and Fuzhou District, as shown on Bellini's map of 1773 'suivant les Hollandois'. The Dutch were evidently in Fuzhou for some considerable time and were accepted by the Chinese generally. One could hardly create such a chart without the consent and assistance of the local people. This map and others created in the 16th to 18th centuries suggest that foreigners were in China in considerable numbers, sufficient to map accurately much of mainland China and not only the coastal areas.

In the ensuing years from the visit of Marco Polo and the opening of Fuzhou as a Treaty port in 1843, there were many other foreign visitors to Fuzhou, but there is little in the literature other than intense mapping, to mark such occasions. The reasons for this may be twofold. The first is the positioning of Fuzhou City. Fuzhou was established in 202 BCE as the City of Ye. It is surrounded by mountains and the approach to the city by sea is through a narrow swift flowing passage of the Min River that is difficult to navigate. Furthermore, by land routes Fuzhou was, as it is now, the end of the line and not part of any major trading route. The second reason is that the only foreign trade port permitted in China was Guangdong and foreigners were not supposed to be roaming freely around China.

Immediately before the First Opium War there was considerable visible activity. Opium receiving stations of the great trading houses floated offshore Fuzhou and handled about $2 million of business annually by the mid 1840s - before the port was officially opened.

Problems for the Chinese with foreigners started in the late 18th Century. The British East India Company trading in India, China and Indonesia was prohibited by protectionist Acts of Parliament from importing into Britain any textiles, silks and the like, that would compete with local industry. This left the Company with only tea as a commodity of importance that could be sold in Britain. Since China demanded in exchange for tea, only gold or silver and would not accept any trade materials other than materials from India, the company was left with a serious imbalance in their dealings. From 1792 to 1807 imports to England were valued at 27 million pounds while exports to China were worth only 16 million pounds.

At first diplomatic representations to the Court were made, first by Lieutenant-Colonel Cathcart in 1788 who died on the way to China, and then by Lord Macartney in 1792. Lord Macartney was unsuccessful in obtaining any of the concessions that the Company had hoped for from the Chinese Government and the Company had to take other measures to improve the balance of trade. Two products from India found acceptance in China, one was raw cotton and the other was opium. As the Chinese took up the use of opium for recreational rather than medicinal purposes, imports increased from 600 cases in 1750 to 5000 cases in 1815. In that year a further attempt was made to open trade by diplomatic means through Lord Amherst. He was even less successful than Lord Macartney.

Nonetheless, attempts were made to trade in Fujian before Fuzhou was 'officially' opened to trade. In 1832 the redoubtable Prussian missionary doctor cum diplomat interpreter and later opium trader Karl Friedrich August Gutslaff visited Fuzhou with Captain Lindsey of the British ship Lord Amherst. Lindsey managed to sell some of his trade goods but Gutslaff distributed Christian tracts 'to eager and grateful readers'. Gutslaff also reported that the common people were very friendly, but they received a less friendly welcome from the City’s officials.

By 1825 the balance of trade had swung in the other direction, wherein the demand for silver to pay for opium was beginning to affect the national economy. The trade in opium was made illegal in 1798 but little was done to enforce the law. In 1838 the Emperor appointed Lin Zexu, a highly respected official from Fuzhou to put a halt to the opium trade. Lin had gained some credibility as an honest dealer through the suppression of salt smuggling.

Lin first appealed to the populous to stop using opium, and to the Chinese traders to stop dealing in opium with foreign traders. He even wrote to Queen Victoria threatening to cut off the trade in tea and rhubarb. He felt that to withhold the laxative might bring the constipated nation to reason. In 1839 Lin Zexu finally took decisive action. He demanded that the dealers hand over their opium but for six weeks they refused to comply. He tried to arrest Lancelot Dent, one of the major opium dealers and then blockaded the factories. The dealers persuaded by the British resident handed over some three million pounds of raw opium that Lin Zexu contrived with some difficulty to destroy.

By a curious sleight of mind, the opium traders persuaded the British Government that it was unreasonable to destroy the goods that they intended to smuggle into China. The British Superintendent of Trade in China wrote to the ‘Minister of the Emperor of China’ protesting against the violent outrages against British residents. In response, in June 1840, the British, with 4,000 troops backed by four armed steam ships, blockaded Guangzhou’s harbour and so the First Opium War began. The war ended after the British supported by a number of other nations looking for spoils, had destroyed defences in Guangzhou and Tianjin, and had taken part of Guangzhou city. The Treaty of Nanjing was signed in August 1842. This treaty stipulated the opening of Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo and Shanghai to Foreign trade and the ceding of Hong Kong in perpetuity. The treaty provisions were then extended to the Americans, the French and later to other nations. From that time on, but only for another twenty or so years, the name of the city of Fuzhou – or Foochow - became well recognised in England.

Dongshan Island Campaign

Dongshan Island Campaign was a series battles fought on the Eastern Mountain Island, Fujian between the s and the communists during the Chinese Civil War when the s unsuccessfully attempted to retake the island from the s. The campaign was the last land battle between two sides since the withdraw to Taiwan, and the last and largest counterattack against the mainland, and after this failure, the s realized that it was never practical to launch any large scale counterattack against the mainland in similar scale anymore, and instead, the strikes against the mainland were reduced into small scale infiltration / insurgency / skirmishes. The failure marked the end of operations of this kind.

Order of battle


*Attackers: order of battle :
**Two army divisions
**One paratroop division
**13 naval vessels
**30+ motorized
*Defenders: communist order of battle
**The 80th Public Security Regiment and militia
**The 272nd Regiment of the 31st Army
**A regiment of the 28th Army
**A regiment of the 41st Army
**The 91st Division of the 31st Army

Prelude


Shortly before dawn on July 16, 1953, the commander Hu Lian commanded his troops totaled two divisions in 13 naval vessels and more than 30 motorized sailed toward Eastern Mountain Island, Fujian, attempting to retake the island from the communists who took the island from the three years earlier in the Battle of Dongshan Island. In addition to the two army divisions, an elite paratroop division totaling 2,000 in two brigades was also deployed for the mission, and the total force committed was just over 10,000. The s had hoped to turn the island into another strongholds at the enemy’s doorstep and use it as a steppingstone to launch strikes against the mainland, but many capable commanders included the commander of this operation, Hu Lian , remained highly doubtful this would ever succeed, and after fierce debate, a compromise was reached: a much more moderate objective of striking the island to gain a political and morale boost and then a quick withdraw before the enemy could reinforce the island, and when the situation permitted, turn the island into a stronghold like the original plan.

The communists depended on the captured equipment from its adversary, included the radio communication gear, and since both sides used the American built communication gear, the communists were able to intercept the radio communications and deduct a rough general idea of the intentions with the help of other intelligence sources. When the communists reached the correct conclusion of the s planned attack and retake of the Eastern Mountain Island, there was not enough time to reinforce the island in a timely manner. The local defense was consisted of the 80th Public Security Regiment and militia totaling 1,200 men, obviously not enough, so the communist commander Ye Fei instructed the local garrison to decide what was best for itself, including withdraw if necessary, and attempt to retake the enemy later.

However, the local commander You Meiyao , the staff officer of the Chen Yi during the Second Sino-Japanese War, refused to withdraw because that would allow the s to utilise the communist fortifications on the island, making future attempts to dislodge the s from the island very difficult. Instead, You Meiyao , suggested while the reinforcement was organized as fast as possible, the local garrison would utilise the advantageous landscape and fortifications on the island to slow the enemy down by inflicting as many casualties as possible, and once the attackers were exhausted, the defenders would counterattack with reinforcements. The suggestion of You Meiyao was accepted and praised by Ye Fei and plans were made accordingly.

First Stage


The first shot of the campaign was fired at 5:00 AM on July 16, 1953 when a division landed on the island. After three hours of fierce fighting, the enemy’s first line of defense was breached, and the s succeeded in forcing the enemies into their second line of defense. By the end of the day, the had successfully taken the largest port on the island and controlled most of the island. Due to the rapid advance, the s were optimistic and declared the island was taken. Despite taking most of the island, the enemy’s resistance in the few remaining isolated pockets proved to be much stronger than the s had anticipated. After fierce fighting, only two isolated pockets of enemy resistance remained, but the s were unable to eliminate them.

The enemy’s heavy platoon had taken the highest point of the island and the largest port taken by the s were directly within the range. The accurate enemy mortar fire not only badly damaged the port facilities including the pier, but also scored direct hits on three large landing ships. Although the mortar rounds themselves were not powerful enough to completely destroy the landing ships which carried heavy weaponry and ammunition, the secondary explosions triggered by the direct hits by the enemy heavy mortars were enough to sunk all three landing ships. The damaged port required huge manpower to repair, which the s had done very successfully, but in doing so, large number of troops was tied down, unable to support other units in assault the remaining enemy strongholds on the islands. Furthermore, the s failed to realize the seriousness of the problem of the sinking of three large landing ships that blocked the waterway. Since the motorized with shallow draft were not severely effected by the wreckage, s were still able to transport personnel onto the island via these junks, but ships carrying heavy weaponry were effectively blocked due to greater draft. The s, however, did not consider the problem to be serious because the enemy was mostly light infantry anyway, a mistake that they would later deeply regret. In addition of failing to realize the problem caused, the s were not able to take the highest point of the island from the enemy and although most of the enemy heavy mortars were knocked out with air support, the surviving ones did not stop shelling the s until the very last round of ammunition had been exhausted. The s, in turn, decided that it was not worth to take the enemy position after the shelling had stopped because the enemy was out of water already and only armed with light weaponry, and thus no longer post any threat, and all the s had to do was simply stay out of the range.

The only enemy’s stronghold left on the island was in the region of Eight Feet Gate , which faced the mainland, defended by a single company of communist naval infantry. The strongly fortified position included a pier and thus was the critical steppingstone for the enemy reinforcement from the mainland. The s had correctly identified this serious threat and had also correctly decided to eliminate this threat early on, so entire American trained paratroop division which reached the island first was devoted for the mission. However, the lightly armed paratroopers proved to be no match for the enemy in heavily fortified positions on the terrain that strongly favored the defenders. After repeated extraordinarily but totally futile assaults, no only the elite paratroopers failed to achieve their original objective, but also suffered heavy loss, with several hundreds killed. The lack of heavy weaponry was the main cause of the failure to take this very important position, which paved the way for the eventual defeat in the campaign. Unable to take either of the two remaining enemy strongholds on the island, the battle reached a stalemate.

Second Stage


The enemy units on the mainland reacted rapidly by mobilizing all available vehicles to transport troops to the front. The communist 272nd Regiment of the 31st Army at Zhangpu County was first to respond: by 5:50 AM, less than an hour after the first shot of the campaign was fired, the advance guard of the regiment was already on its way to the front in the extremely few military vehicles available, while the rest of the regiment stop every civilian vehicles on the road to have the badly needed rides. By 9:00 AM, the entire regiment had reached the Eight Feet Gate pier of the Eastern Mountain Island, with the help of newly arrived reinforcement, the communist naval infantry company at Eight Feet Gate managed to force the attacking paratroopers into retreat. A regiment of the communist the 28th Army and a regiment of the communist the 41st Army soon arrived afterward and the communist commander You Meiyao , riding on the initial success of driving back the attacking paratroopers, decided to immediately counterattack before the arrival of any other reinforcement so that the s would not have the time needed to regroup, and successfully disrupted the defense and redeployment. As the s were forced back by the counterattacking enemy in the ensuing battles, the communist 91st Division of the 31st Army landed on the island under the commander of the 31st Army, Zhou Zhijian , the s’ fate on the island was thus sealed.

The commander of the operation, Hu Lian , initially did not believed that the enemy could reinforce the island in such large scale in such short time, since the vital bridge, the Nine Dragons Bridge was already destroyed by the air force and the intelligence analysis had concluded it would take at least two days to repair the bridge, but the aerial reconnaissance did not lie. Realizing that his force possessed neither technical nor the numerical advantages, Hu Lian wisely chose to withdraw before anymore enemy reinforcement arrived in order to avoid total annihilation. The enemy, in turn, seeing that what they sent was enough already to drive the attacking s away from the island, did not pursuit and stopped sending further reinforcement. The campaign came to an end on July 18, 1953 after the island was secured by the defenders after the retreat

Outcome


Dongshan Island Campaign was the last large scale counterattack against the mainland, and after this failure, the s realized that it was never practical to launch any large scale counterattack against the mainland in similar scale anymore, and instead, the strikes against the mainland were reduced into small scale infiltration / insurgency / skirmishes. The cadavers recovered by the communists on land and in the coastal waters totaled 2,664, and another 715 were captured alive, while the number of wounded was uncertain because most of them were successfully evacuated by the s themselves. In addition, two tanks were destroyed, three landing ships sunk and two aircraft were also lost. The communist casualties were relatively low in comparison, totaling 1,250. The failure was caused by a series blunder committed, with some of the critical ones committed before the campaign had even begun.

In order to maintain the secrecy of this surprise attack, the simply went too far in that even their own troops were not informed about the mission until they were already on their way to the island. Many captured officers did not feel it was a fair fight because they were not informed, and had they been better informed, they would postpone the attack to better train their troops and the outcome of the campaign would certainly be quite opposite, and this view was echoed by many of those who successfully withdrew to Taiwan in their memoirs. In fact, due to the poor inter-service communications caused by the overly excessive secrecy, the two aircraft lost during the campaign might very well be shot down by their own ground force on the island. One plausible explanation was that due to the rapid advance of the attackers in the initial phase, the positions previously occupied by the communists to fire at the aircraft were taken by the ground force, which was attacked by their own aircraft which was unaware the rapid development of the battlefield, and the ground force under aerial attack naturally assumed that these were the enemy’s aircraft, and fired back, shooting down two of their own.

The poor inter-service communication caused by the overly excessive secrecy also resulted by three landing ships after taking the largest port on the island, which was directly within range of the enemy’s heavy mortar positions at the highest point of the island. The slow landing ships loaded with heavy weaponry became sitting ducks as they were being unloaded, and in addition to three being sunk, the pier was also badly damaged by the accurate enemy fire. Although the enemy’s heavy mortars were eventually silenced, the damage was already done and despite the fact that the casualties were low, the lost of heavy weaponry and the need to repair the pier were two most significant factors that caused the defeat. In fact, the last enemy heavy mortars that survived the fire did not finally stop until all of the ammunition had run out.

Another serious blunder committed by the attacking force included attempts to cut the communication link between the defenders and the mainland. Despite the fact that every single telephone line pole was cut down, nobody bothered to cut the actual line, or to wiretap the enemy’s telephone line. As a result, the defenders were able to maintain perfectly good communications with the mainland and the enemy commanders were much better aware the situation than their counterparts, thanks to a telephone squad with encryption devices. In contrast, the communists’ radio equipment were captured from the s, who did not have the luxury of using telephones, but must rely on radio communications during the campaign, and thus the enemy was able to listen in on the s, obtaining valuable information on the moves and plans.

The other serious blunder committed by the attacking force was the grave underestimation of the enemy strength. Although the order of battle included three divisions, none of them were fully manned, and in fact, the paratroop division only included two brigades totaling 2,000, which was only the strength of a single brigade. Furthermore, due to the sinking of three landing ships at the port and the destruction of the port by enemy heavy mortar fire, most landing forces became light infantry which did not enjoy superior technical advantage over the enemy. This problem was further compounded by the incorrect use of the paratroopers by ordering them to attack the strongly fortified enemy positions at Eight Feet Gate Pier, resulting in more than 500 paratroopers killed, a staggering 25% of the total paratroop force devoted to the campaign. In addition to the loss of technical superiority due to the lack of heavy weaponry, the s also lacked the numerical superiority, which inevitable caused the final collapse of the offensive and the eventual failure.

In addition to underestimating the enemy strength, the s also committed another serious blunder in underestimating the enemy capacity to repair damages inflicted by the opposing side. The intelligence calculated that after the air strikes that destroyed the vital Nine Dragons Bridge , it would take at least two days for the enemy to repair the bridge, but in reality, the enemy had the bridge repaired in only two hours. As the news reached the surprised s, it was obvious that the mission was over and in order to avoid complete disaster, the s wisely chose to give up the fighting by withdrawing the surviving forces and abandoned the island.

The island was isolated from the rest of friendly bases and there was simply no way for the to permanently hold it, as demonstrated three years ago in the Battle of Dongshan Island, and though the campaign three year later might have been a relatively successful strike, any attempts to turn the island into a permanent base would certainly result in the same outcome as the battle three years earlier in which the s were forced to abandon the island, as shown in this campaign once again.

China Eastern Flight 5398

Flight 5398 was a airliner from Shenzhen's to Fuzhou Changle International Airport in Fujian, . On October 26, 1993, it crashed on approach to Fuzhou Airport. The aircraft overran the runway while landing in heavy rain and high winds. Two of the 80 passengers and crew on board were killed. The accident has been attributed to pilot error.

Aircraft


* Model: McDonnell Douglas
* Registration:
* MSN/LN: 49355/1224
* Engine: Pratt & Whitney
* Year of Delivery: 1985