the total nationalist force in the northwestern China. The fall of the largest city in northwestern China to the PLA completely demoralized the nationalists and triggered a disastrous domino effect: after taking Lanzhou, the 62nd Army of the XVIII Corps and the communist I Corps without its 7th Army continued its push toward Xining, and from August 28, 1949, thru September 5, 1949, the communist I Corps had crossed the Yellow River at Yongjing ( ) in Gansu and Xunhua ( ) in Qinghai, and took Minhe, and Hualong, threatening Xining. Ma Bufang and his only son Ma Jiyuan ( ) fled to Chongqing by air, and Xining fell to the PLA on September 5, 1949. The remaining 2,000 survivors of Ma Bufang's troops surrendered to the PLA after they fled to Huangzhong and Haiyan regions, and the entire Qinghai province fell to the PLA by the mid of September, 1949. Beiping Radio announced the capture of Lanzhou on August 27, 1949. After the Lanzhou campaign, the airstrips of the Gansu corridor came under Communist control. For decades, the communists have willfully decreased their number of losses by agreeing with their nationalist adversary's claim of inflicting more than 8,700 casualties on the communists in Lanzhou Campaign. It was not until the late 1990s did the communists finally begun to admit their real loss which is higher than they had originally claimed by publicizing the Peng Dehuai's telegram to Wang Zhen on August 28, 1949, in which the real communist losses were given when Peng Dehuai asked Wang Zhen to inform He Long that the communist casualties was in fact just below 11,000. However, the communist victory did open the gateway to Ningxia and Xinjiang, and paved the way for the following victories in the northwestern China. See also List of battles of the Chinese Civil War National Revolutionary Army History of the People's Liberation Army Chinese Civil War References Zhu, Zongzhen and Wang, Chaoguang, Liberation War History, 1st Edition, Social Scientific Literary Publishing House in Beijing, 2000, (set) Zhang, Ping, History of the Liberation War, 1st Edition, Chinese Youth Publishing House in Beijing, 1987, (pbk.) Jie, Lifu, Records of the Liberation War: The Decisive Battle of Two Kinds of Fates, 1st Edition, Hebei People's Publishing House in Shijiazhuang, 1990, (set) Literary and Historical Research Committee of the Anhui Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Liberation War, 1st Edition,