The Menglianggu campaign () was fought between the nationalists and the communists during the Chinese Civil War in the post-World War II era and resulted in communist victory. The campaign was later used by the communists as a specific battle example in their military science and history, as well as a propaganda piece. The battle mainly took place in Menglianggu of Linyi region in Shandong Province. Prelude From March 1947 the Nationalists had abandoned their original plan of all-out assault on every communist position; instead, they adjusted their strategy to a much more realistic one: concentrating on attacking the communists in northern Shanxi and Shandong. In the Shandong theater of war, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek named Gu Zhutong, the commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army, as the commander-in-chief at the front line, setting up his headquarters in Xuzhou. Gu Zhutong had 24 army-sized reorganized divisions totaling more than 60 division-sized reorganized brigades at his command, totaling 450,000+ troops. Out of that number, over 330,000 were in 17 army-sized reorganized divisions totaling more than 43 division-sized reorganized brigades, deployed on the first line, organized into three corps: the I, II and III. These were spearheaded by three crack units of the nationalist forces: the 11th Reorganized Division, the 74th Reorganized Division and the 5th Army. Out of the three corps, the I commanded by Tang Enbo was the largest and strongest, with almost 200,000 troops in eight army-sized reorganized divisions totaling more than 20 division-sized reorganized brigades; this unit was tasked with the main assaults on the communists. From late March to mid April 1947, nationalists succeeded in taking control of the regions along the section of the Jinpu railway from Xuzhou to Jinan and the entire southern Shandong region. The overconfident nationalists subsequently attacked the mountainous region in central Shandong in late April 1947 but suffered a setback for their carelessness in Tai'an-Mengyin campaign, losing over 24,000 troops. However, such a setback was, in the overall scheme of things, considered a rather minor that could be ignored: a mere 5% out of the total force. The nationalists continued their original plan of pushing the arc-shaped front line continuously deeper into central Shandong and force the local communist force—the East China Field Army—into a decisive battle in which it would be annihilated; if the communists chose not to engage, then they would be forced to cross the Yellow River to flee north.