At the dawn of October 5, 1948, the communist 7th Column crossed the Fen River at Qingyuan (清原), and struck eastward to the region north of the town of Little Hotel (Xiao Dian, 小店).
After fierce battles of nineteen days, by November 13, 1948, all four nationalist strongholds at Eastern Mountain (Dong Shan, 东山) had been taken and in addition to the 22,000+ casualties suffered, the defenders also lost an entire division when the nationalist 8th Column (Division) defected to the communist side.