ABSTRACT
The Hong Lake area and western Hunan are connected by waterways as well as a network of mountain roads across the Wuling range. They are as different as day and night— the former being a Lakeland low and swampy, whereas the latter is rugged and hazardous. The defeat of the Sichuan armies altered the nature of the war from what had to that point been principally a provincial effort to annihilate the Communists to a joint effort of both the province and the central government. Chiang Kai-shek's staff officers, money and materiel, and infantry poured into the province via the Yangzi and the mountain paths from Gansu and Shaanxi. The guerrillas in the Chengkou-Wanyuan-Wuxi area depended on the traditional social ties of the leaders and their families for cover and for protection. The soldiers came from the fringe elements of rural society and the mutineers of the poorly paid and poorly disciplined army commanded by General Liu Cunhou.
