The People’s Liberation Army Defeats
the Combined Attack by British Imperialist and Kuomintang Warships
(April 22, 1949)
[1]
[Changjiang Front, Xinhua News Agency, twenty-second, twenty-four hours dispatch] During the river-crossing operation in the Zhenjiang-Jiangyin sector, the People’s Liberation Army on the twentieth and twenty-first defeated the combined attack of large flotillas of British imperialist and Kuomintang warships. This event merits the utmost attention of the people of the whole country. The course of events was as follows: on the twentieth, as our forces attacked the enemy bridgehead positions on the northern bank and many islets in the river in preparation for a large-scale river crossing, they had to fight not only the Kuomintang army but also the Kuomintang navy. On the morning of the twentieth, two enemy warships steamed from east to west and opened fire on our northern-bank bridgehead position at a place called Kou’an, northwest of Taixing County and directly north of Yangzhong County, with the aim of preventing our advance on Zhongxinzhou and the launching of our boats for the river crossing. Our artillery immediately responded with valiant counter-fire. One enemy warship was hit and damaged, and soon sank. Another was hit and damaged, steamed westward to the vicinity of Zhenjiang, and largely sank. At this time another enemy warship came east from the direction of Zhenjiang and, upon reaching Kou’an, shelled our positions. We returned fire once more and damaged this warship as well; it subsequently steamed downstream. On the morning of the twenty-first, two more warships arrived from the east, one large and one small. This time our forces opened fire first, keeping them from closing in, and damaged both warships, which fled in panic back toward Jiangyin in the direction from which they had come. It was only because of this victorious battle against the enemy warships that the enemy’s plan to block our river crossing was shattered, enabling our large-scale crossing of the Yangtze to proceed on the afternoon of the twenty-first.

[1] This is a commentary and news article written by Mao Zedong for the Xinhua News Agency. On April 30, Mao Zedong also drafted a statement on behalf of the spokesperson of the People’s Liberation Army Headquarters concerning the atrocities committed by British warships, expressing the Chinese people’s solemn and firm stand against imperialist aggression and setting forth the foreign policy of the soon-to-be-established New China.