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Why did Lin Biao initially avoid fighting for Manchuria’s cities?
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Lin Biao
At a 1967 Red Guard rally, Lin Biao (left) and Zhou Enlai publicly display copies of The Little Red Book.
In the context of the Chinese Civil War, Lin Biao initially abandoned the cities of Manchuria to the Nationalist forces as part of a deliberate Maoist strategy.
By ceding control of the urban centers, Lin focused his efforts on securing the support of the rural peasantry in the countryside. This approach allowed him to utilize guerrilla warfare to methodically weaken his numerically superior enemy. By isolating the Nationalist troops within the cities and cutting off their tenuous hold on the railways, Lin was able to wear down their morale and resources, eventually forcing garrison after garrison to surrender as his own forces grew in strength.1