Xu Xiangqian
After the end of the Central Shanxi campaign, the majority of the province had fallen into the communist hands, and the nationalists were left with only two cities in entire Shanxi: Taiyuan, the provincial capital, and Datong. In order to completely annihilate their nationalist opponents and take control of the entire province, the communists decided to launch the Taiyuan campaign in mid October 1948. The communist commander Xu Xiangqian was put in charge, facing his adversary Yan Xishan, his nationalist counterpart who had just suffered a humiliating defeat in the hands of Xu Xiangqian in the Central Shanxi campaign. Yan appeared to be determined to fight to the end and repeatedly claimed in public that he would die with the city of Taiyuan. The communists began to mass their troops in places including Qingyuan (清原), Taigu (太谷) and Yuci (榆次) for the preparation of the attack on the provincial capital.