杜聿明
In February 1945 he became commander-in-chief of the fifth war zone, a post previously held by Li Zongren. When the war with Japan was over, he was named as pacification director of Zhengzhou garrison, controlling first and fifth war zones. When the Campaign of the North China Plain Pocket broke out in the summer of 1946, he failed to destroyed the Communist forces under Marshal Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping and was relieved of his command yet again. In the fall of 1948, He became the commander-in-chief of the Suppression General Headquarter of Xuzhou Garrison and controlled some 800,000 nationalist soldiers until his capable deputy commander-in-chief Du Yuming was recalled to Manchuria to salvage the nationalist positions there when Marshal Lin Biao launched the Liaoshen Campaign on September 12, 1948. He went into a panic and did not organize an effective defensive line around his command sector when Communist commander Su Yu attacked Xuzhou in the Huaihai Campaign. Although President Chiang Kai-shek again dispatched Lieutenant General Du Yuming to save the situation, Liu's ineffective leadership and timidness had already doomed the KMT position in Central China. When the Communist forces finally defeated the nationalist troops the next year and deputy commander-in-chief Du Yuming was captured, Liu was again fired by Chiang Kai-shek, who was lucky enough to escape Xuzhou via plane.