Huaihai Campaign (淮海戰役) or Battle of Hsupeng (徐蚌會戰) (also Battle of Xu-Beng) was a military action during 1948 and 1949 that was the determining battle of the Chinese Civil War. It was one of the few conventional battles of the war. 500,000 troops of the Republic of China (under the Kuomintang) were surrounded in Xuzhou (Hsuchow) and destroyed by the communist People's Liberation Army (PLA). Although the Kuomintang nationalists had air superiority, the Communists used concentrated artillery effectively and were thus victorious.