On December 17, 1946, the nationalists sent out six divisions, including the 2nd division, the 195th Division of the 52nd Army, the 91st Division of the 71st Army, one Division from each of the Newly Organized 1st Army, the Newly Organized 6th Army, and the 60th Army to launch the first offensive against the communist base south of Songhua River, and two more Divisions were deployed as reserves. The initial nationalist objective was to linkup Tonghua with Ji'an (集安) so that the enemy could be further squeezed into the mountain. In response, on December 18, 1946, the communist 4th Column struck the regions between Fushun, Huanren and Benxi behind the enemy lines, and after more than a dozen days of fighting, succeeded in taking over more than twenty positions from the nationalists, including the critical ones at Alkaline Factory (Jian Chang, 碱厂) and Master Field (Tian Shifu, 田师付), and killing more than 3,000 nationalist troops in the process. The nationalist 91st Division of the 71st Army was forced to withdraw to reinforce the rear, and this weakened the nationalist thrust by exposing the two divisions of the nationalist 52nd Army, which were ultimately badly mauled by the enemy who seized the opportunity and attacked with great efficiency and speed, resulting in the regions south of Tonghua newly taken by the nationalists earlier in the initial stage of the offensive falling back into the enemy hands.