By April 1945, China had already been
at war with Japan for more than seven years. Both nations were exhausted by years of battles, bombings and blockades. From 1941 to 1943, both sides maintained a "dynamic equilibrium", where field engagements were often numerous, involved large numbers of troops and produced high casualty counts, but the results of which were mostly indecisive.
Operation Ichi-Go in 1944 changed the status quo, as Japanese forces were able to break through the inadequate Chinese defenses and occupy eastern
Henan, a corridor in the eastern parts of
Hunan through Changsha and eastern parts of
Guangxi through Guilin–Liuzhou, connecting Japanese-held areas from north to south in a continuous railway corridor. However, the Japanese victory resulted in very little actual benefit for them: the operation drained Japanese manpower and a weakened Japanese army had to defend a longer front with more partisan activity in occupied areas. The opening up of
north–south railway connections did little to improve Japanese logistics, for only one train ran from
Guangzhou to
Wuhan in April 1945, and due to fuel shortages the primary mode of transportation for Japanese troops was on foot. On the other hand, although the Chinese government in
Chongqing had lost land access to their remaining forces in
Zhejiang,
Anhui and
Jiangxi with their defeat in
Ichi-Go, Chinese fortunes in the war improved with the retaking of northern
Burma by
Allied and
Chinese forces. On 4 February 1945, the first convoy of trucks reached
Kunming from the British railhead in
Ledo, India, over the newly completed
Stilwell Road and the northern section of the
Burma Road; using this road link, over 50,000 tonnes of petroleum started to arrive into China every month. By April 1945, enough
materiel had become available to the Chinese army to equip 35 divisions with American equipment. A major counter offensive was planned. ==Order of battle==