 After fierce battles, the last counterattack of the nationalist 71st Army was beaten back with heavy loss in the morning of June 23, 1947, but the communist 1st Independent Division of the 7th Column suffered equally and was forced out of action once again for the second time.Although the defenders could no longer launch anymore counterattacks to the smallest scale, they were still able to put up a good defensive fight in their fortifications, but as time dragged on, even the defenders themselves begun to have serious doubts how long before the city would fall into the enemy hands.The communists were overconfident that the city would fall for sure, and their New China News Agency had already issued a press release at the time, claiming that "…After 12 days of fierce fighting, the enemy (nationalists) had suffered over 16,000 casualties and remaining survivors had nowhere to flee.