 Honghu and other regions around its lake were part of an important communist stronghold called the Hunan-Western Hubei Revolutionary Base Area (, "Xiang-Exi Geming Genjudi", also called the Hunan-Western Hubei Soviet, , "Xiang-Exi Suweiai").The Hunan-Western Hubei Soviet was actually a collection of several isolated bases linked together by underground and guerrilla activities.The Honghu Base, the largest, was itself the object of four Encirclement Campaigns, the last of which was strategised as one stage of the broadly successful Encirclement Campaign against Hunan-Western Hubei Soviet.