Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of Xiushui River

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge to Battle of Nanchang. Seems to already be carried out, redirected and everything. No point in keeping it open any longer, since consensus seemed to be pretty much formed before the relist. ansh 666 03:50, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Xiushui River

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Has never had any sources in its edit history, and does not appear to be significant, mostly part of Battle of Xuzhou. (Delete or redirect) IEsuredI (talk) 05:47, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. Mark the train^Discuss 06:09, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Mark the train^Discuss 06:09, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 08:38, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: G'day, not sure about this yet, but if redirected, I think the Battle of Nanchang article would be a more appropriate target than the Battle of Xuzhou article. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:08, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect (changed from delete) - ~~As far as I can gather, and I have been trying, this battle has been misnamed at best and didn't happen at worst.~~ The Battle of Xuzhou (Jiangsu province) happened in 1938 some 800 kilometres away from the Xiushui river (Jiangxi province) according to Google Maps, so that can't possibly be the correct target for a redirect. Furthermore, the article itself specifies that this engagement was part of the Battle of Nanchang. Assuming this battle happened, as stated, in March at the river, which is around the same time as the Battle of Nanchang, then it makes sense to redirect it there. However, I mention that this battle may not have occured at all, and I base this on the source used at the article for the Battle of Nanchang. You see this source states that; The first action took place at Wucheng in Jiangxi Province, where Japanese troops were held down by Chinese positions near the Xiushui River for four days .... The other relevant quote, which contradicts the first, is Chinese troops repulsed a Japanese attack across the Xiushui River near Wucheng, Jiangxi Province, China. Indeed, Wuchengzhen (Wucheng is in Zhejiang and Wuchang is at Wuhan) is located between the rivers of Xiushui and Ganjiang[1]. So, at the very least, the placement of the battle is incorrect according to the cited source. The idea that a battle may have occurred here is supported by this source which states; The Japanese had come to the conclusion that in order to control the central Yangtze valley they would need to destroy IX War Zone south of Wuhan and west of Poyang Lake. To do that they would drive south on the west side of the lake to the city of Nanchang with their 11th army, recent victors at Wuhan. The Japanese offensive kicked off on 17 March 1939 and met with only few instances of hard fighting. The source, however, doesn't state where this hard fighting happened. Wuchengzhen is located, coincidentally, on the west side of Poyang Lake, and south of Wuhan. In terms of Xiushui, however, all I could find was a reference to Japanese troops following the Xiushui river, from the recently captured Nanchang, on their approach to Changsha with no battle whatsoever. This might seem odd as Changsha is another 500 kilometres from Xiushui river, again, according to Google Maps. The best that I could do was to follow Google Maps and chart a route via google maps from Xiushui river, but, that's semi-OR. This leads me to the final question, do we rename or simply delete the article. I have done as thorough a search as possible, and have found no reference to a battle at Xiushui, and only one reference to a battle at or near Wuchengzhen. I think deletion is the appropriate action here. The only reference that I could find to the battle comes from a C. Peter Chen who appears to be a software engineer with an interest in history, but, isn't a historian. This leaves me with my only available source being of some dubious authorship/scholarship. If perhaps the author had listed their sources for the material, I might be inclined to look at them as well. As they haven't, I can't verify any of their information. Furthermore, they keep saying Wucheng, which as I've stated, is in a different province completely. So, I have to come to the conclusion that this article fails WP:V and as such, should be deleted. TL;DR - The information in the article is unverifiable, the source it appears to come from is of dubious scholarship given that the author is a software technician and not a historian, and as such I come to the conclusion that the article should be deleted. Well, after being notified, I did a second search through the article, refer to my second comment for findings. Mr rnddude (talk) 13:01, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wucheng = Wuchengzhen. "Zhen" is just a Chinese word meaning "town", and the Chinese language employs no spaces. The en.wp convention is to omit "zhen" just like the source. You are right there is a Wucheng in Zhejiang, but there are also multiple Wucheng's in Jiangxi, such as our Wucheng, Yongxiu County (zh:吴城镇 (永修县)) and Wucheng Township, Zhangshu (which IS NOT on the Xiushui River despite what the article says). Timmyshin (talk) 11:38, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the information regarding the meaning of "zhen" and the multiple Wuchengs in China. Prompted by your message and !vote, I did, after a second read through of the article, find this article, which I had missed the first time, that specifies the battle with minor details; MajGen Sumita's 6th Field Heavy Artillery Brigade bombards Chinese positions in support of the IJAs crossing of the Xiushui River, but after meeting little resistance, cease the bombardment. Japanese troops successfully cross the river barrier and IJA troops, supported by aircraft and tanks, break out of the Xiushui River bridgehead, defeat Chinese reinforcements and reach the west gate of Nanchang. It's not much, but, it's enough to verify the battle. So, redirect is fine. That said, there are still zero citations in the article itself, I'm not sure that a merge can be performed. Any chance you have any other sources to look at? Mr rnddude (talk) 13:25, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You can try other spellings of Xiushui: Hsiushui, Hsiu River, Hsiu-shui, Xiu River, Xiu-shui etc. This appears to be a good source: [2] Timmyshin (talk) 14:45, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Battle of Nanchang. The battle did exist and the Nanchang article already contains many details about the Xiushui battle. I don't think there's enough information for a stand-alone article and the Nanchang article isn't very long. Timmyshin (talk) 11:43, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to Battle of Nanchang. In fact I'll work on the Nanchang article to incorporate any missing information from Xiushui, as there isn't much to begin with. Alex Shih ^Talk 05:46, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, J 947^{^{^{( c ) ^(m)}}} 19:53, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or Merge because it's not notable. Academicoffee71 (talk) 03:27, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.