The lead-up to the Battle of Kontum began in mid-1971, when North Vietnam decided that its victory in Operation Lam Son 719 indicated that the time had come for large-scale conventional offensives that could end the war quickly. The resulting offensive, planned for the spring of 1972, would be known as the Easter Offensive in the South and the Nguyen Hue Offensive in the North, Nguyen Hue being a hero of Vietnamese resistance against the Chinese in 1789. The Easter Offensive would make use of fourteen divisions and would be the largest in the war.