Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Battle of Guilin-Liuzhou was the third part of Operation Ichigo, the large Japanese campaign also called the Battle of Henan-Hunan-Guangxi, fought during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese assault on Guilin began on the 1st of November, and by the 24th of November Japanese forces controlled 75 counties across Guangxi, roughly two-thirds of the province.
Japan's two main objectives were to connect scattered pieces of Japanese-held territory across mainland China into a continuous corridor and to destroy airbases in the region that housed USAAF aircraft. The 11th Army advanced on Guilin while the 23rd Army targeted Liuzhou simultaneously.
Muslim General Bai Chongxi commanded the Guangxi troops defending Guilin. General Joseph Stilwell, who had a friendly relationship with Bai, went to great pains to send American munitions to Bai's forces.
Only 20,000 troops were at Guilin on the 1st of November when the Japanese started their attack. Most were remnants from the earlier Battle of Hengyang, already depleted from prior fighting.
Japanese forces are said to have killed 215,000 civilians in reprisal and during crossfire, and wounded more than 431,000 others across the territory they seized in Guangxi.
Japan did destroy the airbases in the Guilin-Liuzhou region, but the USAAF could still strike at the Japanese home islands from other bases. The operation also stretched Japanese defensive lines thin across the large territory they had seized, creating favorable conditions for subsequent Chinese counterattacks.