Liaoshen campaign
랴오선 전역
The 52-day campaign from 12 September 1948 in which Lin Biao and Luo Ronghuan’s Northeast Field Army broke the Nationalist forces in Manchuria at Jinzhou, Changchun and Shenyang in turn. The first of the three great campaigns of the civil war, it cost the Nationalists 472,000 men and the whole of Manchuria and gave the Communists numerical superiority nationwide for the first time.
In depth
After the winter offensive of 1947–1948 the Nationalist forces in Manchuria were reduced to isolated strongholds at Shenyang, Changchun and Jinzhou. The northeast commander Wei Lihuang insisted on holding Shenyang while Chiang wanted to withdraw through the Jinzhou–Huludao corridor, and command was paralysed. The Communists aimed at Jinzhou, the exit from Manchuria, took it within a day of their general assault on 14 October, and on the 17th the Nationalist 60th Army changed sides.
In Changchun, besieged since May, the Communists stopped civilians leaving in order to exhaust its food, and tens of thousands starved; a 1989 book by a PLA officer estimates about 150,000. In October part of the garrison changed sides and the New Seventh Army laid down its arms. Shenyang’s garrison of 140,000 surrendered soon after the assault of 1 November. Communist casualties were 69,000. Harold Tanner sees the campaign as where Chiang Kai-shek lost China.