Where Chiang Kai-shek Lost China: The Liao-Shen Campaign, 1948

214 Pages·2014·2.7 MB·Spanish

by  Harold M. Tanner

WHERE CHIANG KAI-SHEK LOST CHINA
TWENTIETH-CENTURY BATTLES
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WHERE
CHIANG KAI-SHEK
LOST CHINA
THE LIAO-SHEN CAMPAIGN, 1948
HAROLD M. TANNER
This book is a publication of
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
© 2015 by Harold M. Tanner
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including pho-
tocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the pub-
lisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this
prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Informa-
tion Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tanner, Harold Miles.
Where Chiang Kai-Shek lost China : the Liao-Shen campaign, 1948 / Harold M. Tanner.
pages cm. — (Twentieth-century battles)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-01692-8 (cloth : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-01699-7 (ebook) 1. China—History—Civil War,
1945-1949—Campaigns—China—Liaoning Sheng. 2. China—History—Civil War, 1945-1949—Campaigns—China—
Manchuria. 3. Liaoning Sheng (China)—History, Military—20th century. 4. Manchuria (China)—History, Military—20th
century. I. Title.
DS777.5425.L5T36 2015
951.04’2—dc23
2015016683
1 2 3 4 5 20 19 18 17 16 15
For
WILLIAM
Contents
· Acknowledgments
· A Note on Chinese Names
· Introduction
1 China: Lost or Won?
2 The Struggle for Manchuria Begins: August 1945–July 1946
3 Nationalist Offensive, Communist Reaction: South Manchuria, July–November 1946
4 Breaking the Nationalist Offensive: The Three Expeditions/Four Defenses Campaign, December
1946–March 1947
5 The Summer Offensive and the Wedemeyer Mission: May–August 1947
6 Encircling the Cities: The Autumn and Winter Offensives, September 1947–March 1948
7 The Battle behind the Lines: Building the North Manchuria Base Area
8 Army of Learning: The Transition from Guerrilla to Conventional Warfighting Capability
9 Contention Within: Summer 1948
10 Preparing to Annihilate the Enemy: September 1948
11 Close the Door and Beat the Dog: The Battles of Tashan and Jinzhou, October 1948
12 Putting Changchun under Siege: March–June 1948
13 Death, Treason, and Surrender in the Garden City: June–October 1948
14 Avalanche of Defeat: October–November 1948
15 Assessing and Remembering
· Notes
· Bibliography
· Index
Acknowledgments
One of the great pleasures of historical research is that the necessary materials are not available online.
Consequently, researching and writing a book of this nature has given me the opportunity to travel widely,
to connect with old and new friends, and to accumulate a long list of debts to be acknowledged. I owe a
particular debt of gratitude to Professor Liu Tong of Shanghai Jiaotong University for sharing his insights
and for directing me toward materials without which this book could not have been written. In Beijing,
Wang Chaoguang of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Modern History has been gener-
ous with his advice and with arranging the institutional support necessary when doing research in China.
He Jiangfeng contributed his enthusiasm and knowledge of sources in Republican-era history as a research
assistant in Beijing. Dr. Li Chen of Renmin University kindly shared his insights on the civil war along
with a copy of his doctoral dissertation. Chen Yung-fa, Chang Jui-te, and the Institute of Modern History at
Academia Sinica in Taipei provided assistance and a comfortable base for research in Taiwan. Professor
Sherman Lai at the University of Manitoba has kindly shared his advice and insights into the culture of the
People’s Liberation Army. Also in Canada, Sr. Huguette Turcotte, of the Missionary Sisters of the Immac-
ulate Conception, kindly supplied me with material from the archives and publications of the M.I.C. I
would also like to express my appreciation to an anonymous reader for his or her suggestions, to Spencer
Tucker, editor of the Twentieth-Century Battles series and to editorial director Robert Sloan of the Indiana
University Press.
I conducted research at the following libraries and archives: in China, the National Library in Beijing,
the Jinzhou Municipal Archives, the Liaoning Provincial Library, and the Liao-Shen Campaign Memorial
Hall; in the United States, the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland,
the Asian Reading Room of the Library of Congress, the Research Library of the George C. Marshall
Foundation, the Hoover Archives, Stanford University’s East Asia Library, and the University of North
Texas Libraries. All this travel and more was made possible thanks to the generous financial support that I
have received from all levels of the University of North Texas: the Department of History and its Military
History Center, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Office of the Provost, and also from the Hoover
Institution and Archives for participation in the summer 2013 workshop “Revisiting Modern China at the
Hoover Archives.” My department chair, Dr. Richard B. McCaslin has been consistently supportive of all
faculty research, including my own, and made funds available to pay Professor Alexander Mendoza for
drawing the maps for this book. Finally, my deepest thanks, as always, go to my wife, Yiyun, and our chil-
dren, Sophia and William, for providing the foundations and the meaning for whatever professional suc-
cess I may have achieved.
A Note on Chinese Names
In the main text, Chinese names have been written in the pinyin Romanization system. Most words are
pronounced roughly the way an English-speaker would guess. There are a few important exceptions to this
rule: “c” is pronounced as “ts,” “q” as “ch,” and “x” more or less like “s.” I have used non-pinyin spellings
for the names of a few individuals and entities whose names have become universally recognized under
those earlier spellings. For example, Chiang Kai-shek (pinyin Jiang Jieshi), Chiang Ching-kuo (pinyin
Jiang Jingguo), Soong May-ling (pinyin Song Meiling) and T. V. Soong (pinyin Song Ziwen).
WHERE CHIANG KAI-SHEK LOST CHINA