The 11th Corps was activated on March 1, 1949, from the 3rd Column, Zhongyuan Field Army.

[2] During the Chinese Civil War its commander was Chen Jiagui, and its political commissar was Zhang Qi.

Its headquarters was transferred to the Navy's control and converted at Qingdao Naval Base into what is now the North Sea Fleet.

The unit was a reserve formation for the People's Volunteer Army, but it never deployed into the Korean Peninsula.

On November 14, 1969, the 11th Army Corps (Chinese: 陆军第11军) was activated in Dali, Yunnan.

32nd Army Division was temporarily detached from the corps to form the reserve force of Kunming Military Region.

The division spent 22 days outside China and claimed to have destroyed one Vietnamese regiment and three battalions and captured Phong Thổ.

During its deployment, the corps claimed to have inflicted 500 casualties on the Vietnamese forces and to have captured 18 prisoners of war and 19 artillery pieces.