This engagement is also known to the Kuomintang as the Liaohsi campaign (Chinese: 遼西會戰; pinyin: Liáoxī huìzhàn), and took place between September and November 1948, lasting a total of 52 days.

[8] In addition, the PLA had seized control of the Jingha Railway, cutting off the Nationalist land route supply lines to Shenyang and Changchun.

[9] Jinzhou was a "key point" in the Liaoxi Corridor, the principal land passage from Manchuria to North China Plain.

[13] With the new developments in Nationalist strategies, Lin Biao was initially hesitant to continue with Communist offensive against Jinzhou, but he was convinced to carry on with the assault by Mao Zedong.

He ordered Liao Yaoxiang and the Ninth Army Group which had been advancing from Shenyang to continue marching west and attack Jinzhou.

On 16 October, the Nationalist high command reached a consensus and decided to attack Heishan and Dahushan instead, covering their withdrawal to Yingkou in the process.

As the city fell into disarray, the Nationalist's Eighth Army Group collapsed as the commander Wei Lihuang fled from Shenyang by plane on 30 October.

The Communist forces launched the final assault on Shenyang the next morning on 1 November against the Nationalist garrison of 140,000 men, which quickly surrendered soon after.

[2][22] According to Lew, the Liaoshen campaign was both a major "strategic and tactical defeat" for Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist government, as the initial objective of containing the Communists in the Northeast failed after the fall of Jinzhou.

[23] With the CCP fully in control of the Northeast, Nationalist garrisons in Beiping and Tianjin led by Fu Zuoyi were now exposed to Communist attacks.