During the Chinese Civil War, he was chief of staff of Lin Biao's army group, which occupied the entirety of Manchuria in 1948 and captured 472,000 Kuomintang troops in the Liaoshen Campaign.

[1] Liu was sent to study in Frunze Military Academy in 1939–1941, and was commissioned as a major in the Soviet Red Army and participated in the Soviet-German War, and wrote several important essays on the Battle of Stalingrad.

In the same month, he was appointed as the Principal of the Northeast Aviation School, which would later serve as the backbone of the People's Liberation Air Force.

He became Lin Biao's chief of staff of the North Eastern Armies prior to the outbreak of the Chinese Civil War.

[2] After the establishment of People's Republic of China in 1950, Mao Zedong prepared to support North Korea in the Korean War.

These included his memoirs as the Chief of Staff of the Northeastern Field Army during the Manchurian Campaign in 1947–49, and books concerning Stalin and his subordinates.